Dark stains on vinyl in front of fridge

[fishbisquit]

Aloha,
I've searched the forums and found a few posts on this subject but nothing answering my specific concerns.
We have a 2018 16' sport. Took ownership 1 year ago. After a few trips, we noticed some minor staining on vinyl in front of fridge. At the end of last year I noticed it was a little worse and seemed like it was streaking. This Summer it has gotten much worse. It does not come out with cleaning. Also it seems to all originate from the fridge. After search these forums and online, the best guess is that water is getting in under the flooring. Possibly via the dometic fridge vents. A couple of questions.....

Can I diagnose this myself? I contacted both my dealer and AS. Dealer says to bring it in for them to take a look. I will do this but they are really busy and may take weeks just to diagnose issue. I have not heard back from AS yet. My other question is how do I proceed if this becomes a major warranty claim. If water has gotten under and the sub floor needs to be replaced, what is the best way to proceed with that, through dealer or AS? Also what if it's determined water did get in but the dealer and AS say the sub floor is fine? Do I insist of it being replaced? Maybe this is something other then water under vinyl?
Any thoughts or advice is greatly appreciated?

[SteveSueMac]

Sorry about that problem....

Can’t help on the technical end but wanted to clarify. You took ownership last year - when it was new? If so, you have a 3 year warranty so it should be covered. I would personally build a tick list of stuff you think needs repair, replacement, or adjusting and keep in email contact with the factory before setting an appointment with them for all the warranty repairs you want addressed. Don’t know how close to the factory you are (I’m on a coast, so it’s a drive...) but well worth it in my opinion. If your dealer is a 5 rivet dealer, close by, and your confident in their competence, that’s an easier path to take. But I’d still choose the factory for the first bundle of warranty repairs.

Good luck!

[Alilee]

Hi fishbisquit,
We have a very similar stain, just curious as to what your ultimate resolution was and how extensive the repairs were. We have 2019 16’ Bambi, we are sitting on the east side of Kootenay lake in BC Canada as I write staring at it.

Thanks
Rick

[fishbisquit]

Hello,
We brought our Bambi into our local dealer and they confirmed it was water damage. Their best guess was it was coming from the wheel wells. They said it was a common issue. They even showed us another Bambi they were working on with the same issue. We were set to have them repair it over the Winter. However due to a long story involving hail and our insurance company we no longer owned the Bambi. So I can not comment on how the issue was resolved. Good luck with diagnosing your issue. I learned that the dark stains almost always mean there is sone sort of water intrusion happening between the subfloor and vinyl flooring.

[Alilee]

Thanks for the reply, still under warranty so hopefully they will diagnose it for us. I don’t have a lot of faith in the tech’s at our local dealership though! Tough to get good help these days, thanks again.

[Mollysdad]

A business that installs hardwood floors has a tool that has a probe that goes into the wood and reads the moisture level. They might be able to tell you if the wood is wet, and how wet.