Questions about Jayco Trailer

[ChristinaS]

Hello everyone, I am interested in buying a Jayco Jay Flight SLX 7 145RB. I have some questions about this trailer and hope to hear your opinions.

1) After your purchased your Jayco TT, how often did you need to repair it in the first 2 years? What types of repairing did you do for it?

2) After the first 2 years, does the trailer consistently need repairing? If yes how often is that?

3) Did you use Jayco’s roadside assistance service on the trips? How was it?

4) Did your dealer provide any other roadside assistance service? How was it?

5) Is it a good idea to purchase a TT directly from the factory?

Thank you for your input!

[2edgesword]

I think the answers to these questions is going to be all over the place. We're in our third season with a 2018 28RLS and haven't had any issues with the trailer. We've spent 81 nights camping but most of that is local so not a lot of road miles on the trailer (1,500). I think the traveling is what probably causes most of the issues with these houses on wheels so I think the number of issues you experience is going to be somewhat related to how much time you spend on the road shaking, vibrating and shocking all the systems in the trailer.

[JFlightRisk]

Welcome to the Forum from Western New York State! You've asked some great questions, and I'll answer based on our 2012 Jayco Jay Flight, purchased new.

1) Our TT had 4 VERY minor issues repaired before we picked it up. We noticed them during the initial walk through, and PDI. A small graphic, the electric cord hatch, sealing the oversized hole in the floor where the fresh water fill hose went through, and I can't even remember the 4th unless I look up the paperwork. It's noted on them. It never had to go in for any warranty, or service work, to this date.

2)I would say no to "repairing", but there's always regular maintenance to do, just like your car. Annual roof checks and wheel bearing service, washing, waxing, maybe an odd light bulb. It all depends on how much you tow it and on what kind of roads, or lack of.
It's a house in a constant earthquake. Things happen because of that.

3)I've never had to use any roadside assistance. Since 2000, and that was the DW's car. I have no idea why I keep paying for it.

4)We've had the complimentary Jayco version that came with the purchase. AAA for many years, and now Good Sam Roadside Assistance. It's peace of mind (read all the fine print)and good if you travel quite a bit, and far away from home. (read ALL the fine print, did I mention that?).

5) You can't buy a trailer direct from Jayco, or pretty much from anybody. It has to be purchased from a dealer. There may be one or two very small manufacturers that only sell directly, and have absolutely no dealer network. Unless you live in their town, who's going to service it under warranty? Just my thoughts.

[ChristinaS]

Thank you 2edgesword and JFlightRisk! Those are very helpful information!

[Jagiven]

Welcome aboard. As others said, you can only buy a Jayco from a dealer. Scope out the dealer. Make sure they have a good service department. Repairs can take a long time. Not like cars.

All campers are hand built. Some have more issues than others. We had a number of minor issues during our 1st 2 years. I'm handy, I could have handled them all. But I let the dealer take care of it. Nothing was a big deal, and I expected some issues. Biggest issue was a leaky drain under the bathroom sink. Had a bunch of moldings inside that needed a few more staples, to hold them in place. I also had a cracked inlet filter screen bowl on the waater pump. Probably a few other items, but those were the big items.

Campers are NOT maintenance free. Water is your enemy, most of the maintenance is to keep the water out and is easy. Inspect the roof at least twice a year. Probably around year three you'll need to start recaulking the seams and joints. Once you start, every year you'll need to do touch up work. I spent two evenings a few years back applying eternabond to all the roof joints eliminate worries about roof caulking failures. I still have to have to check the roof, but primarily for tears. The walls joints need checking too, but that is easy to see with a simple walk around the tt, I started seeing concens around year 6ish.

As for things breaking. Never have had any issues, but I treat things with a lot of respect, so they don't get much abuse. Only real repair I had to do was replace the microwave about 1.5 years ago. It did not work in the spring. Small hassle to find something that fit the hole, but not much more than that.

Only other hassle, is winterizing and dewinterizeing, each year. Not hard, just takes some time sanizing and flushing out the lines.

