Northwood Manufacturing - Arctic Fox Travel Trailer , carelessly assembled , poor quality inspection
Bought in 2014 , Arctic Fox 25R , 27 ft Travel trailer . Initially the skylight had to be replaced as it was badly scratched , fixed . The slide motor had to be replaced , done . The fresh tank drain valve leaked , kind of repaired . The bearings had been over greased causing the brakes to be contaminated with grease . Our 1st trip west , over the Bighorn Mountains , we almost wiped out the brakes in our tow vehicle coming down , had almost no trailer braking . Who ever did the assembly in the bathroom just went ahead and caulked the tub with out cleaning up the sawdust . The caulking looked terrible with the sawdust mixed in it . I redid the caulking .The dump valve labels were reversed . the dinette table is mounted improperly so it will not fit between the benches to be used as a bed . I have not redone this yet . Now we are losing roller bearings from the slide . today found the second one on the kitchen floor . There is , of course , no way to get at the mechanism . It will probably mean removal of the entire slide...what will that cost ?
The dinette foam is very cheap and flimsy . It is very uncomfortable as it compresses to virtually nothing in about 5 minutes when you sit on it .
They have put the hot water winterizing valve almost totally out of reach . Very hard to get at if you have average size arms...you will lose some skin .
Have not found low point drains yet...
They claim a , " true 4 season trailer ," this is misleading at the least . We had the fresh water intake freeze , the fresh water drain freeze , the gray and black dump valves freeze . So had no water and no way to get rid of what we had in our tanks . This was all the same day . So 4 seasons where ?
Not to bad a trailer but over priced for the quality and performance . Our 2001 Nash was a much better trailer .
Reason of review: Damaged or defective.
Monetary Loss: $500.
Preferred solution: Let the company propose a solution.
Northwood Manufacturing Cons: Quality of trailer and workmanship.
Location: Hutchinson, Minnesota
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I have been an owner of AF trailers for over 10 years and was pleased with the underlying design, though it could be made much more thermally efficient now--the aluminum may have improved structural rigidity and weight but seems to have made the real-world thermal performance worse and it wasn't that great to start with.
The bigger issue that came to a head in the extreme in the experience posted above is the workmanship issue. I don't think there is any question that it was reasonably average to good at Northwood 10 years ago, but there seem to be a lot more frequent issues with carelessness now.
There is pressure to build fast in both the spec housing and RV worlds, and especially when a brand is advertised and priced to be tight and right to deal with harsh conditions, that is a problem. AF has the right idea but they really need to step up their game and get back on track.
Glad I came across this site...I have / had AF on my short list of future RV's. After looking at a few in MT.
after our trip from Alaska a few months back I thought they were a little over priced, but thought maybe you were getting a much better built RV.
Maybe we should just stick with our 2013 RV trailer which had zero issues in a 110 day AK. trip.
I sure wish I had read all of these reviews before joining the upset people who have been misled into thinking they were getting a "high" quality trailer. Not happy with the quality of our 32-5M fifth wheel at all.