2023 Winnebago Revel

The secondary alternator on our 2023 Winnebago Revel failed and caught fire. Fortunately, it happened when the vehicle was stopped so the fire was quickly put out and the damage limited to the alternator itself and the belt that ran the alternator. Had the failure happened in motion, a broken belt could have completely disabled the van, possibly endangering other traffic. Had we not noticed and extinguished the fire immediately, it could have consumed the entire vehicle and spread to the surroundings. This issue of faulty secondary alternators is well-known to Winnebago. Our unit was a warranty replacement of the original and we had recall work done on it as recently as July 15. The recall work only involved changing settings on the alternator's regulator and did not address what is a failure mode of the hardware itself.

The secondary alternator of our 2023 Winnebago Revel failed, was smoking heavily, and was seconds away from catching fire had I not stood by with a fire extinguishers. I noticed the issue after driving for about an hour and only noticed smoke when I had pulled into a Home Depot to park. I only noticed the smoke when I had parked (not while underway). This is a well known problem with Winnebago Revels, with many owners reporting (on Facebook Winnebago Revel 4x4 page) these Balmar 170 alternators catching fire and failing. This is an extreme fire danger and life safety issue. My safety was at risk because the alternator was in thermal runaway and was about to catch fire. I may not have noticed the issue had I been underway. The problem is well known by our dealer (Camping World, Marysville, WA) and Winnebago. I have since had them address the problem, but their solution and current procedure on this is to put back in the exact same Balmar 170 alternator! Other Revel owners are reporting this second install is also failing in many cases. No inspection to date other than that of the dealer. No warnings were given by the vehicle of the problem.