Laninga's Travel Blog

A friend of mine has a coach just like mine, but a 2007 model.  It is only 2 years older than mine, but he had to replace the awning material over the slide toppers.  Turned out is really is a bad design by Carefree, the manufacturer of the awnings.  Our coach has the awnings you’ll find on many higer end coaches, and the fancy cover is also the problem.

See, the cover has a long, sharp edge that is very close to the awning when it is in.  So, when you’re driving, the wind will cause the awning material to flap, and prematurely wear out the material.  See the picture for the damage on my coach, and it is only 9 months old with 12,000 miles.

You can see where the cover edge damages the fabric

So what I did is buy some chrome edging for car doors.  This is actually a plastic material with adhesive inside.  All you do is clean the offending edge, slide the edging in place, press firmly, and it is done.  It took me about one hour to add this to all four slides.  I would expect this will eliminate the damage caused by the sharp edge.

You can see the plastic edging over the sharp edge

Another easy project that I expect to save a bunch of money down the road.  Total cost: $36.