Fleetwood Enterprises Roof leak on 2004 Tioga Class C motor home due to improper manufacturing Riverside California

My 2004 Tioga SL Class C motor home developed a roof leak requiring over $2K to repair. Cause of leak was Fleetwood's failure to place butyl tape under the roof edge trim rail. Instead, they ran a wavy, discontinous line of caulking with many gaps under the trim rail where water entered behind the plastic strip used to cover the screws, rusted out the steel screws, and eventually water migrated into the interior.

My local Fleetwood dealer did the repair and stated that improper factory sealing was the cause of the leak. There were no sealant gaps at the juncture of the roof material and the trim rail. Fleetwood is aware of this problem as the 2005 models have a pop-riveted trim rail arrangement. Despite two letters to the CEO, with many pictures taken prior to and during repair(front cap removed)and the Fleetwood dealer stating it was a factory defect, two Fleetwood reps said that this was due to lack of owner maintenance and refuses to reimburse for any portion of repairs as their one-year warranty has expired.

There is little if any chance that an owner would have discovered this problem within the warranty period as the steel screws will typically take more than a year to rust out and allow water entry. It's amazing that Fleetwood builds these RVs with an MSRP exceeding $80K and "cheaps-out" by failing to install butyl tape at this critical roof-sidewall juncture and then blames the owner who would have had no way to detect or correct this situation before a leak occured. I would recommend against purchasing any product from this manufacturer that obviously skimps on construction and then throws the blame on the consumer when inevitable problems occur. Fleetwood has a three-year structural warranty, but says that a roof leak does is not covered, even though this motor home is just one model year old and well within the 36000 mile limit.

Rod
Sarasota, Florida
U.S.A.