Community Forums

cbennis · 02-01-2023, 12:40 PM

Wondering if anyone else has experienced this issue.

I live in the Pacific NW, where it can get a tad rainy during the winter months. Around late December, small blisters will start to appear in the sidewalls of the coach. By late January, they will pretty much cover the sidewalls. They do not appear on the endcaps, only on the gelcoat sidewalls. Come early spring, the blisters will start to disappear, and by July / August, there will be no sign of them and the paint will look fine. The coach sits outside all year, no shelter.

Here is a picture that I took last week. The blisters are small and it is difficult to get a good picture, but if you zoom in they become clearer.

hilgert · 02-01-2023, 01:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cbennis

Wondering if anyone else has experienced this issue.

I live in the Pacific NW, where it can get a tad rainy during the winter months. Around late December, small blisters will start to appear in the sidewalls of the coach. By late January, they will pretty much cover the sidewalls. They do not appear on the endcaps, only on the gelcoat sidewalls. Come early spring, the blisters will start to disappear, and by July / August, there will be no sign of them and the paint will look fine. The coach sits outside all year, no shelter.

Here is a picture that I took last week. The blisters are small and it is difficult to get a good picture, but if you zoom in they become clearer.

Year, make and model of your coach?

You can put this in your signature so it's always there.

As to the subject, I have seen no such issues on our 5-year-old coach.

mr.tommy · 02-01-2023, 01:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cbennis

Wondering if anyone else has experienced this issue.

I live in the Pacific NW, where it can get a tad rainy during the winter months. Around late December, small blisters will start to appear in the sidewalls of the coach. By late January, they will pretty much cover the sidewalls. They do not appear on the endcaps, only on the gelcoat sidewalls. Come early spring, the blisters will start to disappear, and by July / August, there will be no sign of them and the paint will look fine. The coach sits outside all year, no shelter.

Here is a picture that I took last week. The blisters are small and it is difficult to get a good picture, but if you zoom in they become clearer.

This can also happen in the boating industry under the water line. I won't go into the all chemical analysis here—someone here will surely do that for me—but your wet, salty environment in the PNW certainly plays a factor. I've never seen or heard of this particular surface malady in RV's but I have seen a lot of other types of "skin" problems. It's not happening on the end caps b/c that is a different kind of surface and protective materials used there.

I'd like to know what make coach this is on, year, model etc., and is this full body paint or not?

jaydee325 · 02-01-2023, 01:52 PM

I would contact the Newmar Brand Specialist for your model. This defect may be covered under the 5 year structural warranty.

shootist · 02-01-2023, 02:18 PM

If you know it’s osmotic you already know the reason

johnhicks · 02-01-2023, 04:56 PM

I wonder if this is a delam rather than a true osmotic blister.

cbennis · 02-01-2023, 06:08 PM

The coach is a 2021, and yes it is full body paint. In fact, both sidewalls have been replaced and the entire coach has been repainted. Now the manufacture is balking at doing anything else, taking the position that this is a 'normal' consequence of painted fiberglass in a wet environment.

So, if that is the case, then surely someone must have come across this same problem. I find it difficult to believe that I am the only one. I personally think that the manufacture of the gelcoat sidewalls (filon?) has a problem whereby they are not adequately sealing the fiberglass.

And by the way, the endcaps are fiberglass also, and if they were not properly sealed, they would also blister presumably. I have had paint shop folks tell me that they have seen this on cars (corvettes) that are not properly prepared. Others tell me that this is likely caused by solvent residue left behind before paint is applied. If it is solvent residue, then that is a process problem, and again I would not be the only one experiencing this.

shootist · 02-01-2023, 06:20 PM

The proper term is solvent trap. As they were painting the base coats were not completely flashed off of their solvents. The clear seals it in. The only thing I can imagine is the solvents are able to go inward into the fiberglass panel in the heat. Normally they would blister the paint in hot weather to get out. We call that solvent pop. Seems the cold weather causes some kind of condensing of it in the clear coat. I never had any problem with this until I was sent my first can of water born primer. They didn’t warn us about this. Half a crv we painted popped. It had sat half in sun half in shade the hours before being painted. Fortunately sikens saw fit to reimburse us for the redo.

mr.tommy · 02-01-2023, 06:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cbennis

The coach is a 2021, and yes it is full body paint. In fact, both sidewalls have been replaced and the entire coach has been repainted. Now the manufacture is balking at doing anything else, taking the position that this is a 'normal' consequence of painted fiberglass in a wet environment.

So, if that is the case, then surely someone must have come across this same problem. I find it difficult to believe that I am the only one. I personally think that the manufacture of the gelcoat sidewalls (filon?) has a problem whereby they are not adequately sealing the fiberglass.

And by the way, the endcaps are fiberglass also, and if they were not properly sealed, they would also blister presumably. I have had paint shop folks tell me that they have seen this on cars (corvettes) that are not properly prepared. Others tell me that this is likely caused by solvent residue left behind before paint is applied. If it is solvent residue, then that is a process problem, and again I would not be the only one experiencing this.

OK, well with this new revealing info I'd like to throw this out there. I'm not 100% sure about this, but since this is a pretty new coach and has full body paint (FBP), don't these kinds of RV's require substantial time to properly cure. I've heard times of at least 1yr. maybe more to NOT wax FBP RV's for this reason. Now I'm not saying the OP has waxed his RV or not—I don't know if his has or not—but my point is there is a required "cure time" out in sun—once the customer has taken possession—of the RV that allows these FBP finishes to turn out the way their supposed to. Now him being in the PNW, with a wet climate, lower temps for sure, and cloudy a lot of the time, perhaps is making this proper cure time not to happen. I don't know...I'm just trying to flesh out some logical ideas on why this is happening to him and not a whole lot of other people b/c I've never heard of this problem before and I've been around awhile.

Domo · 02-02-2023, 08:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cbennis

In fact, both sidewalls have been replaced and the entire coach has been repainted. Now the manufacture is balking at doing anything else, taking the position that this is a 'normal' consequence of painted fiberglass in a wet environment.

That is "NORMAL?"

Ludicrous - share all your written communication with your secretary of state as well as the secretary of state for the manufacturer. At the least, your dealer needs to be identified and given the chance to become the hero.

If they've replaced sidewalls and repainted I'd consider that a clear admission of guilt on their part -

Perhaps they'd like to show you a few examples of how normal this is with their RVs - it would be nice to start that photo album to post...

Did you ever identifiy the manufacturer? I hope so - just be factual when present pictures and the story...

DamonCamper · 02-02-2023, 09:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hilgert;6414139

You can put this in [URL="https://www.irv2.com/forums/profile.php?do=editsignature"

your signature[/URL] so it's always there.

So did you mean to advise about the signature block and yours is empty?

tderonne · 02-02-2023, 09:44 AM

Don't know if it helps, but here is one company's take on osmotic blistering

It's from Crane Composites who has at least supplied Winnebago with some products over time.

GuyG · 02-02-2023, 10:15 AM

[QUOTE=DamonCamper;6414768]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hilgert;6414139

You can put this in [URL="https://www.irv2.com/forums/profile.php?do=editsignature"

your signature[/URL] so it's always there.

So did you mean to advise about the signature block and yours is empty?

hilgert · 02-02-2023, 10:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DamonCamper

...
So did you mean to advise about the signature block and yours is empty?

I an not sure what you mean...I have (and have had for years) a signature.

I was suggesting to the OP that they can add their information in a signature, and the link was a convenience if they wanted to do so.