We assume that when we buy an RV it will work as advertised. And we assume that if something is wrong, it will be fixed in a timely matter.
But what happens when that’s not true? In the 10-minute video at the end of this article you will hear firsthand the stories of RVers who are living such a nightmare every day. It’s about frame failure, or “frame flex”. It’s a big deal that has a lot of owners feeling helpless, frustrated, angry and financially desperate.
Grand Design Fifth Wheel trailers, made by Winnebago Industries, are at center stage of this drama. Frame flex happens when the frame of the RV doesn’t support the structure properly, causing things like floors to creak, cabinets to break, and screws to fall out.
The problems can build for months before becoming obvious. Owners describe initially brushing off issues like peeling trim and creaky floors only to later realize their rig had major structural problems. One family, who purchased their RV in April, started seeing frame-related failures by July.
Grand Design has repeatedly downplayed the defects, saying the flex in the frames should be “minuscule.” But people across the country aren’t seeing “minuscule” frame flex. Creaky floors and loose kitchen islands are just the tip of the iceberg for affected units. In extreme cases, owners have reported actual breaks in the metal welds of their RVs. These repairs aren’t just a quick fix, either. We’re talking full-blown structural damage.
The concerning thing? This isn’t isolated to one or two rogue lemon RVs. It’s much more widespread.
Legal and industry experts told Hunterbrook Media that a recall is overdue. One independent repair shop reported that 70% of the Grand Design RVs it inspects suffer from issues with the frame. A certified welder and retired structural stress analysis engineer said that of a sample of 10 Grand Design RVs he inspected at campsites while on a road trip, every single one had a broken frame.
Voices silenced
Many dissatisfied Grand Design customers believe their voices are being intentionally silenced. Members of social media platforms share how Winnebago shut down forums, removed negative posts, and even pressured some customers to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in exchange for infrequent buyouts.
Frame flex isn’t just an annoying issue; It’s a massive financial burden. For those out of warranty, it can be so expensive to fix that many feel financially trapped in a broken RV they can’t use. Some RV shops charge $20,000 or more for frame repairs. Imagine shelling out that much money to fix a product you already paid $100,000 or more to purchase. The emotional toll can be brutal: Frustration turns to helplessness.
Even under warranty, the fixes aren’t free. Owners often have to haul their RVs hundreds of miles to a repair facility, stay in hotels or rentals for weeks or months while waiting for parts, and hope the repairs actually hold. More often than not, they don’t. Multiple trips to the Grand Design factory are common.
Some owners face a resale nightmare. The value of Grand Design RVs, once darlings of the RV market, has plummeted. Many dealers flat-out refuse to accept them as trade-ins.
All of this and more is detailed in the 10-minute documentary below.
NOTE: Tire expert Roger Marble says: “Every owner of an RV with a structural failure should report the problem to NHTSA.”
RELATED
Key resources about Grand Design and its frame flex issues:
- Grand Design posts on RVtravel.com
- Grand Design RV Owners Facebook Group (22.4K members, from California RV Specialists)
- Facebook group Grand Design Major Issues
- Website of Liz Amazing
##RVT1176
Where are all the ambulance chasers and why isn’t there a Class Action lawsuit in the works? Are Grand Designs today’s version of the Pinto or Corvair?
My same thoughts on class action lawsuit.
I guess there needs to be a fiery crash with multiple deaths for someone to get off the dime.
Ford had a ton of those fiery crashes with the Pinto debacle decades ago. It was shown that they did the math and decided that it was better financially to continue to have the fiery crashes and deal with lawsuits than fix the problem. Didn’t work out for them in the end, but that is how some Corporate boards think.
I suspect there may be some law firms that are getting their ducks in a row to file such a lawsuit.
And these law firms are going to make big money if there is a settlement. The plaintiffs will see a fraction of the cost to repair or replace.
Winnebago has some high priced attorney’s that will put the blame on the owners for overloading, driving too fast, wrong tow vehicle or any other reason they can think of.
I wonder what the percentage of bad units are involved.
