Community Forums

Winepress · 10-18-2017, 08:24 AM

It would be good information to know what the defect rate is. Does anyone know how many chassis are produced with this type of fan frame and what is the failure rate over a given time period? I doubt this information is being made available so we will deal with consumer experiences and opinions. It would be helpful to know for future as my chassis is a FL.
I read over on the Entegra forum that there were some Spartan radiator issues. I believe the issue was corrected when the problem came up, but there were some posts that indicated that if you had a bad radiator, it might be a future problem not covered by warranty. However, again, no statistics to be able to conclude if it was a big issue.

tom chelbana · 10-18-2017, 04:12 PM

My under standing is all FL chassis with either the ISX 12 or 15 which have shaft drive for fan have the bracket problem. At this point when ordering a coach it's Spartan or no order.

101stveteran · 10-18-2017, 04:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stuart W

Fan bracket, rear tag alignment, wipers inop, odometers that don't read, fires from power steering line, recall that failed to catch all effected vehicles come to mind, some spanning multiple model years. And now this where you have a concerned owner with updated parts in piles not being offered the updated parts, better he should break down on the side of the road first.
So unacceptable! I'm surprised that Newmar isn't putting their foot down.

Perfectly said. Too bad there isn't a "like" button as Facebook has. Newmar is in a position to step on Freightliner as they purchase so many chassis their voice is huge.

AzGoldDigger · 10-18-2017, 05:47 PM

The onus is on the owners. It behooves Newmar’s to have two suppliers. Newmar can’t be held hostage by either one. On the other hand, it also limits their ability to pressure the chassis suppliers.

It will be interesting to see if the Spartan chassis is really more reliable after a couple more years of apples-to-apples comparison to FL chassis’ in otherwise identical models.

In the meantime, it cannot hurt to write letters to FL letting them know this forum is watching them. Too bad all Newmar owners were not made aware of this forum.

webwalker · 07-29-2018, 10:03 AM

We just returned from what was supposed to be a 2.5 month trip in our 2015 Dutchstar. We had to return a month early because of a leaky fan gear box. It had to be replaced in Portland FOR THE FOURTH TIME! Yup, our wonderful motorhome has its 5th FL fan gear box installed. FL says (for the 4th time) it probably won't fail again. They said not to worry: If we get stranded on the side of the road, they would send a tow. We are amazed that FL doesn't seem to want to know why this is a problem.

This certainly makes the coach quite scary to drive!
__________________
2015 Dutch Star 3736 - "Bon Bon"

tom chelbana · 07-29-2018, 12:01 PM

Fl has a problem and if you compare the fan assembly brackets between a Spartan and FL it is very easy to tell the FL assembly is at best half the strength as the Spartan. There is 60HP traveling to the fan assembly so it needs to be built to care that much torque. At this point FL needs to re-engineer this assembly. If we had a FL chassis on our LA we would be adding extra metal and tubing to feel safe to travel till FL as a real fix. 3 year problem with many owners having this problem.
Newmar Man

webwalker · 08-31-2018, 11:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tom chelbana

Fl has a problem and if you compare the fan assembly brackets between a Spartan and FL it is very easy to tell the FL assembly is at best half the strength as the Spartan. There is 60HP traveling to the fan assembly so it needs to be built to care that much torque. At this point FL needs to re-engineer this assembly. If we had a FL chassis on our LA we would be adding extra metal and tubing to feel safe to travel till FL as a real fix. 3 year problem with many owners having this problem.
Newmar Man

On our 5th fan gearbox - freightliner says this one is good.[emoji1]. Lemon?

Sky_Boss · 08-31-2018, 11:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by webwalker

On our 5th fan gearbox - freightliner says this one is good.[emoji1]. Lemon?

MAN! We have had our coach for a tad over 2 months. Took the coach to Camp FL and they diagnosed a leaking gear box and it was replaced. Thank goodness my ESW paid nearly all of the bill for that. I hope we aren't looking at the same pattern.

webwalker · 08-31-2018, 11:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sky_Boss

MAN! We have had our coach for a tad over 2 months. Took the coach to Camp FL and they diagnosed a leaking gear box and it was replaced. Thank goodness my ESW payed nearly all of the bill for that. I hope we aren't looking at the same pattern.

Newmar?

Sky_Boss · 08-31-2018, 11:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by webwalker

Newmar?

Yep, 2015 DSDP 4369

Smosher · 08-31-2018, 06:00 PM

Tom I have a picture of the new revised,revised new frame. This is the second one I had replaced. Don’t know howto post the picture with my iPad. I could forward if someone can give me an email address.
Coming home from Colorado two months ago my fan went into the radiator it was bad. I don’t like being on the interstate waiting on a tow. It was towed to a small shop. The shop did a good job they were not a Freightliner dealer but Freightliner came thru and covered most of it. I was down five weeks and drove home and back 8 hrs each way.
They didn’t have the driveshaft and radiator I don’t know where they came up with it. But Freightliner furnished all the parts. I’m still happy with the coach but the estimate was about $16,000.

Smosher · 09-01-2018, 05:48 PM

Smosher · 09-01-2018, 05:49 PM

New frame

tom chelbana · 09-01-2018, 06:21 PM

I think FL only builds for Newmar with either 500 or 600/605 the shaft drive fan so that is part of the problem. If you just look at the brackets on FL fan you can see it just isn't well engineered. Metal to small, not thick enough and just ne comparison to Spartan. When I first heard about the bracket problem on FL I went ahead and added gusts to all corners on our Spartan K2 with 500 ISM 04 chassis just to be safe. FL has a real problem here and until they make big changes in their fan drive brackets it should only be Spartan chassis choice for Newmar owners.
Newmar Man