My Family’s $62,800 Camper Is So Poorly Built That The Dumbest Things Keep Breaking On Every Trip

Buying a new camper is supposed to be a great moment. A new camper might be the second biggest purchase you make in your life, and potentially one of the largest vehicles to create memories with your family. That’s what my parents expected when they bought a 2022 Heartland Mallard M33 in 2022. This $62,800 trailer has found creative ways to break down on nearly every trip since it was new. Three years in, it’s still somewhat broken.

My parents pulled the Mallard out to their favorite camping spot last weekend, the cozy acres of Fish Lake Beach in Volo, Illinois. My family has been going to this campground regularly for the past two decades, and it’s always a great time no matter what you’re sleeping in. This weekend was no different. My wife and I rode in on the three wheels of a new Polaris Slingshot and got to enjoy some good eating from a grill, a campfire, and good times in our little plot of grass. These were experiences that you can’t get in a hotel, and part of why people buy RVs in the first place.

Unfortunately, the Mallard has been doing its best to challenge that previous paragraph. Some of it has to do with some truly baffling design decisions, but a lot of it has been just the fact that the camper has been finding admittedly amusing ways to break. Well, they’re amusing to me, anyway. The actual owners of the unit, my parents, are dismayed.

The 2022 Heartland Mallard M33 is a large bumper-pull travel trailer that weighs 7,746 pounds empty, stretches about 37 feet from bow to stern, and is advertised as being able to sleep at least nine people. As I’ve reported in the past, Heartland is a family-oriented luxury brand within Thor Industries with a focus on following the hottest interior design trends. In our unit’s case, it’s sort of emulating a generic farmhouse.

My parents bought it in March 2022. Back then, the Mallard M33 had a sticker price of $62,800, but my parents negotiated Camping World down to $58,000. According to the manufacturing sticker, the trailer had been finished only a few months before my parents picked it up. It smelled and looked fresh, just like all of the rigs I see at the RV shows.

Sadly, the freshness didn’t last very long because the camper has been a bit of a problem child ever since.

I’m Not The Only One Concerned With RV Quality

Before I continue, I want to be clear that my intent isn’t to bash Heartland RV or its parent, Thor Industries. Apparently, I’ve gained a bit of a reputation in this industry for being a bit of a harbinger of doom. Most RV blogs and RV influencers just repackage press releases for content. While I will also write about a new RV in the news, like this week’s Frank Lloyd Wright Airstream, I will also voice my opinion if I think quality or design isn’t up to snuff.

I’ve now been to a lot of RV shows and have seen hundreds (thousands?) of brand-new RVs. As much as I want to write about nothing but why some camper is awesome, it’s also hard to ignore when I spot glaring issues. Because if I see these issues, then someone spending potentially a significant portion of their net worth on a rig will probably notice them even more. I can just walk away from a poorly-built RV show demo and have content to write later, but it’s not as easy if you’re the owner.

My goal isn’t to sink the RV industry. I just want to see better quality because that’s a win for everyone. Buyers have a product they’ll love for years, the companies gain great reputations, and people keep buying RVs. I want everyone who wants to go RVing to be able to do so with a smile on their face, not with thoughts of regret. This is why you’ve seen me championing the industry’s recent affordable options and cheering the companies that do put in the work to make something that holds together.

It’s not just me. RV Travel also hasn’t been afraid to report on quality issues, and famed automotive lemon law attorney Steve Lehto frequently churns out videos about RV quality nightmares. Youtuber Liz Amazing also punches out so many viral videos about bad RV quality that she’s another person that the industry isn’t super jazzed about. Here’s one:

My point here is that people have been complaining about RV quality for a long time. This isn’t a problem that was born out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nor is it specifically any model or brand. You may remember when I reported on frame failure in Grand Design fifth-wheel trailers. That’s a brand of Winnebago, not Thor Industries! An update on that situation is also long overdue.

Broken From New

I think the best way to understand what’s happening with my family’s camper is to start at the beginning in 2022. Here’s what I wrote in a previous entry:

My parents took delivery of a unit that was broken straight from the factory. Right out of the gate, the first thing I noticed was that the unit had cool LED light strips on the front cap. However, not only were these strips the kind of crap you get from Amazon for $20, but they were attached to the cap with a weak adhesive. Of course, the light strips were already peeling off and the trailer hadn’t even been on a single trip yet.

Honestly, that’s a small problem, but it got worse from there. I moved to the side of the trailer and found that one of the RV’s aerodynamic side skirts (the dealer tech calls these “J-channels”) was halfway through deleting itself from the unit. How were these even bolted on? Through cheap self-tapping screws. Then I saw how the sealant around every window looked like it was applied by a seven-year-old kid.

