Vibration Issues While Towing

honeymac

Hello,

We purchased a new 2020 T@G XL SE in July. The SE is a basic model with unfinished cabinet areas, etc. Here is a link to a demo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7p_qrLgxrg&t=329s).

On our trip home from the dealer, we noticed rumbling from the trailer. It is noticeable at varying speeds. It shakes the whole trailer sending vibrations into the tow vehicle. We were pulling it with our 2009 Ford Escape V6 .

I then took the T@G on a solo trip pulling with my 2014 Ford Escape Titanium with Turbo. I experienced the same rumbling from the trailer at varying speeds (between 35-40 mph and 55-65 mph). The trailer "smooths" out at different speeds. It will "rumble' again when slowing down to the varying speeds mentioned above.

We checked tire pressure and had the tires balanced . We took a road trip and the rumbling continued throughout the entire 1800 mile round trip at varying speeds. We put more air in the tires, wondered if there was not enough weight on the tires being a SE with no back cabinetry or sink/stove/microwave. We loaded everything we had in the tow vehicle into the back of the T@G and that did not alleviate the rumbling issue.

When we returned from our trip, we switched out the 'off-road" tires with non "off-road" tires and we took the trailer for a test drive with both vehicles. Same rumbling issues just not as strong. The aggressive tires do accentuate the vibration. The conclusion is that it is not the tires causing the vibration.

I reached out to other T@G owners in the T@G You're It Facebook group to see if anyone else experienced this issue and another T@G XL SE owner confirmed that they experience the same rumbling issue around 35 MPH.

We have reached out to nuCamp and they referred us to our dealer or the warranty department. The dealer we purchased from is almost six hours from home so we reached out to the warranty department three days ago and have not heard back from anyone yet.

Has anyone experienced anything similar to our issue? We are so bummed as we love everything else about our T@G. TIA for any suggestion/help you can provide.

Martha

Frogger

Dang, no real idea...shot in the dark, maybe add some weight to the tongue & take it for a spin? Hope someone can be of more help; had a lawn trailer several yrs ago that would do the same unless the heavier stuff was up front...

honeymac

Thanks Frogger. After my solo trip, we added a diamond plate tool box to the front to hold some gear before our big 1800 mile trip. Kept it around 10% of the weight as suggested and still had issues. I think we've tried everything. Getting a bit nervous that we aren't hearing from the warranty department. Going to have to push a little harder I guess.

honeymac

As a follow up, we have no sway issues at all. Just vibration/rumbling. So much so, that when it happens you can barely talk in the tow vehicle without inflection in your voice (if this makes sense).

Frogger

I'd for sure keep on 'em, playing "pass the potatoes" gets old fast...post up on results please, hope it gets resolved soon...

Sharon_is_SAM

Is the axle off kilter?

honeymac

Thanks for your input Frogger and Sharon. We forwarded the email chain to our dealer who said he'd get it looked into right away. I thanked him. They are around six hours away though so we were hoping to come to a dealer closer to us to have it looked at. We'll see. My husband is experienced in mechanical stuff (rebuilt his 1955 Ford F-100) and thinks it may be the axel or bearings (or both).

Frogger

New purchase, for dang sure let THEM fix it; Nucamp should allow a dealer closer to check it out, Aliner was great about warranty stuff concerning distance, hoping Nucamp will do the same, good on your dealer...

WilliamA

I really enjoy this sort of problem. It hits a solid 5+ on my weirdometer.

I would have guessed it to be a tire, but that's been ruled out. I would check two things:

Alignment... First, is the axle bolted securely? If the alignment (either toe or camber) is off it could do that, but it would have to be pretty far out of spec to hear it.

Bearings... A bearing that's too tight or is bad will set up a "rolling, harmonic" noise like you describe. By "rolling", I mean it will often wander from quiet to loud in a sort of rolling pattern that's cyclic. The easy way to tell would first be to jack up the trailer and check the bearing preload. Just back off the preload a bit and see if it goes away. Bearings that are too tight will make harmonic noises that can be quite loud. Left that way they will quickly resolve the problem themselves by disintegrating.

Mis-alignment can cause cyclic noises too. A bent or severely out of alignment axle can usually be spotted by obvious tire wear or scrubbing.

That's where I'd start to look. Start with the easiest (bearing preload) and go from there.

There are other potential causes (cracked frame) but I'd start with wheel bearings and.go down the list...

WilliamA

honeymac

Thanks everyone. My husband told me that he thought it would be a bad bearing since he checked the axel and nothing looks "off". I didn't hear him when he said the next thing he would do is to check the bearings but he said he wanted to see what would be covered before spending $$$ on new bearings. However, it would be cheaper than taking it up to the dealer. William, hubby did tell me about harmonics, etc but I tend to "tune out" when talking mechanical stuff (LOL). I will share your reply with him. We greatly appreciate the input.

