Official Monaco Tech Tip RE: Trailing Arms!

[jamorton]

Monaco's web site has published a tech-tip regarding the trailing arms. I wish this tip were on the Holiday Rambler site also, but I luckily found it on the Monaco site. Here is a link: Monaco Coach Motorhome - Service Tech Tip.

Having read this tech-tip, I am somewhat surprised at the tone they are taking, although as someone who was driving his rig, with children aboard when my trailing arm failed suddenly and catastrophically, perhaps I am a little sensitive.

To quote the Tech Tip:

We do not have reliable data on the types, numbers, or causes of trailing arm failures. It appears to be an incredibly small percentage of the total vehicles on the road with R4R and R4RR chassis.

FACT: WE KNOW OF NO ONE INJURED IN A TRAILING ARM FAILURE

This is good to hear, however, I can attest, that mine failed at 5mph and the change in vehicle control-ability and handling was very significant. Half an hour later, and I would have been at highway speed, in heavy traffic and on a stretch of road with 3" gotcha bumps on grade crossings. I don't think that even with my "expert (HA!)" driving skills, I could have maintained control of the rig in this circumstance, and folks, let me tell you I have a large ego and don't often consider that I can't handle a situation.



FACT: WE DON'T KNOW WHAT CAUSES THE REPORTED FAILURES
We do not have reliable data on the types, numbers, or causes of trailing arm failures.

The arms fail because of several possible reasons, I suppose.
Possibilities are either:

Materials defects - either the specified material is inadequate or a vendor used material that did not meet the spec, and it was not caught by testing.

Differences in manufacturing of the sub-assembly by different vendors. ( if there were different vendors )

A process or materials change from batch to batch or series to series

Inadequate or flawed Design



So, if multiple vendors made these parts, perhaps one vendor did it wrong. If a single vendor made the parts, but used material from multiple vendors without proper testing, perhaps that led to the problem.

If a single vendor made the parts always using the same process, and the materials were to spec and from the same vendor, that may point to inadequate design.

Finite element simulation and testing can also give an insight as to the validity of the design. The simulation results posted on Source Engineering's website make it look as if the original design had very high levels of stress in some areas.

Now, the more interesting part of the above tech tip statement - WE.

Who is WE ? Some of the original Monaco management and engineering staff work at the new Monaco, from what I understand. If that is true, then the we in the statement above is them, and they know! They know how many failures the old Monaco serviced under warranty, when they happened in the life-cycle of the coach etc. All of this is intellectual property that would have been transferred along with the designs to the new company.

I wish we could get someone from Source and someone from the new Monaco to tell us how many of the new trailing arms each has sold. That divided into the number of R4R and R4RR chassis would give us a sense of the problem to date.



But we do recommend you have a qualified technician periodically examine your chassis suspension—whether it was made by MNC, Monaco RV, or one of the gas chassis manufacturers. Examining the welds, checking for rust, and other routine suspension inspections are definitely worth adding to your regular maintenance on any motorhome.

This seems like good advice to me. Checking the trailing arms is more than just jacking the rig up and looking, however. The trailing arms must be dis-assembled from other suspension components, because the areas of cracking first appear in a hidden area to which other components are mounted.

It is good to see more attention to this issue - perhaps next round we can get Monaco's actual numbers of known failures rather than vague statements like "small percentage". Is small 2% or 15% ?

If you own a rig with an R4R or R4RR chassis, I suggest reading the techtip as well as looking at the source engineering website http://www.rv-chassis.com to gather more information if you have not done so already.

Jim Morton

[rvengr]

Hello Everyone,
As an owner that has read many posts, but has not responded to many, I felt I had to on this one. Has anyone seen this bit of lies and propaganda from the "New Monaco". I received this link, "Monaco tech bulletin" from a Friend in the HR club. Both of us have had to replace our rear trailing arms due to failure, so the more I read the more irritated and pissed I get. I especially like the way they talk about it as a 3rd party barely knowing of the old company. I'll give you a few "FACTS" about this.

· Fact: The same management team that ran the"Old Monaco" at Mach speed into the iceberg, are still at the helm. The same crew that left me and hundreds of others with a $3200 bill to fix this issue, because of this engineering screw up, not to mention the fact that all the warranties that were cut short are still there.

· Fact: Most of the same people are tech support, warranty and parts are still there to say they know nothing of this or why it's happening, in my estimation a complete untruth. They knew enough to recall them once but after the recall they continued to send out parts because the problem never ended

· Fact: Navistar gained the intellectual property of the "Old Monaco" they have all the records of the former company. They know what the failure rate was after the recall and they know why they fail, they just want to put distance between the new company and a very expensive mess

· Fact: While it could be true no one has been physically injured yet what about the hundreds if not thousands that were financially wounded because of the way they orchestrated the bankruptcy

· Fact: These people have no shame and it will be a cold day before they get any more of my money.

frustrated and dissatisfied owner

Joe.......