Just dropped off my '11 Cyclone 3950 at the dealer a few days ago for a few issues. In no particular order...
Belly cover: The front 1/3 of it seems to be pretty much toasted. It's warped and bowed and bubbled, and probably a few other adjectives as well. I'm relatively certain it's due to the massive hydraulic leak I experienced on my 2nd trip out after purchase. A fitting/o-ring had failed and all the hydraulic fluid leaked out into the belly. Sat that way for an entire weekend and reared it's head when I tried to leave and the slides no workee. I can see spots where the fluid leaked through the cover.
Bedroom slide seal: This one has me a bit stumped. The slide seals evenly along the top and bottom seals, but the side seals are not even top to bottom. The front side seal is up tight against the slide wall at the bottom, but as you travel up the wall it's contact is less and less firm and at the very top there is a slight gap where it doesn't touch at all. The back side seal is just the opposite, but doesn't quite get to the point of no contact. It's like the vertical openings in the camper wall are not parallel to the slide walls. Either that or the seals are somehow installed in such a fashion. I'm not sure my description is clear but imagine it as a picture (slide) not square in the picture frame (camper wall opening).
Shore Power Connector: This plug goes in very tight and the wiggling action necessary to remove it has started to pull the receptacle out of the camper wall. No bigee and easy fix to me.
Basement door: Off door side basement door is strut assisted. They use some kind of weird two stage strut where the door raises to a point, and then you have to give it some tug and then the struts raise it to a higher position. Sounds strange but trust me, that's how it's supposed to go. The problem is the tug needed to get it started on it's way to that next position is fairly firm, and the structure of the door is not strong enough take it. On one of the struts the six screws holding it to the door ripped right out, without warming and all at once. My temp fix was to just install larger screws but I can already see where it's starting to pull out again.
Pin box flex: When I drive down the road I can see a fair amount of flex going on at the pinbox, and I'm not surprised given the pin weights of these toy haulers, but I seen where there is movement between the side wall and the bottom molding along the horizontal area that rides above the truck bed. There is enough that it has ripped the sealant that is supposed to keep the water out along that edge. It's also enough to make a noticeable difference the aforementioned gap on that slide seal. When the landing legs are dropped and the weight is taken off the pin the gap along the trim edge closes noticeably, but not completely. This is on the off door side. On the door side there is a much slighter but still visible amount of flex happening.
When I was at Hershey I mentioned it to someone at the Heartland display, but I'm not sure if he was dealer stock. or a Heartland rep. In any case he blew it off saying it was normal to have some flexing. The service adviser at my dealer said it most certainly is not normal and should not be happening, but unfortunately it does. Way too often. I asked the normal repair procedure and was told they sometimes have to go back to the factory to be reenforced. I hope to avoid that and would rather have it done locally if needed so I can observe.
To me this is the big issue, which is probably affecting the slide seal issue as well, and I hope it goes relatively painlessly. Fortunately for me I am still under warranty so there should be no problems with that.
So far Heartland has been good to me as far as any parts failures, even going so far as to tell Lippert directly and rather bluntly, to get off their *** and send me a warranty covered part I needed. Lippert had been non-responsive. Heartland forwarded me a copy of the email. Very professional but no nonsense.
Hopefully these issues will be dealt with just as professionally as far as approval for repair goes. Hopefully my dealer will be on the ball as well and get things rectified in a reasonable amount of time.
Stay tuned I guess...
Belly cover: The front 1/3 of it seems to be pretty much toasted. It's warped and bowed and bubbled, and probably a few other adjectives as well. I'm relatively certain it's due to the massive hydraulic leak I experienced on my 2nd trip out after purchase. A fitting/o-ring had failed and all the hydraulic fluid leaked out into the belly. Sat that way for an entire weekend and reared it's head when I tried to leave and the slides no workee. I can see spots where the fluid leaked through the cover.
Bedroom slide seal: This one has me a bit stumped. The slide seals evenly along the top and bottom seals, but the side seals are not even top to bottom. The front side seal is up tight against the slide wall at the bottom, but as you travel up the wall it's contact is less and less firm and at the very top there is a slight gap where it doesn't touch at all. The back side seal is just the opposite, but doesn't quite get to the point of no contact. It's like the vertical openings in the camper wall are not parallel to the slide walls. Either that or the seals are somehow installed in such a fashion. I'm not sure my description is clear but imagine it as a picture (slide) not square in the picture frame (camper wall opening).
Shore Power Connector: This plug goes in very tight and the wiggling action necessary to remove it has started to pull the receptacle out of the camper wall. No bigee and easy fix to me.
Basement door: Off door side basement door is strut assisted. They use some kind of weird two stage strut where the door raises to a point, and then you have to give it some tug and then the struts raise it to a higher position. Sounds strange but trust me, that's how it's supposed to go. The problem is the tug needed to get it started on it's way to that next position is fairly firm, and the structure of the door is not strong enough take it. On one of the struts the six screws holding it to the door ripped right out, without warming and all at once. My temp fix was to just install larger screws but I can already see where it's starting to pull out again.
Pin box flex: When I drive down the road I can see a fair amount of flex going on at the pinbox, and I'm not surprised given the pin weights of these toy haulers, but I seen where there is movement between the side wall and the bottom molding along the horizontal area that rides above the truck bed. There is enough that it has ripped the sealant that is supposed to keep the water out along that edge. It's also enough to make a noticeable difference the aforementioned gap on that slide seal. When the landing legs are dropped and the weight is taken off the pin the gap along the trim edge closes noticeably, but not completely. This is on the off door side. On the door side there is a much slighter but still visible amount of flex happening.
When I was at Hershey I mentioned it to someone at the Heartland display, but I'm not sure if he was dealer stock. or a Heartland rep. In any case he blew it off saying it was normal to have some flexing. The service adviser at my dealer said it most certainly is not normal and should not be happening, but unfortunately it does. Way too often. I asked the normal repair procedure and was told they sometimes have to go back to the factory to be reenforced. I hope to avoid that and would rather have it done locally if needed so I can observe.
To me this is the big issue, which is probably affecting the slide seal issue as well, and I hope it goes relatively painlessly. Fortunately for me I am still under warranty so there should be no problems with that.
So far Heartland has been good to me as far as any parts failures, even going so far as to tell Lippert directly and rather bluntly, to get off their *** and send me a warranty covered part I needed. Lippert had been non-responsive. Heartland forwarded me a copy of the email. Very professional but no nonsense.
Hopefully these issues will be dealt with just as professionally as far as approval for repair goes. Hopefully my dealer will be on the ball as well and get things rectified in a reasonable amount of time.
Stay tuned I guess...
