Sidewall crack study-what’s your setup?

[Magnolia Tom]

Originally Posted by chfisher2004

Having been in the tire business most of my life, I can tell you the major causes of sidewall cracks (dry rot)

1. Too much weight, exceeding the rating of the tires. Load rating is right on the sidewall, do the math. Very dangerous if you are on the road, even with new tires! Heat buildup can cause a blowout.

2. Age; having dealt with used tires / salvage all my life, trailer tires are the worst for this. Most of the ones I've seen removed from trailers / RVs have tread like new but are all rotted from age. UV damage and being parked in one spot for long periods of time causes cracks where the tire meets the ground. Infrequent use of the RV contributes to this; a twenty year old RV with the original tires is a ticking time bomb.

3. Low air pressure (related to no. 2 from sitting)

4. Garbage quality cheap imported tires.

Welcome to the forum.

This thread is about the side wall of the trailer, not tire sidewalls.

[Timpey11]

Hello All,

Well Jayco finally agreed to take my unit back to Middlebury for repair of my sidewall crack. My unit will be picked up at dealer in September and returned to me in late October. Guess they figured they could do it themselves for significantly less than $21,000. I’m looking forward to having this issue resolved.

We love our Eagle 321RSTS and in spite of all the problems we’ve had we would prefer to keep it vs getting something else. Both our dealer and Jayco have taken care of every issue we have had although some things take time.

Thanks all for your input!

[Cincinnati Kid]

Originally Posted by Timpey11

Hello All,

Well Jayco finally agreed to take my unit back to Middlebury for repair of my sidewall crack. My unit will be picked up at dealer in September and returned to me in late October. Guess they figured they could do it themselves for significantly less than $21,000. I’m looking forward to having this issue resolved.

We love our Eagle 321RSTS and in spite of all the problems we’ve had we would prefer to keep it vs getting something else. Both our dealer and Jayco have taken care of every issue we have had although some things take time.

Thanks all for your input!

That's great news!
Ours is sitting at the dealership right now, being evaluated for 13 items, including sidewall crack. The dealer already told me they can't fix the sidewall, but Jayco demanded that we take it to the dealer first. 10 days in the shop and we don't even have it evaluated yet. I hope we can get a similar outcome as yours. We love our, too. Didn't move back in the house for 3 days last time we came back. We prefer to drive it to the factory, it's about 5 hours, and we make a mini vacation out of it, plus I like to speak with the service writer in person.

[Wes Johnson]

2015 Ford F350 with air bags
standard Morryde hitch
Crack appeared approx 4K miles
Crack is 16"

[Jeffur]

Air bags don’t improve the ride or reduce the shock transfer from the road through the truck to the hitch. Everybody eventually - gets the crack. Any pictures?

[Wes Johnson]

Originally Posted by Jeffur

Air bags don’t improve the ride or reduce the shock transfer from the road through the truck to the hitch. Everybody eventually - gets the crack. Any pictures?

Thanks, I have pictures, can't get it to paste approx 16" long

[pawags45]

Has anyone just ignored the crack. If so what happened ? I think my dealer just did a cosmetic fix and did not put in the expansion beam.

[Lowmiler]

Originally Posted by pawags45

Has anyone just ignored the crack. If so what happened ? I think my dealer just did a cosmetic fix and did not put in the expansion beam.

For what it's worth, I saw a rig at my seasonal site that had the crack almost 1.5' long. He definitely seemed to be ignoring it. So if you ignore it: it gets bigger.

Delamination would be my worry. A crack means moisture can get in there and do its dirty work.

[Magnolia Tom]

You could drill a small hole at the end of the crack to prevent it from spreading and fill it and the crack with some sealant to keep the water intrusion at bay

[PlayersZ28]

Originally Posted by pawags45

Has anyone just ignored the crack. If so what happened ? I think my dealer just did a cosmetic fix and did not put in the expansion beam.

Haven't been on the forum for a while but saw a notification so I dropped in.

