[A/S] I Need Your Thoughts

[Jack Canavera <jackcanavera@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Folks!

Just stopped by my local St. Louis A/S dealer to find
that it was pretty much a ghost town.  Apparently a
good portion of the service department and all of his
inventory of new trailers and motor homes is up in
Sioux Falls this week.  Hope you all get a good look
at the anniversary model with the slide out.  A nice
looking unit.

Anyway to get back to my topic, I went up with my
Safari for its first problem.  I am getting water
inside the underbelly whenever I wash the trailer. 
The water seems to be collecting in the last
underbelly panel.  When I lower the trailer jack to
get the trailer off level, the water runs out on the
end seams where the next underbelly panel meets and is
crimped.

The service people said that it probably coming in
around the bumper area.  Those of you who haven't seen
the Safari may not know that between the bumper and
trailer body there is a storage area for the power
cord.  It is accessed by a lift up lid that is the
length of the bumper.  It is by all means not
watertight nor is it meant to be.  Within the
compartment is a tray that the power cable lays in. 
The tray has edges that will contain water.  Water in
the tray will drain out the plastic hatch in the floor
of the tray which is the out port for the power cable
when you hook up to shore power.  More towards the
trailer body are three large holes which provide
ventilation for the underbelly area.  Water normally
should not be able to enter here.

Bottom line the dealer checked this out, agreed that
water was getting in but said since it was draining
ok, it didn't need correction.  He noted that water in
that area is not getting into insulation or other
components and that if it was pooling then we would
have an issue.  Since its not, nothing else needs
attention.  He did enter this on the service ticket
and noted that if a problem does evolve, I'll have
proof that I reported this to them.

Personally I'm not totally buying off on this and have
left a call with A/S to see what their opinion is.  I
have driven this trailer through rain and it has sat
in some pretty good storms.  Up to this time no water
enters.  It's only when I wash it. I'm pretty careful
not to use excessive water pressure or hard streams in
the bumper area.  If there are any new Safari or Bambi
owner's out there, have you seen this?  And for you
folks with the older units, what's your thoughts about
this situation.  Should I be tolerant of this or is
this something that may have some future adverse
effect?

Jack