# Update: Damage To Floor From Slide



## rving4fun (Sep 24, 2011)

Has anyone had their laminate floor replaced? How was it replaced and were you happy with it. We have a new Outback 312bh with floor scratches and a gouge from the slide. The dealer attempted to fix the floor but you can still see the gouge. The next step is to get authorization to replace the floor. The concern I have with replacing the floor is that they will place trim/ quarter round everywhere since the floor was installed before cabinets and tub. I'm worried how that will look. Would you just live with the gouge since the laminate is not torn? I appreciate your comments/suggestions. I've attached a photo for you to view.


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## willingtonpaul (Apr 16, 2010)

unfortunately i have to say i would live with it. rather than cut up a section and trim it off, if it's not torn, its better to leave it as is.

can you get some $$ out of them or another upgrade / mod at their cost as compensation for the screw head doing that ?


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## cdn campers (Oct 31, 2011)

HI. I have the same flooring in my outback, i keep my generator its about 150 lbs in the front bunk area . I had some marks that sunk into the floor but went away after a couple weeks. cant see
were the gen set was at all. maybe you might have some luck too !!!. And on the topic of replacing the flooring . I have been told that lay it down on the floor in the new trailers and build the trailer around it. BUT when the refloor it they will lay it down cut and glue it to the sub floor. dont think they will have to put quarter trim around the edges. i have also been told that the earlier trailers the flooring was glued down to the subfloor and with the cold weather in the northern parts of our countries . there would be alot of issues with this in the spring cracking etc. NOT sure what i would do in your situation. maybe call a flooring repair place and see if some heat would get the gouges out . keystone should know how to get the gouges out im sure they must scuff a few up prior to leaving the factory. maybe a decent cash settlement from keystone might be the way to go. keep us posted and good luck.


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## CamperAndy (Aug 26, 2004)

A good installer can actually patch this by following the seams in the faux planking. You would not see the repair if don correctly.

Do not let the dealership hack at it.


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## hautevue (Mar 8, 2009)

Big CONCUR with CamperAndy on the gouge removal. Find and use a flooring contractor and work out a mutually satisfactory shared payment arrangement w/Keystone. You may want to kick in some bucks so that Keystone knows you're serious and not just a cheap buyer who wants to stick them with "unreasonable" costs.

The flooring can be repaired so that the gouge is essentially not noticeable, but you need a pro to do it.


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## Oregon_Camper (Sep 13, 2004)

hautevue said:


> Big CONCUR with CamperAndy on the gouge removal. Find and use a flooring contractor and work out a mutually satisfactory shared payment arrangement w/Keystone. You may want to kick in some bucks so that Keystone knows you're serious and not just a cheap buyer who wants to stick them with "unreasonable" costs.
> 
> The flooring can be repaired so that the gouge is essentially not noticeable, but you need a pro to do it.


How could he be a "cheap buyer" buy simply demanding the floor isn't damaged due to a quality control issue on Keystone behalf? I don't think he should have to spend a dime to get this repaired.

I wouldn't!


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## hautevue (Mar 8, 2009)

I understand OregonCamper's feelings about having Keystone eat the whole costs. The thing that the owner has to decide is if he's willing to let the dealer do the repair on a composition floor.

If the dealer's work is shoddy, then what? IMHO, I'd be willing to kick in some bucks to avoid a pi##ing contest and have the work done by a flooring contractor. Keystone can probably be sweet-talked into allowing a set dollar amount for the repairs to be done by a flooring contractor when the owner is kicking in money, too.

But that's just me--we all have to decide how much time we are willing to invest to solve a problem.

Yep, Keystone is at fault and the warranty will cover the repair. But surely Keystone will have the dealer do the work. If the work is unsatisfactory to the owner, there will be recriminations and phone calls and letters flying around that I personally would want to avoid as much as possible. But that's me..


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## rving4fun (Sep 24, 2011)

hautevue said:


> I understand OregonCamper's feelings about having Keystone eat the whole costs. The thing that the owner has to decide is if he's willing to let the dealer do the repair on a composition floor.
> 
> If the dealer's work is shoddy, then what? IMHO, I'd be willing to kick in some bucks to avoid a pi##ing contest and have the work done by a flooring contractor. Keystone can probably be sweet-talked into allowing a set dollar amount for the repairs to be done by a flooring contractor when the owner is kicking in money, too.
> 
> ...


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## rving4fun (Sep 24, 2011)

rving4fun said:


> I understand OregonCamper's feelings about having Keystone eat the whole costs. The thing that the owner has to decide is if he's willing to let the dealer do the repair on a composition floor.
> 
> If the dealer's work is shoddy, then what? IMHO, I'd be willing to kick in some bucks to avoid a pi##ing contest and have the work done by a flooring contractor. Keystone can probably be sweet-talked into allowing a set dollar amount for the repairs to be done by a flooring contractor when the owner is kicking in money, too.
> 
> ...


[/quote]
Thanks for all your comments. I did take your advice and talked to the installer who did the floors in our personal residence. Going from the pictures and showing me similar laminate that is in our camper, he advised that he couldn't repair it without the repair being obvious. Nor is there a filler that would hide the gouge. He also felt that the screw head that did the damage most likely damaged the floor under the laminate and that is why the laminate did not pop back up. Without having the exact measurements he's giving me a price of $1,000 to $1,500 to fix it. It bothers me to see the gouge so at this point I'm leaning towards replacement. We are about 1 hr from the Keystone factory so I'm going to ask if we can take it there for the replacement floor. It's hard for me to be objective about this with the dealer because when they prepared the unit for delivery they did not check that the under dinette pull out drawer was fastened so we had a busted cabinet door, the dining table was left up and was bouncing around and damaged the paneling in addition to the floor damage by the slide as well as some other small issues. Needless to say this process of getting a new camper has not been fun.