I have a crack on the bedroom slide. It's grown to reach outside of the slide perimeter when closed now. I've done nothing to it other than rubbing some white silicone into it a couple of times. It got significantly larger when we drove from Grand Junction to Denver up and thru the tunnel. Highway was worse than the ones in MI

I'll probably grind mine out a bit and epoxy it this summer. Trailer has 5 winters of Ontario to CA miles on it, maybe 30k

It's a '14 361REQS

[rkelly]

I just received mine back yesterday from the 2nd sidewall crack repair. There was some of the wall studs loose / cracked welds allowing the sidewall to crack. I also asked for the relief cut and they did not do it. Over all the repair looks good so we will see how long it last this time

[pawags45]

Thanks for the feed back everyone. I did use the RV silicone for the new crack. Still waiting on Jayco to get back to me with exactly what the dealer did to repair it.

[Timpey11]

Well my crack has now migrated. The shop it was at in the fall for the estimate drilled epoxied and sealed my crack prior to my trip to Florida. When I arrived home in early April the crack had migrated an additional 3-4”. It is now more than 9”. Should I be concerned towing this Eagle around until it goes to Jayco in September? My concern is that the damage in the underlying frame is going to get worse and possibly result in a failure of the structure.

Thanks,

Tom

[pawags45]

I just heard back from Jayco Rep. And I was right the dealer just fixed the cosmetic repair and not the underlying problem that caused it. They offered me a choice to bring it to them for the repairs or back to the dealer. I am taking it back to the Jayco plant. I trust them more then the dealer to fix it correctly. Waiting on the appointment now.

[bill3kirk]

This repair can be frustrating to say the least. The first time I dropped it off at the factory. It re-cracked less than 350 miles leaving the plant. They came and picked it up a month later, repaired it and brought it back.
I've got a lot of miles on it now w/out any issue. But, I've added a Flexair pinbox and put shocks on which are going to be replaced in November with the MorRyde IS System in Indiana. Good luck! Hope it all works out well.

[pawags45]

Thanks

[pawags45]

Heard back today from Customer service today. They are going to replace the entire sidewall with a sidewall that has the expansion joint or beam (not really sure what to call it ?) but they say this will fix it. I think I read on this page that people had this done and it worked. They are shooting for after the season around Oct 25 or after. If you had this done and it worked please let me know.

[pawags45]

Originally Posted by bill3kirk

This repair can be frustrating to say the least. The first time I dropped it off at the factory. It re-cracked less than 350 miles leaving the plant. They came and picked it up a month later, repaired it and brought it back.
I've got a lot of miles on it now w/out any issue. But, I've added a Flexair pinbox and put shocks on which are going to be replaced in November with the MorRyde IS System in Indiana. Good luck! Hope it all works out well.

What did they do on that last repair to fix it ?

[bill3kirk]

pawgs45, are you asking me what they did? If so, Partial removal of the side wall, additional support in the LP area (they had already put one in from the first repair), more support structure in the wall in addition to what they had already done, thru-bolted to a plate inside the bedroom. Concealed it nicely. It still looks brand new and you would never know they did anything. The patch/finish work is invisible on the outside. Thousands of miles from west to east on I-10, around Atlanta, Arizona to Colorado, etc... so some tough roads and "knock on wood" no issues. But, I've done a lot to the tow vehicle, pin box and trailer suspension to try and smooth out the pounding.

[pawags45]

Originally Posted by bill3kirk

pawgs45, are you asking me what they did? If so, Partial removal of the side wall, additional support in the LP area (they had already put one in from the first repair), more support structure in the wall in addition to what they had already done, thru-bolted to a plate inside the bedroom. Concealed it nicely. It still looks brand new and you would never know they did anything. The patch/finish work is invisible on the outside. Thousands of miles from west to east on I-10, around Atlanta, Arizona to Colorado, etc... so some tough roads and "knock on wood" no issues. But, I've done a lot to the tow vehicle, pin box and trailer suspension to try and smooth out the pounding.

Thanks The service rep said they were going to replace my sidewall. I ask about the expansion joint and she said that was in the new sidewall. She did ask me to take pictures of the bedroom floor next to the sidewall. So I hope they do the same to mine as they did to yours.