Go read the Winnebago Industries SEC 10-K filing from October 2023: https://winnebago.gcs-web.com/node/25546/html
“Critical Audit Matter Description
The Company provides certain service and warranty on its products. Estimated costs related to product warranty are accrued at month-end based upon historical warranty claims and unit sales history. Estimates are adjusted as needed to reflect actual costs incurred as information becomes available.
Grand Design RV, LLC (“Grand Design”) was founded in 2013 and acquired by the Company in November 2016 and makes up the majority of the Company’s $98 million product warranty accrual as of August 26, 2023.”
Not all class action lawsuits work out for the plaintiffs. Settlements are often pennies on the dollar. And most take years to settle.
I am involved in one against a company that discharged toxic dust from slag processing. There are hundreds of residents involved. Health issues and property damage resulted from this discharge for over 10 years.
It has been 3 years now and it still has not gone to court.
The company has continually denied that they caused the problem even though I sent pictures showing and proving the problem at their facility and the county health department has monitored the process and found them liable.
They still deny fault.
Bob, I agree. And after all that waiting, in the end, the lawyers take a huge sum and the one to a handful of the plaintiffs that started the action perhaps get a reasonable payout. All those other plaintiffs scooped up in the suit get almost nothing and they have signed away their rights.
Sad deal for all those GD owners with this issue.
I can surely empathize with the Grand Design owners. It almost mirrors the experience of myself and many others as Alliance RV owners ! I purchased my 2022 Alliance Valor 37V13 Toy Hauler in May, 2023. From the first, 500 mile trip, just to return home, things began breaking. After more issues began to show themselves, and becoming vocal about it on the Alliance FB forum, my comments were removed and I was banned from the group! In short.. after a $2500 trip to the factory to repair a very long list of issues; I now find myself heading to a Dealer in Arizona to deal with yet more.. and I’ve been stationary for the past five months !!
Are any of these flame flex issues caused by exceeding the CCC?
Some of the Grand Design 5th wheels list less than 3,000 lbs CCC. Our Montana appears to have a heavier frame which enables us a CCC of 3,900 lbs. We stay at about 2,500 lbs to avoid some of these issues.
Regardless this appears to be a travesty of consumer protection.
Best fivers built were Nu-Wa Hitchhikers with their horse trailer frames…too bad they are not in business anymore building them.
Nuwa’s frames were built by a shop right next door to their main facility – Young’s Welding. At the time, they were building frames for HitchHikers, they were also building steel girders for interstate bridges. The quality for the bridge work carried over to the HitchHiker frames.
I’ve owned three HitchHikers. All were rated to carry much more than I could fit into the storage areas unless I loaded them with bricks. And never a problem with frame flex.
Back in late 2022 my wife and I were thinking of going back to a 5ver. Since we were spending a month in Texas we shopped around down there at the many dealerships available. Every new GD we looked at had pieces coming off already, along with other visible issues. It was very consistent to the point it became evident to us that GD had a real quality issue. Interesting to know now that what we were seeing may very well have been the result of this issue. One salesman had said “What do you expect? This unit came 1400 miles!” 🙄 But now we learn how quickly these 5vers can come apart with frame flex. SO glad we never pulled the trigger on one.
Thank you, RV Travel! 🙂 That was pretty convincing, given all the sampled videos saying basically the same thing. Dustin has reported that Grand Design is telling its customers that it will not honor any warranty work done at Dustin’s shop. Apparently he, too, has decried the poor workmanship and irresponsibility of Grand Design and all too loudly to suit Winnebago/Grand Design. Thanks again, have a great week, safe travels, and safe stays! 🙂
I owned one of those not-so-grand-design lemons back in 2017 and got rid of it faster than a rabid skunk. The thing had so many flaws it was pathetic and their so called “forever warranty” was a joke. Buyer beware on anything with this label on it.
The frame builder should be held accountable too. We have an 09 Cedar Creek and fortunately I have the shop, tools and skills to have made a number of improvements to their poor quality design.
I have noted the frame flex in ours and made major improvements to the suspension.
upgraded from 6K spring to 7K torsion. Utilized a 10 inch deep frame with crossmembers to attach the 10 degree down angle axels to. Spreading out the load on the frame.
This resulted in about a 10 degree upward swing on the axel when bearing the weight of the trailer. This is a good indication that the 6k suspension was in adequate for the load. The ride is wildly better than before.