If you absolutely do not want to do any maintenance, a camper probably is not the way to go, unless you find a RV shop to do it, which is a bigger pain.

I have never used any roadside service, not even for one of my vehicles. So I have no experience with them. I do not have anything special. My car insurance policy, includes roadside and towing. My parent's have the same insurance, the had to have their suburban towed. Put the truck on the flatbed, and towed the tt, on the back.

Good luck, I hope I did not scare you away.

[ChristinaS]

Originally Posted by Jagiven

Welcome aboard. As others said, you can only buy a Jayco from a dealer. Scope out the dealer. Make sure they have a good service department. Repairs can take a long time. Not like cars.

All campers are hand built. Some have more issues than others. We had a number of minor issues during our 1st 2 years. I'm handy, I could have handled them all. But I let the dealer take care of it. Nothing was a big deal, and I expected some issues. Biggest issue was a leaky drain under the bathroom sink. Had a bunch of moldings inside that needed a few more staples, to hold them in place. I also had a cracked inlet filter screen bowl on the waater pump. Probably a few other items, but those were the big items.

Campers are NOT maintenance free. Water is your enemy, most of the maintenance is to keep the water out and is easy. Inspect the roof at least twice a year. Probably around year three you'll need to start recaulking the seams and joints. Once you start, every year you'll need to do touch up work. I spent two evenings a few years back applying eternabond to all the roof joints eliminate worries about roof caulking failures. I still have to have to check the roof, but primarily for tears. The walls joints need checking too, but that is easy to see with a simple walk around the tt, I started seeing concens around year 6ish.

As for things breaking. Never have had any issues, but I treat things with a lot of respect, so they don't get much abuse. Only real repair I had to do was replace the microwave about 1.5 years ago. It did not work in the spring. Small hassle to find something that fit the hole, but not much more than that.

Only other hassle, is winterizing and dewinterizeing, each year. Not hard, just takes some time sanizing and flushing out the lines.

If you absolutely do not want to do any maintenance, a camper probably is not the way to go, unless you find a RV shop to do it, which is a bigger pain.

I have never used any roadside service, not even for one of my vehicles. So I have no experience with them. I do not have anything special. My car insurance policy, includes roadside and towing. My parent's have the same insurance, the had to have their suburban towed. Put the truck on the flatbed, and towed the tt, on the back.

Good luck, I hope I did not scare you away.

Thank you Jagiven for your reply! I am okay with regular maintenance. I was a little worried because I read some bad reviews online. Some owners seem quite emotional.

My question is how to tell if a dealer's service department is good or not? Currently they are very cooperative and guaranteed that they will stand behind me. If you say go check the reviews of the dealer... I would say the reviews of our local dealers are mostly pretty bad, probably because of the prices.

How long time will a repair usually take at the dealer? Also what will the pain be like to do maintenance at a RV shop?

Thanks a lot!

[ccso2213]

If it’s Camping World, it will suck. Lol. Perhaps let us know which dealer you are looking at and someone may be able to provide you with their experience. My dealer (Burton Campers near Birmingham, AL) has been great with service. I would gladly pay a few dollars extra to buy from them. Also, check google reviews. Good luck!

[ChristinaS]

Originally Posted by ccso2213

If it’s Camping World, it will suck. Lol. Perhaps let us know which dealer you are looking at and someone may be able to provide you with their experience. My dealer (Burton Campers near Birmingham, AL) has been great with service. I would gladly pay a few dollars extra to buy from them. Also, check google reviews. Good luck!

Thank you! I will keep that in mind.

I live in Bay Area California. A dealer close to us is Pan Pacific RV center.

Thanks!

[JFlightRisk]

It's hard to tell about the service department unless you can ask someone whose had them work on their camper before. Like most businesses, they're not going to make 100% of the people 100% happy.

