Community Forums

ie2special · 05-15-2014, 06:33 PM

Can you tell if it would be an easy swap? Meaning do your think it has any of the prep done?

Jboesq · 05-17-2014, 08:35 AM

According to the salesman at General RV, it wasn't that easy to just switch them out and couldn't be done at this point.

ie2special · 05-17-2014, 09:06 PM

Thank you!

rrexerr · 03-27-2015, 10:18 PM

What ever happened with your driveline vibration issue. I've noticed it also and am in the process of addressing it

Jboesq · 03-29-2015, 07:18 PM

We have not experienced the driveline issue.

RobbieH · 03-30-2015, 09:20 AM

Mine has the driveshaft issue, but the broken slide is a bigger issue to me right now. :(

Anything over 60 and you can feel it, go over 70 and it roars.

jetta01 · 03-30-2015, 06:30 PM

The slide issue is a bunch of BS!! Thor needs to man up and do a recall. All of the 33sw's and ACE's will fail. Complete crap engineering job, but instead of doing the right thing, Thor just sits on it and hopes it fails after your warranty expires. Luckily mine failed in warranty, but I have heard of a few others that weren't so lucky. I am very disappointed in quality and customer accountability with Thor.

rvingrampa · 03-31-2015, 04:54 AM

rrexerr & RobbieH,

With regards to the drive-line issue, this is what I either found out or was told.

My chassis came from Ford with a 201" wheelbase (a Ford dealer got on their computer and did a print out of what was on my chassis from the factory using my VIN number). When it came from the Ford factory, it had a two piece drive shaft with one carrier bearing. Thor sent it to Mor-ryde to have the chassis stretched to 255". When it came back from Mor-ryde, it had four drive shafts and three carrier bearings. The three carrier bearings are mounted on three cross braces between the main frame rails. What the Ford mechanic told was "the first and third cross braces just have holes drilled into them so the carriers bearings can only be mounted in one location. The second cross brace has slots in it to mount the carrier bearing to give it an adjustment point. That was where my problem was. The second carrier bearing was not aligned properly or was not tightened down enough that the carrier bearing moved sideways and came out of alignment." After hearing that, I thought it should have been either a Thor or Mor-ryde problem but Ford said it was their problem and covered it under warranty. The mechanic re-aligned the drive shafts, tightened the center carrier bearing down and then they called me in to test drive it. 99.9% of the vibration was gone. After the test drive was done, the mechanic spot welded the center carrier bearing so it would not move again. The last .1% could maybe be removed by shimming one or more of the carrier bearings either up or down but that would be just a hit and miss thing and could have run into a big dollar issue.

Hope this helps with your problem.

RobbieH · 03-31-2015, 07:58 AM

We will see what happens with the buy-back. If they come to fix it one last time, I will take it to the dealership and get this checked, along with the emissions recall. I've heard Ford was repairing the driveshaft issues, my mileage may vary.

dooubravsky · 04-02-2015, 08:34 AM

We have the four winds 31W which has the same two group 27 battery residential fridge setup. We added two additional group 27s, and the. Went with 400 watts solar, at a cost of $1700 installed. Did a pretty good job of solving the problem. We dry camped for four days in February and only ran the gen. Once for 90 minutes.

We also have gone to turning off the fridge when we go to bed. We can leave it closed for 8-10 hours overnight and still cold... Ice cream still frozen. I think the res. fridges are really well insulated.

I do sort of with the dealer had been more forthcoming about the battery draw... But we are happy now with the solar.

rrexerr · 04-02-2015, 09:00 AM

So regarding the slide. Since my coach just went out of warranty. What does it cost to have the broken slide fixed? Any better upgrades that can be done? Also, my over cab bunk is about 1/16" away from hitting the top of the passenger side door so I'm sure it's just a matter of time before that becomes a problem also. Should I dump it before these issues arise and eat the loss? Love the power and how it rides.

Jboesq · 04-02-2015, 10:50 PM

Thor replaced our slide mechanism with a beefed up Schwintek system after the 3rd time we used the MH. Night and day difference in the way it functions.

We swapped out the batteries for 2 29s and added portable solar panels too and still had to use the Honda generator to keep the fridge going; however, we learned our interver was bad at the time and not working at all. We haven't dry-camped since to see how it functions now. We also turned the fridge off at night.

We love the power and how it rides too. Knock on wood, I think we have all the bugs worked out. However, now the paint has started to fade on the cap (we've had it for 14 months). Thor said living in Las Vegas, it was our responsibility to maintain it and wax it once a month (seriously!?!) and refused to pay for it. Luckily we bought an extended warranty that covers faded paint. We'll see how that goes...

Would we buy it again? Absolutely.

RobbieH · 04-03-2015, 08:35 AM

You give me hope that Thor might be able to fix the slide. As part of the buy-back proceedings, we have to give them 30 days to repair the unit properly.

I had a problem where the batteries would not charge when the generator was running. It would charge them on shore power, but not on the genny. I called Thor, and they told me there is a breaker under the bed - one that's not mentioned in any of the manuals. I have attached a picture here and circled it for you, in case you have the same problem. It's very small, and the button for it is TINY. And it is surrounded by bare wires.

(note all the junk left in the bay... these guys need a shop vac)

The fading is why we got full paint. My dad's 5er looked terrible after just a few years of Texas sun.

jetta01 · 04-03-2015, 06:59 PM

That cheap little breaker nearly ruined a trip of ours too. Wonderful of them to have it not showing up in any doc or schematic...

I now have 4 monster lifeline batteries mounted in the driver's side front compartment along with 2 180 watt panels on the roof. I can run that fridge day and night for days now without recharging.

The paint fade is my current fight. Total garbage... Paint doesn't go bad in a year. A local rv repair guy looked at it and said Thor did a cheap and pathetic clear coat job. You can get away with cheap paint, but not cheap clear coat.