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## hautevue (Mar 8, 2009)

I certainly understand that the whole process has not been fun! But look at the other side--when you're done the diddling around with the "infant mortality" issues, you'll have a sweet TT and fun trips. Good luck and keep us informed of your travails!


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## jake's outback (Jul 24, 2010)

rving4fun said:


> I understand OregonCamper's feelings about having Keystone eat the whole costs. The thing that the owner has to decide is if he's willing to let the dealer do the repair on a composition floor.
> 
> If the dealer's work is shoddy, then what? IMHO, I'd be willing to kick in some bucks to avoid a pi##ing contest and have the work done by a flooring contractor. Keystone can probably be sweet-talked into allowing a set dollar amount for the repairs to be done by a flooring contractor when the owner is kicking in money, too.
> 
> ...


[/quote]
Thanks for all your comments. I did take your advice and talked to the installer who did the floors in our personal residence. Going from the pictures and showing me similar laminate that is in our camper, he advised that he couldn't repair it without the repair being obvious. Nor is there a filler that would hide the gouge. He also felt that the screw head that did the damage most likely damaged the floor under the laminate and that is why the laminate did not pop back up. Without having the exact measurements he's giving me a price of $1,000 to $1,500 to fix it. It bothers me to see the gouge so at this point I'm leaning towards replacement. We are about 1 hr from the Keystone factory so I'm going to ask if we can take it there for the replacement floor. It's hard for me to be objective about this with the dealer because when they prepared the unit for delivery they did not check that the under dinette pull out drawer was fastened so we had a busted cabinet door, the dining table was left up and was bouncing around and damaged the paneling in addition to the floor damage by the slide as well as some other small issues. Needless to say this process of getting a new camper has not been fun.
[/quote]

Oh boy can I relate. I'm going to save you the long story on the roof of our first new Tent Trailer which needed the wing nut that held the door to the roof repaired and the dealer put a bolt through the roof (apparently the manufacturer said to do that i was told). Now because it was the roof in the end I did end up with a new roof. I think that if you can get it back to the manufacturer for the repair that is the best solution. That's what we ended up doing for the roof on our Tent Trailer. I drove from east of Toronto Ontario to across the border at Port Huron MI where a Factory Rep took it from there. They did the repair at this time of year (had the trailer for a few weeks) the I drove back and picked it up. All was to my satisfaction. A lot easier to replace a tent trailer roof than a floor on any trailer.
Yours is a bit different and unless the plan is to replace the flooring to an as new condition I might be inclined to leave it alone as sometimes repairs are worse than the scar.
Perhaps Dealer and Keystone can provide some sort of payoff in accessories/services to keep you happy. How long is the gouge?

Hope it all works out for you...


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## rving4fun (Sep 24, 2011)

jake said:


> I understand OregonCamper's feelings about having Keystone eat the whole costs. The thing that the owner has to decide is if he's willing to let the dealer do the repair on a composition floor.
> 
> If the dealer's work is shoddy, then what? IMHO, I'd be willing to kick in some bucks to avoid a pi##ing contest and have the work done by a flooring contractor. Keystone can probably be sweet-talked into allowing a set dollar amount for the repairs to be done by a flooring contractor when the owner is kicking in money, too.
> 
> ...


[/quote]
Thanks for all your comments. I did take your advice and talked to the installer who did the floors in our personal residence. Going from the pictures and showing me similar laminate that is in our camper, he advised that he couldn't repair it without the repair being obvious. Nor is there a filler that would hide the gouge. He also felt that the screw head that did the damage most likely damaged the floor under the laminate and that is why the laminate did not pop back up. Without having the exact measurements he's giving me a price of $1,000 to $1,500 to fix it. It bothers me to see the gouge so at this point I'm leaning towards replacement. We are about 1 hr from the Keystone factory so I'm going to ask if we can take it there for the replacement floor. It's hard for me to be objective about this with the dealer because when they prepared the unit for delivery they did not check that the under dinette pull out drawer was fastened so we had a busted cabinet door, the dining table was left up and was bouncing around and damaged the paneling in addition to the floor damage by the slide as well as some other small issues. Needless to say this process of getting a new camper has not been fun.
[/quote]

Oh boy can I relate. I'm going to save you the long story on the roof of our first new Tent Trailer which needed the wing nut that held the door to the roof repaired and the dealer put a bolt through the roof (apparently the manufacturer said to do that i was told). Now because it was the roof in the end I did end up with a new roof. I think that if you can get it back to the manufacturer for the repair that is the best solution. That's what we ended up doing for the roof on our Tent Trailer. I drove from east of Toronto Ontario to across the border at Port Huron MI where a Factory Rep took it from there. They did the repair at this time of year (had the trailer for a few weeks) the I drove back and picked it up. All was to my satisfaction. A lot easier to replace a tent trailer roof than a floor on any trailer.
Yours is a bit different and unless the plan is to replace the flooring to an as new condition I might be inclined to leave it alone as sometimes repairs are worse than the scar.
Perhaps Dealer and Keystone can provide some sort of payoff in accessories/services to keep you happy. How long is the gouge?

Hope it all works out for you...
[/quote]
The gouge is about 4 inches in length. The dealer was able to fix the other scratches so that aren't noticeable unless you look for them. But the gouge is noticeable. We are going to talk to Keystone customer service tomorrow because the dealer has had our camper since November 3rd and other parts are still on order. I'm sorry you had your roof issues. Glad you are satisfied with the end result. I'm sure things will work out for us in the end.


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