Community Forums

MarkMaxPayne · 10-01-2021, 09:35 AM

Received a recall notice that states "...the hitch on the Wayfarer Motorhomes may become loose from the frame of the motorhome." While they figure out how to fix this defect they are telling all owners to "...NOT TOW OR USE THE HITCH UNDER ANY CIRUMSTANCE UNTIL THE RECALL REPAIR HAS BEEN COMPLETED." Impacts all years & floorplans.

So much for towing my Fiat 500 dinghy to the Wayfarer Rally later this month... :(

I wonder what other manufacturers used the same frame rail extension on their Mercedes Sprinter-based motorhomes.

Best,
-Mark

GoodTimesNow · 10-01-2021, 11:42 AM

I did spend some time this morning on the Facebook Wayfarer community page today about the recall. A lot of comments and pictures on the site. I was able to see the source of one of the failures. The hitch actually tore part of the frame away. This will allow me to inspect my Wayfarer, and what to watch for. With the recall affecting over 3000 units, this might take awhile to get repaired. I hope Tiffin lets the owners take our units to repair shops to get this fixed. Winter is coming and we need this repaired A.S.A.P.

RK4RV · 10-13-2021, 07:52 AM

can you provide any photos or links to the information you found ?

Thanks
Rick

GoodTimesNow · 10-14-2021, 08:07 AM

The Facebook Tiffin Wayfarer Motorhome Owners page has a lot of information about wayfarer problems and information. The replacement hitches are on order and Tiffin expects them to start showing up in three weeks. You have to make an appointment at a Qualified repair facility. When Tiffin receives the hitches they will ship them to the repair facility that is doing the work for you.

2021 Wayfarer 25 RW
Roadmaster spare tire/hitch extension
Master Tow Dolly EB
Toyota Yaris IA

MarkMaxPayne · 10-22-2021, 10:22 AM

Facebook is one of those sites I have refused to join. I'm in the software industry and when the "product" is free unfortunately you are the actual product. Any URLs to the pics available such that one doesn't have to join FB?

Best,
-Mark

edstep · 10-23-2021, 06:00 AM

hope some real infofrom Tiffin comes at soon

They will only ship to a certified repair shop, they wont let you get the part and find someone to do it

MarkMaxPayne · 10-25-2021, 06:55 PM

So I rolled into the Tiffin Wayfarer Rally at about 2pm and parked my rig where they directed me to. After hooking up power and cranking on the air conditioner the wife and I headed over to Registration to officially check in. Within minutes I was back to the rig and found a service tech van in front of my rig.

Two guys were under the rig replacing my hitch and its mounting gussets!!! And man are these new componets beafy!!! About 45 minutes later they were done and off working on the next rig. No scheduling them or anything!

A Tiffin rep told me they can swap out over 140 hitches here at the rally, but it depends on the model as they are still waiting on components for some configurations.

So happy I don't have to schedule a visit to the dealer! Thanks Tiffin!!!

Best,
-Mark

MarkMaxPayne · 10-25-2021, 08:17 PM

And here are some pictures. Old hitches, new replacement mounts/gussets, new replacement hitches.

Best,
-Mark

vettenuts · 10-26-2021, 05:47 AM

Wow, they showed up at your rally and just started fixing all the hitches? Talk about customer service, that’s pretty impressive!

GoodTimesNow · 10-26-2021, 08:29 AM

Great news. I was impressed with Tiffin customer service the first time last year when we stopped in Winfield for warranty repairs on on our 2021 RW. I was a technician until I retired. It is very hard now days to find good dedicated service technicians.
I live north of Chicago and hope the parts are available soon. We usually start heading south in December. Looking at the pictures I still don't understand the two frame extension brackets. The frame extension brackets under our RW are longer. However these possibly bolt on the existing ones to stiffen up the frame rail extensions. The ends of the existing ones on our RW are not boxed in on the ends and I can see where this was a weak point for failure.

Steve

2021 Wayfarer RW
Roadmaster spare tire/ hitch extension
Master Tow Dolly EB
Toyota Yaris IA

MarkMaxPayne · 10-27-2021, 11:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GoodTimesNow

Great news. I was impressed with Tiffin customer service the first time last year when we stopped in Winfield for warranty repairs on on our 2021 RW. I was a technician until I retired. It is very hard now days to find good dedicated service technicians.
I live north of Chicago and hope the parts are available soon. We usually start heading south in December. Looking at the pictures I still don't understand the two frame extension brackets. The frame extension brackets under our RW are longer. However these possibly bolt on the existing ones to stiffen up the frame rail extensions. The ends of the existing ones on our RW are not boxed in on the ends and I can see where this was a weak point for failure.

Yes, you are correct. The boxes/gussets are mounted in the very back and fit nicely inside the channels of the rear frame rail extenders. Then the beefier hitches mount same as before, but with the bolts going through both the bottom channel of the frame rail extender and the bottom side of the box stiffeners. Looks like they were trying to solve for a couple of different problems with this fix. I thought I took photos with my phone today, but they are not in my gallery. Sorry...

Best,
-Mark