Somehow, it still got worse. One of the safety chain hooks fell off of the trailer on its first tow, the emergency brake cable disintegrated in my hand, and then there’s the rust. The trailer was just a few months old, yet the underbody had a surprising amount of surface rust. By that summer, the frame had more surface rust than our family’s old camper, a 2007 Adirondack by Thor. Don’t worry, the absurdity of that statement hasn’t escaped my family.

I was shocked when the dealer told us that the “solution” to the frame rust was a can of Rust-Oleum Rust Reformer. I’ve asked around to other dealers and all of them recommended the same thing. With all due respect to the Rust-Oleum Corporation, Rust Reformer is a band-aid, not a fix.

It’s fine if you’re just trying to get your crapbox car through the winter, but it’s frankly insufficient for a brand-new $62,800 travel trailer. This rust issue doesn’t appear to be an anomaly, either. I always check the frames of campers at every RV show, and most of the Heartland units have exhibited a surprising amount of rust only a few months out of the factory.

Anyway, all of these issues were discovered before my family even took the trailer camping for the first time. So, we delayed our plans and sent it back to the dealer. Somehow, the trailer was still broken when we got it back months later, from a previous entry:

In addition to the safety problems, we found three light switches that weren’t even screwed in, random staples everywhere on the ceiling, a window valence that fell off a wall, and a bathtub that wasn’t even close to being installed correctly. In fact, the bathtub wasn’t even screwed in or secured, but just sitting in place. Because of this, there was a huge water leak when we tested the shower and tub. Amazingly, that wasn’t even the only place water was gushing out into the wrong places. The water heater also sprayed water all over everything inside and outside of the trailer.

All of these new problems meant that the trailer spent its first year sitting at the dealership. Sometimes, it took the dealership multiple tries to get things right, too. For example, the loose bathtub was finally screwed in by the dealership, but whatever tech did the job mounted the tub in a horribly crooked position. It took the dealership two more tries before the bathtub was finally correctly mounted in and as you’re soon about to read, it may have to go back again.

The rest of the year was spent waiting on parts or just a free technician. Our local dealer says it was swamped with work throughout the pandemic and immediately after, so even when the parts did come in there might not have been anyone to work on the camper. Oh, and while our camper was at the dealer for a year, someone broke in and stole some really specific items. They took precisely three dinette cushions plus all of the silverware, plates, pots, pans, and towels that my mom stored in the trailer.

The dealership later admitted fault for the missing items. Apparently, the cushions were removed from our trailer and were placed in a Mallard that had arrived from the factory missing its cushions. This assertion is insane. It means that someone at the factory screwed up and shipped a trailer without three cushions. Then, instead of ordering new cushions, the dealer took cushions out of a used trailer that was in for service and put them into a new trailer.

Maybe it didn’t actually happen like that, but it was our local Camping World affiliate that made such a wild claim. At the very least, the dealer did reimburse us for the lost items and give us new cushions, so we were made whole in the end. But, three years later, I’m still left thinking: Who the heck steals disposable plates?

New Year, New Problems

All of this happened in our first year of ownership. Because of it and the long wait between repairs, my family took the unit out only once or twice during that period of time. But hey, summer 2023 was a new year, so maybe the camper was finally going to work, right?

Well, I had more bad news to report:

We first discovered things weren’t quite right when we tried to turn on the kitchen’s LED lights, which now don’t work.

Then, we tried to open the refrigerator to put food in it. The door jammed on the second closure, and when we tried to clear the jam, the door responded by snapping off its handle. I couldn’t help but laugh so hard that I started crying. This is the kind of stuff from a comedy movie, but a dumb one like an Adam Sandler flick.

And we’re not done yet. We found that the water heater wasn’t working. While I was troubleshooting it, I opened up the outdoor kitchen, which revealed that the refrigerator had pulled itself from the wall, taking its holder with it. Meanwhile, the ceiling of the outdoor kitchen is separating, causing a snow of particle board dust.

Inside, we found that the window shades don’t like to stay open on their own and perhaps thanks to Chicago potholes, interior wall trim is falling off. Also comical is the fact that every single fixture mounted to the walls is crooked.

If that wasn’t aggravating enough, the kitchen sink suddenly became about as sealed as a sieve. But hey, at least this time my family was able to get a few great trips out of the unit in 2023, so it wasn’t all bad. The water heater also had some sort of internal failure, which caused it to induce a steady water leak. Thankfully, the broken heater leaked to the outside of the trailer, so that was good.

Maybe Next Year

A new year brought new challenges, and the camper continued its record of breaking in 2024. By that year, my parents had used the unit only about five or six times. It spent the rest of its time either at the dealer or in storage.

