Slide out awning stitching failures

[rollin sorge]

I have a 2007 Contessa and the stitching has unraveled at the hems of all four awnings, The thought is that the materiel rubs too hard on the roller cover due to one of two things, 1 - the roller mounts are too low on the slide out causing the awning to rub on the roller cover, or, 2 - the awning materielanchor rail should have been mounted below the trim strip instead of above it as mine are. Tech. service won't admit the coaches were built with a problem, but between the lines-- they know about it, but don't want to admit it. A friend looked at two new 2008 Contessa's at a N. Carolina dealer, They are built the same as mine, He has a H.R. and has had the same failure also. The simplest fix is to install new fabric anchor brackets below the trim strip so to decease the angle of the materiel entering the roller housing.

Has anyone else had this problem and if so, what was the fix?

By the way, my unit was only 18 mo. old when this failure occurred.

Any comments are appreciated.

[William Mathews]

This happened on a 2000 Diplomat we had. Both the bedroom and living room slideout covers came unsewed and pulled out of the awning rails. The first time for the living room slideout, it was under warranty and carefree took care of it. The second time it happened, it was out of warranty. I took the cover off and just so happens a tent company is near our home. I took it there and had them sew it up. I asked them to put two lines of sewing along the hem as carefree only puts one line of sewing on each hem. I have since traded that coach, but feel confident the cover will hold much better with two lines of sewing.

[Paul Schwalen]

We have had the stitches on our 03 Contessa awnings come loose due to UV rays.  I used to have a marine canvas shop and we used a UV resistant thread (Gore Tex) and no more problem with the stitches coming out.

On our Contessa we removed the awnings and re-sewed the seams with a UV resistant thread that we bought at Wal-Mart.  No more problem.  I would have thought that Carefree would be using the UV resistant thread by now but I guess not.

[rollin sorge]

According to the tech,s here, the problem is caused by by the severe angle of the material as it rubs on the edge of the roller cover as the slideout is extended or retracted. All of mine failed when about 18 mo. old, so I don't know how much of a factor the UV light was.

Thank you for your replies.

[215]

We have a 2006 Monterey with four slides.  My passenger side awning developed a tear where the awning cover rubbed against it and was replaced under warranty.  This summer three of the awnings developed the same tear including the one replaced.  I had them replaced.  The fourth one did not have a problem.  I found that the metal covers on the three problem awnings had a lip extension that rubbed against the canvas.  The fourth did not.  So I removed the three problem ones,  took them to a metal fabrication shop and had them remove the lip.  The problem seems to be solved.  Funny that there were two different cover designs on the same coach.  They obviously were aware and problem and had designed a defferent cover, but continued to use the problem ones.