Joel Sheriff Posted March 1, 2020 Share Posted March 1, 2020 With the four tags above can someone explain how turning off a station in San Diego my base plate breaks through the end of the rail on the chassis both sides and is left hanging by one bolt. Torn off the bumper face, face plate, wiring and a few tubes and lines that got in the way. >$9k later, no total on vehicle since its low milage and all the bells and whistles. 18,5k retail only $9k to fix. Any ideas what was done wrong on the install 2 yrs ago by a hitch guy in CA or a flaw in the design of the 2014 or just Bad luck. Anyone else have this happen? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chargerman Posted March 1, 2020 Share Posted March 1, 2020 The tags don’t appear to work. Just brings me back to your post. A few pics posted here would help us understand the failure Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mel S - '96 Safari Posted March 1, 2020 Share Posted March 1, 2020 Joel S 8 hours ago, Joel Sheriff said: With the four tags above can someone explain how turning off a station in San Diego my base plate breaks through the end of the rail on the chassis both sides and is left hanging by one bolt. Torn off the bumper face, face plate, wiring and a few tubes and lines that got in the way. >$9k later, no total on vehicle since its low milage and all the bells and whistles. 18,5k retail only $9k to fix. Any ideas what was done wrong on the install 2 yrs ago by a hitch guy in CA or a flaw in the design of the 2014 or just Bad luck. Anyone else have this happen? Joe S Because they are paying a >$9k loss methinks your insurance company will investigate/find the cause. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chargerman Posted March 1, 2020 Share Posted March 1, 2020 Insurance Co likely won’t worry about root cause. Without injury or significant loss they will likely just write the check. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joel Sheriff Posted March 1, 2020 Author Share Posted March 1, 2020 They are but why and how should this occur.? Cars in shop photos on my wife's camera. Just picture the car having a base plate installed taken apart with the two ends of the rails having bolts pulled straight out with 1/2 in steel hole ripped open. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chargerman Posted March 1, 2020 Share Posted March 1, 2020 Looking forward to seeing pics Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgecederholm Posted March 1, 2020 Share Posted March 1, 2020 Joel, This has happened a few times before, but not many reported here. It happened to us back in 2009. We were on US-101 south when the road made a sharp right turn. A cat sitting in the road caused me to stop. Out of the corner of my eye, someone was passing us. Much to my surprise, it was me. The toad broke loose and freewheeled right into someone's front hedge. The base plate ripped off, pulling the fascia along with. The emergency brake activator was unfortunately attached to the fascia so was useless. There was about $17k 2009 dollars in damage to our toad. We found that, of the 10 bolts holding the base plate on, only 2 still had nuts. The original installer (CW Denton TX) did not use jamb nuts or LocTite. I pushed our insurance company to go after them, but they just paid. I will give Camping World (Mesa AZ) a little credit. When I showed up with my "lifetime installation warranty", they reluctantly stood behind it and replaced everything, including a new base plate which wasn't really needed (it came off clean). And they let me inspect the installation with both jamb nuts and LocTite Red before they closed up the fascia. Of course, the new mounting bracket had a prominent decal saying that re-torquing was needed every 3,000 miles. As it happened, we were heading to a Monacos-in-Motion caravan when this happened. When I told my story, we started looking at other members' toads and found 2 of 12 had loose baseplates. We pitched in and fixed them before the caravan kicked off. As my setup is hard to access, I made a tool out of hardwood that I can slip into the bracket hole tightly and lever up and down to verify no play in the baseplate, which I do at least annually. George C, 2005 Exec-<2005 Range Rover Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jacwjames Posted March 1, 2020 Share Posted March 1, 2020 I installed my base plate myself and followed the instructions to the letter including the use of the red loctite. The base plate also included 2 very heavy cables with shackles with instructions to wrap around the frame and the base plate. I looked an newer base plates and they do no require/include the cables but to me it's cheap insurance. I mounted my break away tank up just in front of the radiator attached to the frame. I inspect my base plate every time I'm under the Jeep, did it just last month. All bolts were tight and the rest of the base plate looked as new. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joel Sheriff Posted March 2, 2020 Author Share Posted March 2, 2020 Thanks George, did it split your rails on the vehicle or come loose at the bolts. With 17k in assuming chassis damage but on a RR that's not a total either. Here are after pix. Notice green markings by body shop indicating points of interest where stress or damage occurred. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgecederholm Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 Joel, Wow, that’s a lot more damage, visually speaking, than we had. Probably because we are a more traditional SUV situation. Our damage was mostly cosmetic. In fact, we loaded as many parts as we could collect in the back, bungee corded the hanging parts, and drove separately from Hebo (northwest Oregon) to Sacramento for the repairs at a shop recommended by our insurance carrier. It took 28 days for repairs and repaint. Most of it was body work, although there was minor damage to a couple of wiring harnesses. Insurance provided a rental and we did our caravan from Truckee to Sacramento to Napa, and the Rover was ready on the last day of the excursion. In hindsight, couldn’t have worked out better in a tough situation. But, I still periodically check the base plate. In fact, just did it again today! 😳 George C Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
