Compared to houses, RVs are put under lot of stress when driving, but so are normal cars, so why are RVs specifically prone to water damage from rain or snow at considerably shorter distances than normal cars?
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I once heard an RV rep say, “we don’t build them running!”
I know this isn’t an explanation, but a funny saying.
There are so many components and seams in an RV compared to a normal car, and the vibrations of the road exploit those, leading to more leaks over time.
Cars and SUVs and vans are monocoques in design; i.e. there’s no separate frame with a body on top, the body IS the frame. For a bunch of reasons like weight, rigidity for safety, weather proofing, you take the time to weld shut all the seams between the roof parts and the sides, trunk deck and pillars. Remember, for regular vehicles the survivability of the occupants in a rollover depends on the roof/pillars supporting the weight of the vehicle and then some.
You _could_ have a monocoque single integral frame and body RV I suppose but it would be prohibitively expensive**. Plus, I don’t know of a single RV maker who also makes the chassis, engine, suspension etc. and certainly no automaker wants to dive into the RV making biz. So you can’t really build a body+chassis integral RV unless a single maker does the whole thing from the wheels up.
** the image of a 25′ RV being rotated on a mandrel for the welding robots made me smile tho. I’d like to see that!
They’re all flimsy obs not built in same fashion as cars or engineering or even undercoated often, usually very unskilled manual labor construction. This applies to brand new stuff not just old inventory. tldr RVs are absolute shit basically these days do read https://www.rvtravel.com/pathetic-quality-rv-dealers-fed-manufacturers-producing-1017b/
> “It’s some of the worst stuff I’ve seen in 30 years,” said one longtime RV dealer. “It’s horrendous inside and out. But we have no recourse but to put it on the lot and try to sell it. You take what you can get, and you move on.”
The are larger, have more joints where panels connect, the large empty boxes on wheels, with thin frames and thin walls to keep weight down, means less structural rigidity and more movement of panels; they have moving parts like slide-outs, they are notorious for poor build quality
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