2021 FB 3870 sidewall cracked

[Daniel Grimwood]

I have a 2021 3870 FB.
I have a crack that I notice, that's on the passenger side superslide opening . It goes from the front upper right corner to the roof trim. This is our second FB. We had the same issue on our first unit which was a 2014.
Has anyone else had this issue on their FB?

 

[david-steph2018]

We had a side wall crack on our 2018 Road Warrior 427 in 2020. It was within the 3-year structure warranty. Heartland sent us to Affinity RV Group in Goshen for repairs. When we got to Affinity, they took photos and they dealt with Heartland, not us.
The side wall was cut out in a small area, and it was discovered that the inside aluminum frame weld had cracked. Affinity had a welder come in and weld and place a gusset in there to help. An independent body shop came in and did the fiberglass work on the rig. In 2021, we discovered the fiberglass work had spider-web cracks. With our schedule at that time, we could not get it repair at that time. So, this past summer it was repaired at no cost to us.
Some people do not like Affinity RV Group and others like their work.

 

[jmarnell]

Our Cyclone is currently in the shop for the same type of repair that David mentioned. Sidewall crack in the fiberglass at the corner of the largest slideout. Our rig is 5 1/2 years old so way out of warranty, but since we are pretty sure the crack happened because of a hard pothole strike we encountered in late December just outside of Phoenix, our insurance is covering the cost of repair (less the deductible). The pothole hit was hard enough that it also threw one of the wheels on that side way out of alignment, wearing the inside of the tire smooth by the time we got home. We luckily have a good RV repair center here in Tulsa that is handling it, and they are experts at fiberglass as they also do boat repairs. One thing their repair tech noted is that there were only two small spot welds at the corner of the wall framing, making it very weak and likely why it failed. They are adding additional welding and corner bracing to hopefully prevent a future occurrence.

 

[david-steph2018]

I was looking at a rig, 5th wheel, that was getting repaired for frame flex once. It had the front-end off at the 5th wheel section, so you could see the aluminum framing. What I saw will just make you shake your head. Every joint only had 1 side welded, just 1 bead ran on every joint. Looking at it, I wondered why there wasn't at least 2 beads ran on the joint, if not 3-sides.