First of all, hello.
I am a new member of the FMCA. I purchased a 2012 Holiday Rambler Vacationer 36SBT on March 17th. This is my first RV of any kind.
Aside from the incredible number of faults that this coach has had ( I have owned it for 201 days of which it has been in the shop under repair or waiting for warranty authorization for approximately 175 of those days....in other words most of the Spring and ALL of the Summer), I have a question about the wheels on the unit.
When I first got it home back in March, I washed it and in doing so I noticed that half of each of the 4 wheels had some sort of spray on them that was impossible to get off. It covered, not only the Alcoa portion of the wheels but also the center axle covers. I asked the dealership about it and they had no idea what it was. The unit had been in the body shop at some point so it was thought that perhaps it was overspray of clearcoat. The wheels were basically shiny on half and dull...like aluminum ingot,... on the other half. The dealership tried as best they could do get it off and most of it is gone, but the wheels are somewhat milky in appearance in direct sunlight.
I thought this was just another oddball defect of this coach that I was saddled with ( we don't have lemon laws in Canada) but last weekend I was at a local RV show and found another unit from a different RV manufacturer ( Fleetwood ) with exactly the same phenomenon. My coach was built in Nov. 2011 and the Fleetwood was Feb. 2012.
I am concerned now that the attempts that the dealership made to remove the errant coating may have voided the warranty from Alcoa.
My question here is whether anyone else has suffered the same experience on their class A gas with the Ford F53 Chassis? Given that the sprayed material covered the center caps it would appear that whatever happened to them, happened after the wheels were mounted on the F53 chassis at Ford and before they arrived at the various RV manufactures in the Midwest. Obviously the spray was applied while the wheels were stationary so it can't be from the delivery of the vehicles to the dealership by the factory contracted driver, ( in my case roughly 2,500 miles) nor can it be from any error on the part of the RV manufacturer, since it involves more than one RV company. ( except perhaps the fact that they should have rejected the wheels upon delivery from Ford) It is as if perhaps the chassis's were exposed to something while the basic chassis was covered except for the lower part of each wheel.......either on the Ford plant holding lot or on whatever they used to transport the chassis's to the various RV companies ( I'm guessing by train). or by ? ( any ideas?)
Noting that I have found 2 here in this neck of the woods I can confidently conclude that there must be many more out there in various corners of North America....perhaps all on one train load back in the winter.
I have contacted Alcoa and Ford and have been advised to take mine to a Ford dealer for warranty consideration, but I thought that first I would ask here if anyone else has had this on their Class A gas and what they did to resolve it. If the dealerships, in good faith, used an abrasive or solvent not authorized by Alcoa and have damaged the wheels trying to correct damage done by some other party, it would seem that the customer should not have to put up with that damage and the responsible party should replace the wheels.
I am hoping that FMCA, as an influential group with some commercial members could add some credibility to my quest that I, as a single individual, may not be able to garner.
Sorry for the long-winded first post to the forums, but I'd appreciate any help I can get from others who have noticed the same issue.
Thanks,
