38 replies to this topic

[longhorn1]

Just happened to me.. what a joke.. a company that charges so much for their campers should do a complimentary shipping of upgraded mounting hardware. I wish I would have read more about them before i got one. sold for 4wheel adventures but don't hold up on a slightly bumpy road. I baby my stuff and I was not going fast through the bumps at all and next thing I was hearing was my chain on the bed of the truck. the surface area on those original anchor points is a design flaw. That should have been one of the first things addressed when designing something to hold up on the off road.

What year is your camper??

[60toyetero]

if you were not trying to be an ass, you would have left out your part in parenthesis.  English is my third language so forgive my grammatical mistakes. the only point here is if the company upgraded their anchor points to one that has about 10 times more the surface are on the backside of the hook, it was a poor design to start with. My camper is a 2004  

[60toyetero]

 

[JHa6av8r]

if you were not trying to be an ass, you would have left out your part in parenthesis.  English is my third language so forgive my grammatical mistakes. the only point here is if the company upgraded their anchor points to one that has about 10 times more the surface are on the backside of the hook, it was a poor design to start with. My camper is a 2004  

There was also a change to the current owners about this time.  Since they've taken over FWC has seen constant improvements, but still a work in progress to put out the best product they can.  Even with a camper that's 11 years old a call to Brenda in customer service will still get you lots of information to keep you camper going for many more years.

[60toyetero]

 

No rot at all.. I am not posting to argue with anybody. I just wanted to share that it happened to me too. the root of the problem has already been addressed so there is nothing really to figure out. The backing on the old hooks has very small surface are so it does not displace the force well. The hooks on mine look really close to the edge as well. You can see were it snapped and is only like 1 inch from the edge of the wood side that side has no vertical support. The hook should have been more centered.

[pods8]

 

60toyetero,  as noted the design has evolved to address the experiences some users had with the old one.  On my old one the wood held up fine but the elevator bolts bent over time for instance (fairly easy change and I had some spares).  I wouldn't expect the company to reach out and supply a free retrofit kid to owners going back to the 70s (and numerous company owners ago).  But there are certainly ways to beef the design up if you have an older unit, this forum is all about modification/improvements.  Sorry to hear you had issues on the road, that's always a bummer.

[60toyetero]

great info. Thanks

[craig333]

I never contacted FWC because its a ten year old camper and the warranty expired long ago. Second, it took years of abuse before I had a problem. If it'd happened shortly after purchase that'd be a different thing. If they'd never improved the design that'd be different also. It lasted a long time and when they learned of the problem they fixed it. I can't ask FWC to come retrofit an old camper. I'm sure they'd have sold me the upgrade kit at cost if I'd asked. 

[JHa6av8r]

I never contacted FWC because its a ten year old camper and the warranty expired long ago. Second, it took years of abuse before I had a problem. If it'd happened shortly after purchase that'd be a different thing. If they'd never improved the design that'd be different also. It lasted a long time and when they learned of the problem they fixed it. I can't ask FWC to come retrofit an old camper. I'm sure they'd have sold me the upgrade kit at cost if I'd asked.

They would do the retrofit for a cost obviously. There are old campers in there all the time being refurbished.