I would ask the service manager how far their department's backed up. It may take weeks or months depending on the repair, if they have the part(s) in stock, or have to order them from the factory, which could take weeks or months. There's no way they can possibly stock everything in their parts department, and unlike automotive, they can't just run down to the local parts store, unless it's common like a bearing or seal. I do all my own work that I'm able to, with the exception this year of replacing the spring shackle bushings and bolts, and 4 new tires.

Then ask them what their hourly labor is. That alone may convince you that you CAN do a lot of the maintenance yourself. Most is not hard to do. Just takes a bit of time.

[ChristinaS]

Originally Posted by JFlightRisk

It's hard to tell about the service department unless you can ask someone whose had them work on their camper before. Like most businesses, they're not going to make 100% of the people 100% happy.

I would ask the service manager how far their department's backed up. It may take weeks or months depending on the repair, if they have the part(s) in stock, or have to order them from the factory, which could take weeks or months. There's no way they can possibly stock everything in their parts department, and unlike automotive, they can't just run down to the local parts store, unless it's common like a bearing or seal. I do all my own work that I'm able to, with the exception this year of replacing the spring shackle bushings and bolts, and 4 new tires.

Then ask them what their hourly labor is. That alone may convince you that you CAN do a lot of the maintenance yourself. Most is not hard to do. Just takes a bit of time.

Thank you! Those are good questions to ask them. Very useful!

Since we won’t use the trailer everyday like cars, I can wait for the repairs once needed. I am glad to know most people didn’t use the roadside assistance. That gave me confidence.

I like how you described it - It's a house in a constant earthquake, which makes everything understandable to me. As long as the service team is trustable, I will take this trailer as a learning process.

[ChristinaS]

I will have to pass this brand and model. Because I searched the dealers around me but can’t find any that is with a good reputation. This is too risky.

[JFlightRisk]

There are problems with many different brands out there, regardless of price. I've witnessed a couple with a $2 million bus, that a slide wouldn't go in at all. They're not all bad, just the nature of the beast sometimes. Our TT isn't very big or fancy, but we still went over it twice before we bought it. I figured since it was still the dealers property, I'd double check everything, inside and out, before it became MY property. As it turned out, our dealer did do a very thorough check of all the systems, and left us with the spec sheet, of what they found. It was titled the "New/Used Final Acceptance Form"

I had to go look at that form for the 4th item that needed fixing. It was a hanger screw for the black tank valve rod.

[Grumpy]

Originally Posted by 2edgesword

I think the answers to these questions is going to be all over the place. .

X-2

As I've said many, many times our experience has always been good. With our 2015 the longest it was not in my driveway (2 1/2 weeks) was when it went to the factory for the slide crack repair. Put over 20,000 miles on it in under 3 years. JAYCO/COLEMAN did have to replace an air-conditioner, but they did that while I was parked at FORT WILDERNESS and they paid for a mobile tech. Our previous two rigs never had more than a day or two at the dealer for very minor issues.

[ChristinaS]

Thanks everyone for your input. I will think about it.

[crl]

As mentioned, you will get multiple answers and opinions. I will have to say our experience with our 2019 Jayco White Hawk 2019 28RL has been very positive. We have towed +/- 6000 miles with VERY minor issues. I had to tack trim back down in two small places where we let the recliner get up against it while traveling, and I had to tighten the hot water connection at the kitchen sink. Other than that, nothing. We normally make a trip once a month, but the new normal has slowed that some. We are committed Jayco customers because of this trailer and a very good rv dealer here I our area.

Best of look with your search.

[ChristinaS]

Originally Posted by crl

As mentioned, you will get multiple answers and opinions. I will have to say our experience with our 2019 Jayco White Hawk 2019 28RL has been very positive. We have towed +/- 6000 miles with VERY minor issues. I had to tack trim back down in two small places where we let the recliner get up against it while traveling, and I had to tighten the hot water connection at the kitchen sink. Other than that, nothing. We normally make a trip once a month, but the new normal has slowed that some. We are committed Jayco customers because of this trailer and a very good rv dealer here I our area.

Best of look with your search.

Thank you for sharing your experience with us! That is very encouraging information!

