Trillium Trailer News

[Byron Kinnaman]

Apparently Team Trillium has started building an updated Trillium Trailer.
The new article can be read here.

[Frederick L. Simson]

Concerns about warranty issues led Thoen to switch to factory direct sales.
[b]After making the switch, "warranty repairs dropped 90 per cent," he said.
Since every trailer is given "a pre-delivery inspection before it leaves the shop, there should be no warranty issues."
All appliances are tested and the trailer is leak checked before leaving Team Trillium.
Other moulded fibreglass trailer manufacturers such as [b]Escape in Chilliwack, B.C., [b]Scamp in Minnesota and [b]Casita in Texas also bypass dealers and sell their trailers direct from the factory.

An interesting observation.

[Brian B-P]

I was going to post a topic about the two fiberglass trailer articles in yesterday's Edmonton Journal, but Byron beat me to it.

The first is the one about Team Trillium and their Outback, to which Byron provided the link. While it looks a bit like a new trailer announcement, it really is just a particularly newsworthy moment in the continuing history of this company and product... the Outback has been around for years, and never went away.

Pricing is certainly part of the reason for the change from dealers to direct distribution; I spoke with someone a the Edmonton dealership which carried the Outback, and they said that they had not stocked them for a couple of years because they were just too expensive to sell well enough to justify having them. The only dealer-distributed moulded fiberglass travel trailers here are the Bigfoots... and they are shockingly expensive for their size.

The construction feature which I found interesting is this one:

The fibreglass cabinets are glued into place in the Outback trailer, in contrast to other fibreglass trailers where they are riveted or bolted to the unit's shell. That provides greater structural rigidity and there's no concern about parts working loose.

A change to a new "cutting-edge technology glue" has speeded up the assembly process since it dries much faster, Thoen said. This glue sets in a few minutes compared to the previous adhesive that had to be left overnight.

The traditional attachment method is rivets. I don't know what trailer they're referring to with bolts. In some designs, wooden blocks are bonded into the fiberglass, using resin, and cabinets are attached to the blocks. Directly attaching the cabinets to the fiberglass body shell with an adhesive other than resin seems unusual; I hope it works well, and the lack of rivets is certainly (in my opinion) a good feature.

The other article is about a classic car and Boler rig.

[Ken C]

Kind of confusing article, I read it as now with direct sales, each has a a pre-delivery inspection. Isn't this already a part of production before they left the building in the past? Warranty issues have dropped now that they are inspected for quality control.... before they weren't? Anyway, thanks for sharing the article.

[pjanits]

On the other side of the coin, where the dealers submitting fake warranty issues?

90 per cent is pretty high.

Possibly a sales exaggeration?

[Byron Kinnaman]

Retail business sometimes is rather interesting when it comes to warranty. Many years ago I worked for a manufacturing company that sold into the retail market. More than one dealer sent a warranty claim with every product they received. The claims were bogus, but difficult to prove that they were bogus. There's more than one way to make a buck.

[Brian B-P]

Every auto dealer seems to charge for "pre-delivery inspection and preparation", which covers everything from peeling off the protective shipping film, to installing some trim items which are left off for shipping, to fixing stuff damaged in transit, to just washing it... and that's starting from a vehicle which was in condition to drive off the assembly line and onto the truck. Since I don't know about the shipping conditions for trailers, I don't know how much is expected of the dealer.

[Mike Watters]

Dealer Fraud:
My initial surprise at that suggestion has quickly turned to realization of the obvious. Given how dealers treat the customer - why should we expect they treat their suppliers any differently.

Another possibility is that there are serious non-negligible differences between who's buying the trailers locally and who's buying factory-direct. It's also possible that when you're buying from the dealer down the block (so to speak) you're more likely to take it in for warranty work for minor issues that you'd ignore if the repairs are more awkward to get done.

It's good to see the glass manufacturers getting more press though!!! I can't help but think that the current state of gas prices are going to result in a shift in interest to small/light (as opposed to "lite") trailers.

Mike

[Brian B-P]

I can't help but think that the current state of gas prices are going to result in a shift in interest to small/light (as opposed to "lite") trailers.

People in this forum have been saying that for years, but RVs keep getting bigger. Even the existing fiberglass travel trailer manufacturers introduce bigger (not smaller) models. Keep hoping!

[Mike Watters]

People in this forum have been saying that for years, but RVs keep getting bigger. Even the existing fiberglass travel trailer manufacturers introduce bigger (not smaller) models. Keep hoping!

Let's see what happens with the new HiLo:
http://www.fiberglassrv.com/board/in...howtopic=27283

Course - you could be right. It may simply be that when people think "compact and lightweight" they just automatically think traditional tent-sided Pop-Up and just don't think of smaller hard-sided trailers.

Course for me - it wouldn't make a difference. We're not going to be buying a new car anytime soon and it doesn't matter what I pull behind the van - it'll still get lousy mileage. I'm just gonna keep being thankful that I only live about 1 mile from my office.

mkw

[Alf S.]

Hi: Re: Warranty work... The last job I had done on my Ford to eliminate a nasty noise in the front cowl was to replace the entire Dash panel!!! Problem solved... noise gone... Ford covered only 2.5 hrs. and the Service Adviser asked me who was going to cover the other 8 hrs. I suggested Sanity Clause...HO HO HO but now I wonder how many others, who don't need warranty work, the dealer claims for???
Alf S. North shore of Lake Erie