Deadbolt warranty repair

[Belbein]

Here's an odd thing I just wanted to make my fellow owners aware of. We have a new 2020 Flying Cloud 25. It was just in for some warranty adjustments. One of our problems was that the door latch and the deadbolt were not working properly. Surely a warranty repair, right?



You see this complaint all over every place that Airstream owners congregate. It's a constant problem and there are many explanations--shifting of the body while trailering, the ductile movement of metal, movement in the hinges, crappy hardware, poor design, yada yada yada. Lots of things, but not operator error.



The dealer told me that Airstream denied our warranty claim. The AS rationale: the reason the deadbolts and latches stop working properly is that owners slam the doors shut while the deadbolts are "closed" (i.e. the deadbolt bolt is stuck out in space where it hits the door jam). Let's think about that. In order for this to happen, you have to open the deadbolt to go through the opendoor. To then slam the door with the deadbolt "closed" you'd have to close the deadbolt before you "slammed" the door. Who opens the deadbolt to pass through the door and then closes the deadbolt before you shut the door you just walked out of? It's patent BS.



I know Airstream lurks this site and sometimes learns from what you see here. I'd encourage you guys at AS to take some responsibility for a bad design and pay for this as a warranty repair while you're working on a better design. It's not fair to shift the cost of this to Airstream owners who just want their trailers' hardware to work properly or--as in my instance--onto a dealer who absorbs the cost because they were wanting to keep an Airstream owner happy. It's clearly a design defect.



Don't tell me that better designs aren't possible. You could do this if you tried. But if you're not going to fix the design, at least pay for the repair.

[JunkYard]

I went to close the door, wouldn’t latch. Tried again, then realized deadbolt was out. I blame my four year old, she messes with stuff and breaks things constantly.

[Belbein]

Oh, golly. Good point. Here I've been blaming Airstream and it could very well be someone in my tribe.



I'll bet it's the five year old. She's a Golden Doodle. She looks cute, but she's just the type.

[KCurtis]

I have the same year model as you. Our deadbolt has never locked from the inside. I will be taking mine in too in a couple of weeks. I will let you know what they say.

[kittmaster]

Go around the dealer and contact Airstream directly. Speak to Cory Rex and accept no other contact.......tell him what's going on and he will get those fools to fix the problem.....a 2020 with that issue that soon is clearly an assembly issue.....and with whole covid thing......I'm sure it was rushed to get out the door......

Let us know how you make out.