One more point. I don’t know who made and installed the crossmembers in our CC fifth wheel, Lippert or Forest River, but when I had the belly panels off I noted they were attached to the frame with self tapping screws!! Many sheared!!
I replaced with grade 8 bolts.
I just wonder if those who “got rid of” their problem unit by selling to another informed the ‘other’ about the frame and other problems…????
From what I’ve seen, The answer is no. Of the 4 I’ve inspected, 3 clearly had a bad frame and the 4th was showing signs. All 4 sellers claimed to have no idea about frame flex while selling their, almost new, 5th wheel.
RV.
“Are vee”
Noun / Verb
The biggest pos you will spend the most amount of money on.
( I’m on my third in 26 years)
In my humble opinion, the excessive frame-flex (leading to structural failure) is a three fold problem. 1) The frame is designed to carry ‘X’ in weight, plus the G-forces upon the frame while going down, less than perfectly smooth roads.
2) Consumer demand for “all of the bells and whistles” have added to a high dry-weight.
3) Consumers driving the rigs ‘over weight’. Everything from shear ignorance of the weight they have added, to not knowing what the rigs total weight on a CAT certified scale.
All of these have combine into the perfect trifecta of frame failure.
Blaming the whole thing on the customer huh? You have no idea what you’re talking about, or what’s really going on.
Dennis, I think you hit the nail on the head with the G-Force impact of “bouncing” on the road and also weight distribution. Now…GD engineers should be taking all that into consideration when spec’ing out the chassis/frame, so still GD’s fault as long as the consumer isn’t overloading by axle, pin weight, or total weight. But IIRC, the RV safety group that provides RV weighing services at rallys finds a majority of RVs are overweight on some parameter, so failure of consumers to follow the various weight capacities can certainly be a factor.
Sounds good, Dennis, but let’s face it. The problem is money. Build as fast and cheaply as possible with a total disregard for quality, safety, or any standards. Push them out the door and deny that the issues the end consumer is having are not the fault of the manufacturer. If they were properly built you could add the sun, the moon, and the stars to the finished product as long as they were built to standards and materials that fit those requirements.
Exactly.
Thanks for sharing this information! Hunterbrook Media did an awesome job on gathering this information for their article and killed it on the video. We need more websites like yours with large reach to get the word out. This is not an isolated incident and Grand Design and Winnebago need to be held accountable once and for all.
The frame issue is much more widespread than Grand Design. I don’t think a class action will help, they’ll simply file for bankruptcy and change the name. RV executives as a whole need to be held criminally responsible for the fraud they have perpetrated on the consumer. Jail time will make the difference.
That’s the only way anything will change.
Lucky to have 2,000 pounds of cargo capacity in any RV. Fill up the tanks and a 200 pound driver you don’t have any capacity for a passenger, clothes, cooking utensils, laptop, repair tools.
I am NOT saying that this is not a Grand Design issue. But I am going to say that the maker of that video has a admitted and vested interest in Winnebago stock going down. Take it for what you will.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-communications/is-hunterbrook-media-a-news-outlet-or-a-hedge-fund
Well, that’s an interesting article. Two twent-eight year olds born with a silver spoon in their mouths and with a history of influencing the stock market plus zero journalism experience and zero business experience create a video to take down Grand Design. Why does RV Travel post these things?
It’s more like Grand failure! Also other manufacturers have issues as well! Sad really!!! 😔
maybe the rv industry should look at loading capacity like in aircraft baggage compartments, forward, mid and aft storage load ratings for those areas which affect the center of gravity on any given platform. it’s known as weight and balance, too much weight up front leads to exceeding the weight on the tongue, same for over the axles and the rear of the rig can also be overloaded putting stress on the frame/welds, hence frame flex, food for thought…
I have been following LIz Amazing on YouTube, and Kudos to RVTravel for bringing the video and information to light to its vast audience.
I always wonder about these reports that are so one-sided (typical YouTube fodder). Why didn’t Hunterbrook get Grand Design’s side of the story? They spoke to Lippert (supposedly, it was little like heresay), and Lippert blamed GD. I feel bad for the people who are experiencing this, but this type of bad journalism and finger-pointing doesn’t really help