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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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!
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