2022 Jayco Travel Trailer Jay Feather

On [XXX], my wife and I were driving northbound on [XXX] in Georgia, pulling our Jayco Feather Micro 166FBS travel trailer. It was early afternoon on a sunny day with moderately heavy traffic; we were traveling in the outside lane at approximately 65 mph. We were approximately 40 miles south of the South Carolina border when a car, then a semi, in quick order, waved us over. We did not feel or hear anything amiss on the trailer. We pulled over as quickly as possible and saw that panels of the undercarriage of the travel trailer were dragging on the ground. Further examination revealed that the built-in 50 gallon fresh water tank was missing and the plumbing and electrical lines to the rig were severed. After failing to obtain road service after several hours, I crawled under the trailer and tied up what loose ends were available so I could cautiously drive to a Campers World Service Center in Ridgeland, SC, 46 miles distant. The trailer has been under repair since that time and the estimate is that it will be complete by mid-August with a repair bill of approximately $3000. I am a retired structural engineer, registered in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. My quick examination of the failure is that while the 2(?) flat steel straps appeared sufficient, they were only attached to the frame of the trailer by 2 self-tapping screws per strap (one strap was dropped on [XXX] and the other was only held by one loose screw, dragging under the trailer). Multiple thru bolt attachments should have been required with lock washers and/or lock nuts in order to insure a vibration resistant assembly. Further compounding the inadequacy of the design is that the entire underbody of the trailer is insulated and covered by coroplast (corrugated plastic) preventing inspection of the structural integrity without a major strip down of the trailer. This trailer was purchased new in late August 2022 and came with a 3 year structural warranty which Jayco has refused to honor. INFORMATION REDACTED PURSUANT TO THE FREEDOM OF INFORMATION

The trailer is supplied with a axle that is under sized for the GVWR of the trailer. To keep from overloading the Trailer the tongue weight increase beyond to normal 10% and has would have to be at 15.3% by math to stay in limits. The trailer as configured from factory with just water added increases tongue weight to over 20%. After loading more items the trailer stays tongue heavy. Jayco has advertised this as towable by SUV and medium vehicles. Most of this style vehicle can not handle tongue weights over 1000lbs which is what this is measuring. The vehicle is at service but is having push back. The vehicle tows poorly, is overloading the tow vehicle and is very unsafe to drive. Unless there is something wrong with this actual build then all of this model are probably exceeding the tongue weight rating of the tow vehicles, possibly to the point of overloading the rear axle of the vehicle. This is causing unstable handling. The published documents at time of purchase showed tongue weight to be 660lbs, they have updated that they now weigh 690lbs at an empty weight of 4695. The empty tongue weight actual measures 850lbs, 190lbs over what I thought i was buying and 160lbs heavier than the new documents. Adding the fresh water increases the total weight 510 lbs and the tongue weight goes over 1000lbs