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 Ima Non Controversial Girl
Posts: 4168
  
Location: where the wind blows | I posted awhile back about looking at a Sundowner and some mentioned that some models had a coating that was faulty and caused corrosion of the steel frame. So for those of you with the steel frame coated trailers have you been able to fix this some how? Just wondering if there is a fix to the issue. I really love everything about this trailer and the only thing keeping me from jumping at it is this coating issue. I spoke with current owner today and he said he had heard something about that but hadn't notice an issue with his. He said he would go out and inspect it. If there is no corrosion showing at this point does it eventually show up in them regardless or just some of them. This is a 2005 Sundowner 8012 Grand Siera Sunlight 727. Do I drive the 4 hours to look at it and get an inspection or walk away.  |
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 Peecans
 
| What kind of coating? Our sundowner is a stock (its older) and it had a lining that it came with (bought new by my fil a long time ago)
That trailer has worn out 3 trucks lol.
The problem was that the lining got cracked over time (pigs rotting, cattle, horses age) and it allowed moisture to get in but not out and caused the steel to rust from the inside out.
We cut it all of from about a foot up down to the floor and repaired all the supports and still use it all the time. |
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Ima Non Controversial Girl
Posts: 4168
Location: where the wind blows | So Della yours did have the coating talked about and you scraped it off and that seemed to take care of the problem? Is that correct. Is it a big job scraping the coating off? What have anyother sundowners found?
Thanks
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 Expert
Posts: 2457
| hop over to horsetrailerworld.com ... they have it pinned in the forums about which model, year (etc) of Sundowner this happened on. LOTS of super nice people with great knowledge.
It was a powder coating on the steel frame as I recall. People have posted horror stories of the frame giving out as well as how to fix it and costs associated. |
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Peecans
| jkrm - 2014-02-23 2:25 PM
So Della yours did have the coating talked about and you scraped it off and that seemed to take care of the problem? Is that correct. Is it a big job scraping the coating off? What have anyother sundowners found?
Thanks
If its the same coating then yes its a 95-96 (ish year) rancher. (This one was inside where the animals are)
It was time consuming but once you got it started it peeled of pretty fast. It took us two half days to take it all of, wash it really well then we rope it off off at a neibour who makes a living 're doing trailers.
I could see how bad it could be though, it hides all the rust and damage until its really bad, it was surprising at the dammage once we got it all off. A couple supports had rusted completely through but "looked" protect because the rust was behind the lining.
And we keep our trailer very clean. But its all fixed and still a great trailer. |
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 You get what you give
Posts: 13030
Location: Texas | is it the bed liner looking stuff thats under the trailer mats? Or do I have to look under the trailer? Mine has it I think… need to look at it. we cleaned out the trailer in January and everything looked good but I didn't look at it underneath on the ground side. |
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 Elite Veteran
Posts: 1118
Location: The South | Ours is either an '05 or '06, I can't remember. It's a Sunlite 727 and I freaked out when I read all of the horror stories (because I was stupid and found all of them after we bought it). It's been a few years so my memory is fuzzy, but I think the people that had the worst problems were up North where they drive on roads that have been salted, or people that live on the coast where the air is salty.
We have crawled under ours with a flashlight and (knock on wood) everything is fine right now. I'm thinking the ones that had the problems might have been "Valuelite" and then they changed it to "Sunlite"? Sorry I'm not sure about that. But we've enjoyed ours so far, the a/c is cold in the summer and the horses haul well in it so we can't complain. |
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Ima Non Controversial Girl
Posts: 4168
Location: where the wind blows | I love everything about this trailer but this coating is scaring me. We are up north. I'm really torn. |
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