[smoothy]

Buy Used

[gypsmjim]

Originally Posted by ChristinaS

Thank you! Those are good questions to ask them. Very useful!

Since we won’t use the trailer everyday like cars, I can wait for the repairs once needed. I am glad to know most people didn’t use the roadside assistance. That gave me confidence.

I like how you described it - It's a house in a constant earthquake, which makes everything understandable to me. As long as the service team is trustable, I will take this trailer as a learning process.

No you can't wait for the repairs. If you work like most of us and plan on a July vacation, and the dealer says he'll get to it in October, what's the sense in having it.

Jaycos are one of the cheaper brands and many dealers will discount heavily. Plan on fixing everything yourself or having a mobile RV repair business tackle it all. It'll be done on time and probably better than the dealer would have done.

Just my opinion after having owned TTs for 33 years now. Never had anyone touch my stuff. Our 2015 Jayco only needed one repair...the kitchen faucet. I complained to Jayco and they sent me a new one UPS. I installed it the next day.

[Lorraine]

1) After your purchased your Jayco TT, how often did you need to repair it in the first 2 years? What types of repairing did you do for it?

I'm a solo camper with a Jayflight 212 SLX. In the first 2 yrs, I had water heater go out 3X, furnace malfunctioned once, fresh water tank was improperly installed & dealer had to reinstall the lines, bed broke & dealer rebuilt sturdier frame, discovered staples that were stapled straight into intake water lines causing a leak when I was 2, 000 miles from home, manual tongue jack broke, 3 window cornices fell off so I made curtains for those windows, closet floors & shelves collapsed, axles were bent or misaligned & dealer put in new ones & replaced two oddly worn tires as a result. Jayco covered all repairs under warranty at dealer or from mobile RV repair service.

2) After the first 2 years, does the trailer consistently need repairing? If yes how often is that?

I feel like I've gotten most of the bugs out now after 2 years and have acquired an entirely new skill set. (My rig was probably made on a Monday or something!) This weekend's project is replacing propane tank regulator which I will do myself.

3) Did you use Jayco’s roadside assistance service on the trips? How was it?

No. I have Auto Club (AAA)

4) Did your dealer provide any other roadside assistance service? How was it?

Never used any other roadside assistance except AAA.

5) Is it a good idea to purchase a TT directly from the factory?

As others have said, can't buy from factory.

I recommend looking at Girlcamper.com for suggestions on buying & maintaining RVs. There's a podcast (lots of great info there) & a new magazine just out this summer. I spent a year researching tow vehicles & travel trailers. Girl Camper told me about tire pressure, gross vehicle weight rating, how to tow, how to back up, Sisters on the Fly, and many other informative & useful topics.

[Kim Gass]

Lorraine we have had our 195 RB for five years now and it has more than 100 k miles on it.

We would have had few incidents had we replaced the crappy Ranier tires from the get go.. We had a blowout on the Yellowhead Highway which is two lane 100 kph. Not much fun

We have had the bearings replaced regularly. This is maintenance . It went to the dealer. Others do have the ability to do their own.

We ran the thing over a logging road and bent the frame.. Not surprising as it bottomed out in a three foot deep hole. Operator error. Dealer dealt with the aftermath.

We are having continued problems with brake wiring breaking but I think it is because of all the mileage with overwintering in 150 inches of snow annually. Next week it will get rewired entirely. Again maintenance

The bed support sucked so we DIY reinforced it. No dealer involvement. After four years the staples holding the seats together separated so its is not surprising we had to fix that more permanently. Real screws help.

The simpler your trailer the less that can break.

We have a wonderful working relationship with our dealer. Not from being a frequent flyer but from the way they do business. We got minimal discount but they were up front with that. they are at the end of the Jayco supply line here is Maine. They make up with fantastic service and no gouging.

Our first trip was cross country . Being new and dumb there were things in the TT we had trouble with like the water heater. We could call them for Tech Support. They helped us even though they were in Maine and we in AZ

Never used roadside assisitance except for our blowout as we needed RCMP to block a lane.