Hondo Garage's New Thing

And for the record - I have had one other issue with my gfc - probs with the locking pins - it was taken care of to my satisfaction. Quick and professionally.

I’m worried about my hinges - but I’m sure it will be taken care of as well. I’m on here to brainstorm with the collective to See about potential solutions.

I have had no ‘leakage’ or rust issues whatsoever.

 

Definitely not one of those types.

If I could get 6k for this thing though that'd be awesome. I've got both windows and a couple of OG awning brackets too.

 

good luck with your sale. so many people on the waiting list it shouldn't be a hard task.

 

Been a bit more active and starting to notice the negativity here.

The GFC so far has been sick for my needs, cant wait for some ski adventures this winter. they have responded super quickly to all my questions.

If anyone has the alignment issue I thought I’d post the response I got from GFC

 

Is that a newer camper thing?

I was just instructed to pull as I closed. And no matter what I do the alignment goes back after my camper has been open for a bit.

 

No idea, I am #376.

 

Maybe somewhere around $1400? I don't really know what something like that would go for

 

I’ve never had issues with the floating roof. Sometimes after a strong cross wind it will hit on one side as I close. After closing it settles and it has never been an issue. No mallet required.

More hinge opinion:
They should be proactive about the ~100 potential failures in the field. Right now it feels very reactionary. They are not even notifying customers that I know of.

They mentioned that Toyota has recalls, which is true. When Toyota has a recall, you usually get a free rental while work is being done. Maybe a loaner gfc for people getting warranty work done?

They are taking back units for warranty work which is the right thing to do. Going a month or more without the product paid for and expected is a tough ask even if the warranty work is free and fixes everything. This is even more true if the product is used all the time.

Other ideas could be a mobile warranty team, or combine the install delivery with warranty.

 

@Borrego Taco

this is the best thing I’ve seen on this thread.

I feel like they’ve been awesome. But I’m still annoyed that I have a product that failed in such a short time. They’re doing a good job of telling me they’ll pick it up (at their convenience), fix it it, and then redeliver (for A fee).

Seriously, I love this thing! They’ve been awesome. But hinge failure is a catastrophic failure imho.

 

Glad someone thought it was useful. Trying to be constructive, most of the time.

I didn’t pay this much to have a system undergoing warranty work in Bozeman while I sleep in a tent on the ground until it is convenient for a warranty redelivery. I tried to get a warranty timeline out of them and could not (I didn’t try very hard since I use the camper most between now and May).

My wife and I really enjoyed the gfc until the failure. She was not on the trip when it failed.

I made the mistake of looking at their Instagram a couple days ago which is abrasive, over the top and condescending to those of us having catastrophic failures. It lead to some of my sarcastic comments.

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/B4h_H2mgR1q/

 

...depending on price, I’m in.

 

That actually looks awesome... unfortunately in GFC fashion I’d bet realistically you won’t be able to get your hands on one for 8 months or more. Hopefully they prove me wrong but they don’t have a great track record of getting new things into customers hands. FWIW I’d bet that design and manufacture is 100% Wiley

 

How do i become an influencer so i can get it this spring?

 

Buy better camera, do cooler shit, take more pictures, post the best ones, use the right hashtags

 

I know not everyone follows along on the GFC website message board, so thought I’d post the latest hinge update from Wiley here:

“Hi all, figured I’d try to shed a little light on the hinge situation.

Here’s what’s going on:

When we began building campers we used a piece of foam seal between the tent frame and the hinge to seal that edge. The issue was that the foam was thick enough to allow the hinge to be installed in a manner that wasn’t perfectly flat, especially at the front and rear corners where it would flare out slightly. This lack of flatness along the hinge line meant that every time the hinge was opened or closed, the pivot line of the hinge had to bend along more than one axis. The hinges aren’t designed to tolerate these multi-axis bends and would eventually start to develop stress cracks (even if you can’t see them, they are there). Once the cracks form, it’s only a matter of time before the hinge fails.

When we switched to the new liquid sealant (Teroson) we eliminated the foam gasket. This means that when we clamp the hinge between the spaceframe and the tent frame, the hinge can lie flat along the tent frame extrusion and is pinched more consistently along its length, preventing the flare at the ends so often seen on the older sealant design. This means that the hinge now bends along one axis, making it much less likely that stress cracks will form. You can see this effect for yourself by folding a piece of paper back and forth to form a pivot line. If the paper is held flat against the edge of a table, the paper will pivot easily along the fold line. but if you add a little bit of curve to the paper, it will resist bending easily and introduce tearing forces. That’s what was happening and what the new sealant eliminates.

We didn’t figure this out right away. We have campers with the old seal design that have been heavily abused off-road without issue. Turns out that the old way we sealed them didn’t necessarily prevent a good hinge installation, it just made it easy to assemble one with a bad installation. Which is why not every camper with the old seal will have failures. And unfortunately we did have a few that got resealed with the old hinges that had already developed stress cracks and eventually failed after resealing.

We have about 400 campers in use now (including test/demo campers and customer builds) and aside from that handful of reseals without hinge replacement, we haven’t had any hinge failures with the new seal design that we’re aware of. If it turns out that we’re wrong about all this (we don’t think we are but it’s always possible to be wrong), we will engineer a new solution and support (via warranty or at-cost replacement parts as applicable) every camper we make as long as we’re still in business.

Cheers,
Wiley”

 

Holy $hit was I confused.... maybe because it’s 0230, I thought for a second Wiley actually decided to grace us with his presence once way again on TW. Took me a few reads to realize you were just passing info on from him.

Anyway long story short thanks for sharing that bit of knowledge. I actually trust Wiley quite a bit after experiences with Hondo Garage.

He’s seemed to take a backseat, or at least behind the scenes position at GFC, with Graeme being the front man.

Sure would be nice to see Wiley back on TW where this whole thing started

 

I don’t like the choice of words on that last sentence, IMHO, not the best move.

Thanks for cross posting for the follow alongs.

 

Yeah that doesn’t give me a lot of confidence...

 

Ha. From my perspective that last line means we'll be supporting our campers for a long, long time.