Taylor here at Go Fast again. I just wanted to chime in and address a handful of things here and hopefully offer some solid info.
Campers outside of the range of affected hinges:
If you have a new camper or a camper outside of the potentially affected range (the first 150 or so) you can (and should) use your camper with confidence. Even campers within this range that haven’t seen hinge issues should continue confident use of their campers. We’re observing 2 different failure rates: the unacceptable rate of failure caused by (and limited to campers with) the foam gasket installed between the upper and lower portion of the campers, and a much lower failure rate as a result of one off material flaws. The few campers that experienced hinge problems outside of this range were most likely due to one off material flaws.
How we’re handling warranty claims around hinges:
I’m calling most (if not all) customers who’s hinges break to go over the details and next steps. Making sure your camper is working as it should is one of my highest priorities. After a hinge break there are a few options for the interim time until Mike comes to you to make the repair. You can either remove the hinge altogether and run without the panel, fix the panel firmly to your spaceframe or extrusion (as many of y’all have already done), or opt for a temporary replacement hinge. The temporary replacement hinge is $45 because we will need to replace it again when Mike performs your repair. Given there are other options for you (albeit not ideal), the cost of the temporary replacement hinge is not fully covered by your warranty. We are, however, covering the cost to ship these temp replacements, and are only covering the cost of materials; we aren’t trying make any money on these replacements.
We stand behind our products, and we’ve got your back if they break:
I want to take a minute to recognize @Mike_GFCUSA’s hard work around this. The volume of warranty repairs needed has been small in comparison to the number of campers we have out in the wild. Nevertheless, he’s been busting his ass to make sure each warranty is taken care of and making sure his truck is tooled up and ready to repair campers from the road. He shows up every day at 5AM to get his work done. As soon as he’s geared up to leave again for the PIT, he’ll be coming to each and every person that signs up for a repair (and y’all are all over the country).
I appreciate y’all’s passion for this product. You guys push us to make it better, and I think that’s really valuable.
One week later. Just finished Jerry rigging the other side and packing for my weekend. Not stoked on it, but probably will pull all the panels and just rock it like that for the time being.
How can you lead them to believe that the hinge failures for the campers with liquid sealed gasket are “one off material flaws” without actually receiving the failed hinge and doing analysis on the material.
It is odd how it took about a year later for these newer campers to start failing, since the new procedure started about a year after beginning of production.
For those of you wondering what it takes to replace a hinge, I recorded this video of replacing the hinges. It’s actually very easy, and after replacing 3 of them, it really does appear that the seal may in fact be the major cause of failure.
Looking at the new sealant and hinge system it is likely a little more of a job given the nature of the sealant adhering to the frame etc. On the older GFCs like the one in the video it doesnt look bad at all, but you arent dealing with a bunch of sealant being stuck to everything around the hinge. I could be wrong though and while I’m hopeful I wont have to replace them (since I have the new sealant method) I am still thinking ahead in case of hinge failure.
Totally agree, I think the gasket is superior. Because inevitably the hinge will fail, They should considerEd it a wear item. Replacing them with the gasket is much easier than the sealant. I replaced mine with the gasket and it was extremely easy.
@glachow I think the replacement with the sealant isn’t too big of a deal either though. My understanding from a previous discussion with someone from GFC is that the hinges actually don’t stick that well to the sealant and more or less pop off when you pull on them during a replacement. Maybe @Mike_GFCUSA can confirm? this.
I really hope the hinge isn’t retroactively considered a wear item. That’s a big switcheroo for existing customers to say that a fundamental part of the design is now a wear item.