genemenne Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 Would be interested what brand of base plate was involved. Thanks. Gene M 2004 Monaco Knight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joel Sheriff Posted March 2, 2020 Author Share Posted March 2, 2020 Here are after pix. Notice green markings by body shop indicating points of interest where stress or damage occurred. Don't know the mfg of the baseplate it was put on in CA after someone hit my front end. Mercury Ins paid for the complete repair then that was their insurance. Never thought to ask assuming it's auto specific it had to be right. The current state is worse than the occurrence. They took it apart to diagnose. I too picked up all the pieces and drove from San Diego to Scottsdale Glendale AZ not attached to the rig. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chargerman Posted March 2, 2020 Share Posted March 2, 2020 My son is a GM of a large collision facility and they are generous with the markers. Insurance companies hate “add ons” to an estimate after the green light is given so they identify anything they can that might be the slightest chance of potential additional work once they get into the job. My Blue Ox baseplate shave always come with the cable sets to tie the baseplate to the frame in case of failure. I always thought it was overkill until I saw your posting. Hope it all works out ok for you! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joel Sheriff Posted March 2, 2020 Author Share Posted March 2, 2020 This shop has a great rep and is going to give me factory specs to show the vehicle is back to new plus lifetime on all work done. They do auto and sister company all pro does larger truck Rv etc. All toll it will probably be 6 weeks leave of to pick up. Geico wouldn't total... Vehicle has too high a retail value. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MSHappyCampers Posted March 15, 2020 Share Posted March 15, 2020 WOW! That's scary! We are pulling a 2013 CRV. Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paul J A Posted March 15, 2020 Share Posted March 15, 2020 (edited) When mounting base plates to a vehicle, you may want to consider using Class 8 bolts, and castle nuts, and drilling a hole in the bolt to insert a cotter pin when assembled on the vehicle. You can use a spacer for the frame thickness, and bench assemble, drill the hole for the cotter pin, then assemble on the toad. Use stainless cotter pins. We did, and had no loosening or failures in 10 years full timing. Edited March 15, 2020 by Paul A. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joel Sheriff Posted March 15, 2020 Author Share Posted March 15, 2020 Joe, good info but I'm having a pro hitch guy so it. I I've been full time for 5 years Rving 13 and 3 different vehicles. Never as much as a loose nut. This was a fluke I hope. Unless the last guy over torqued or didn't Tighten enough but this plate was on 2 years with no issues or loose anything. Shit just happens I guess. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96 EVO Posted April 12, 2020 Share Posted April 12, 2020 On 3/1/2020 at 1:52 PM, jacwjames said: I installed my base plate myself and followed the instructions to the letter including the use of the red loctite. The base plate also included 2 very heavy cables with shackles with instructions to wrap around the frame and the base plate. I looked an newer base plates and they do no require/include the cables but to me it's cheap insurance. I mounted my break away tank up just in front of the radiator attached to the frame. I inspect my base plate every time I'm under the Jeep, did it just last month. All bolts were tight and the rest of the base plate looked as new. I too installed my own base plate. The frame bolts provided by Demco came with blue loctite already applied. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scotty Hutto Posted April 13, 2020 Share Posted April 13, 2020 On 3/2/2020 at 12:33 PM, Joel Sheriff said: Don't know the mfg of the baseplate it was put on in CA after someone hit my front end. Mercury Ins paid for the complete repair then that was their insurance. Never thought to ask assuming it's auto specific it had to be right. Joel, I'm no expert but I am a mechanical engineer with some experience with metal fatigue... understanding that all I've seen is your pictures and read your descriptions, I'm going to theorize that you may have had some metal fatigue in those frame rails from the previous accident that wasn't noticed by the previous bodyshop. (even if you didn't have a base plate then - if you did that would heighten my suspicion!) Just a speculative theory... but this seems so far beyond the usual I'm hoping there's a clear explanation out there somewhere. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pduggs Posted April 17, 2020 Share Posted April 17, 2020 I have a two year old Roadmaster Nighthawk on a 2013 CRV. I will be checking those bolts ASAP. Thanks for alerting us to this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wamcneil Posted April 18, 2020 Share Posted April 18, 2020 (edited) Many years ago I had an paint and body shop. Occasionally we’d get a head scratcher and it was fun to try and reconstruct what may have happened. It might help to see the what the bumper reinforcement looks like. I assume the base plates are still attached to it? Are all of the bolts still tight with locktite, or have they loosened? Without knowing more, I would suspect that your base plates are fastened primarily to the bumper reinforcement? Looks like there may have been one additional fastener down through the top of the longitudinal members that has also torn out towards the front when things parted . My guess is that the bolts that ripped out of the top had loosened, allowing the base plate loads to move the bumper reinforcement back and forth a bit (possibly made worse by the prior accident damage?). That movement would eventually fatigue the metal where the bumper reinforcement attaches to the unibody. The driver side let go first and pulled forward, tearing off the passenger side. I’m glad nobody was hurt! Walter Edited April 20, 2020 by wamcneil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walt2137 Posted April 19, 2020 Share Posted April 19, 2020 (edited) On 3/1/2020 at 3:52 PM, jacwjames said: I installed my base plate myself and followed the instructions to the letter including the use of the red loctite. The base plate also included 2 very heavy cables with shackles with instructions to wrap around the frame and the base plate. I looked an newer base plates and they do no require/include the cables but to me it's cheap insurance. I mounted my break away tank up just in front of the radiator attached to the frame. I inspect my base plate every time I'm under the Jeep, did it just last month. All bolts were tight and the rest of the base plate looked as new. James the reason that Blue Ox added those cables years ago is they had a lot of failures, if your base plate is installed properly with thread loc and torque as per instructions i dont think you would have a problem with any baseplate , i do think Roadmaster base plates are more robust and i have installed the baseplates on all my toads (over the years and for friends and never had one to come loose . Edited April 19, 2020 by walt2137 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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