KDMerrill

My guess is a bad wheel bearing.

csonni

So what did it turn out to be?

Speckman

Our rattling noise seems to be caused from our hitch. We will be trying several types of silencers on the market. It is very loud and sounds like the camper could break off. I haven’t tried it yet but will keep y’all informed.

JohnnyLoco

I have the same trailer

First, the tires and wheels are not quality eventhough their appearance is nice. One of my wheels was hell to balance. Un-spec’d Chinese junk.

Second, the tires are full of balance beads and should be cleaned out before balancing tires with wheel weights.

Third, you should be at about 15 to 20lbs pressure. These things are so light they will bounce, rattle, vibrate, all over the place with more air. You do not inflate them to the sidewall pressure, thats for maximum load. An example of pressure to load chart would be this goodyear link

https://www.goodyearrvtires.com/pdfs/rv_inflation.pdf

The too much air pressure problem is compounded by the type of axle it is, probably woulda been better with leaf springs. Personally I think this axle is not a good match for light weight teardrop trailers

Much of hitch rattling can be solved by pulling out of the reciever and wrapping with duct tape until you have to kick it in or bang it in with a piece of firewood, then put the pin in.

There are so many areas where common sense woulda made these better campers.

I’ve had to change axle seals because the factory pumped too much grease. The dealers are so far away it’s inconvenient. Also, I’ve had Nucamp dealer (princesscraft in roundrock texas) say they will not service it because I didn’t buy it from them so had to take it to the dealer I bought it from. Unlike autos, they can get away with this BS practice.

I know all this can be disheartening, I’ve lived it

JohnnyLoco

Some things that can make your life easier on the road too are:

Air pump
Valve cores and tool $2

The glue from a sealing kit and different size screws for patching tire
(Ain’t pretty but works) have screw with glue on it ready, pull out whatever is causing the leak, screw in glued screw, have a sandwich, inflate.

A set of axle seals
A set of bearings
A few tools
Cotter pins
Grease gun

JohnnyLoco

Also, If you haven’t braced the right side of the back shelf yet, get ready because the screws are gonna rip out of the wall and the shelf will sag. Make a template with cardboard first since its a wonky area. glue the board to the wall and pin it by drilling and gluing some ribbed paneling nails top and bottom into the floor.

So far at my own expense I’m making lemonade out of a true lemon. I only bought this thing because it was an SE, money was not a factor.

I’d work for free if NuCamp would let me run things for a few months and I’d fire or kick some folks in the butt until they made the trailer what it should be. I’m retired Military and ready for the job !

JohnnyLoco

Wait until your fenders look like this from the vibration

JohnnyLoco

Anyone recognize this ?

Pull the hex set screw out of the latch, put loc-tite on it, put it back in tight, apply a couple of wraps of tape to the shaft so it won’t fall off the shaft if the set screw loosens. you can even put a spot of tape over the set screw, i took it off for the photo. If you don’t...You’ll be sorry !

Things common sense woulda prevented.

JohnnyLoco

One more thing, if your fire extinguisher hasn’t fell off and ripped nice plugs out of the wall, unscrew it and mount it to the wood somewhere, not with screws but bolts and nuts. This way you just have small holes you can patch with spackling.

I also had to rig the fantastic fan top with a little elastic bungee on the inside because the fantastic fan latch ain’t so fantastic and while it won’t fly open, one side will be floppy while towing.

I’ve only had it since June, 2020, had some good times and some fits. It truly has turned out to be the Land Rover of trailers. I bailed out of LR after many models over about seven years but I ain’t gonna give up on this little thing just yet.

HikinMike

I recognize that. I performed the exact same fix.

blackc2004

@JohnnyLoco said:
Wait until your fenders look like this from the vibration

This is really unacceptable for a trailer that costs so much. I've had nucamp replace mine twice already! You should contact your dealer as mine was replaced under warranty!

JohnnyLoco

Correct, but I fixed it for good out of my pocket per my other thread. I’m not going to keep getting the factory beer can fenders fixed as I have other things to do. They make better fenders that would replace those exactly that would never split. I just decided to go frame mounted and steel with step.

https://teardrop-trailers.vanillacommunity.com/discussion/1234/t-g-fenders-fixed-for-good#latest

LuckyJ

About the fenders, it almost seems that the checher plate model are very weak compare to the none chekered model. Our none cherkered are on a 2017 and have seen a lot of travel, imcluding some dirt road at fairly good speed, and so far, tge front looks bad from being it with rock, but still not even a singke crack in the bend.

JohnnyLoco

That is correct, its a chicken crap thin diamond plate.