The Mallard had a great start to 2024. Camping World spent winter 2023 replacing the faulty water heater, fixing the bad interior LED wiring, replacing the broken handles on the refrigerator, straightening up the crooked fixtures, removing the random staples from the ceiling, securing the outdoor kitchen’s refrigerator, and stopping the sink from losing its drink. All of this was done because, come 2024, the trailer was due to lose its bumper-to-bumper warranty. But truth be told, so much of this should have been fixed in 2022 at the factory.

From that point forward, my parents would be responsible for fixing the dumb things that broke, and the trailer didn’t take its foot off the gas when it came to breaking things. Things went well in 2024 until my family took it out for a trip in early September:

Dad reports that first, the cap for the tanks blew off on the highway. Ok, that’s stupid, but something that does sometimes happen with campers. Then he made me laugh immediately after when he said “Then, the handle for the black tank blew off.”

Alright, that one is new to me and I still cannot stop laughing. Look, it’s a small issue because you can still pull on the rod with your hand or a pair of pliers, but still, that’s silly.

Then there’s the glob of foam around the tank exit, which is supposed to protect the wiring underneath and keep wildlife out of the trailer’s underbody. Well, some animals have been trying to get their way through the seal.

Sheryl and I arrived at the camper on Saturday, and we found that my parents had filled the interior refrigerator to the brim with steaks and such, so Sheryl’s drinks had to go outside. That’s the great thing about having more than one refrigerator! Upon opening the hatch, I found more of the particleboard “sawdust” material sprayed around the outdoor kitchen. The shifting wall problem has not been resolved.

The materials of the trailer also hadn’t aged well. Wall and ceiling trim began popping out or buckling all over the trailer’s interior. The paper-thin walls flex when you hit a light switch or adjust the thermostat. Even the shower liner came out of the wall all by itself. Everything in this trailer feels almost insultingly cheap, from how the wallpaper is peeling by itself to how the interior upholstery has the strength of wet noodles. Check this out:

The rust also managed to make some decent progress. Keep in mind that we do not use this trailer at all in the winter!

All things considered, the Mallard didn’t have that bad of a 2024. The equipment held together in 2024, and nothing truly awful happened. Everything that went wrong was purely cosmetic.

One More Time

My parents pulled the Mallard out of storage about a month or so ago. Then, they took it to their favorite RV shop to have it prepared for the summer. Now, things get really bizarre right from the jump.

This time, we didn’t discover missing cushions or cookware that was Thanos-snapped out of existence. Instead, we found that someone had gone through the trailer’s liquor cabinet and emptied the bottles. Judging from the random footprints we found all over the trailer, someone seemingly threw a party in there. I hope they enjoyed themselves, I guess? This time, nobody took responsibility for our bizarre discovery.

But, fine, whatever. Missing alcohol isn’t the end of the world. What was rather confusing was how, on our first trip this spring, the power awning refused to deploy. Hit the button and you get nothing. Thankfully, the trailer’s electrical panel has a fault-checker system, so I used that to see if a fuse had blown or something.

Nope! The fuse was just straight up missing. Huh? I interviewed my parents and my brother. None of them even knew where the electrical panel was. Did the fuse blow, and the dealer forget to replace it? Fuses just don’t disappear! I still don’t have an answer to this mystery that I’m satisfied with, but a new fuse restored function to the awning.

A few really amusing failures happened this weekend. My mom attempted to open the refrigerator, only for us to now hear the snap that we’re now familiar with. Yep, somehow, the door handle broke again. Thankfully, it didn’t break off fully this time, but this is getting quite weird. We haven’t broken a single refrigerator door handle in the Adirondack. Are these handles just worse? Is my mom stronger than she thinks?

My mom was eventually able to remove the meat from the refrigerator for cleaning. But the sink wasn’t about that business. The seal that the dealer had replaced in 2023 failed again, sending a deluge of water into the area under the island, where it eventually began leaking out onto the rest of the floor.

Thankfully, we experienced only one more failure on that trip. I tried to open a blind to let some light in, and both of its anchor points failed in that instant. It was so stupid that I had to sit down because I was crying laughing.

This year, my parents have also started complaining about the trailer’s design. Previously, I noted how the primary bedroom is hot like an oven and is too small to get dressed in. I also noted how the exterior lights are awful and the primary bedroom has terrible ventilation. My parents found complaints that I hadn’t even seen previously.

One of the compliments that I give this trailer is to its main entry stair design. In the past, RV stairs bolted into the area just under the entry door. Over time, these stairs would rust out, jam, or just fall out of the trailer. The stairs also didn’t feel particularly sturdy under the weight of a heavy foot. They sucked!

But these stairs rock. They have adjustable legs so that the stairs sit firmly on the ground. Walking up these stairs feels no different than walking up a staircase at home. They’re wide, sturdy, and confidence-inspiring. At least they are to me. I also like how the stairs store inside the trailer, so they don’t get rusty.

My parents pointed out two big fails with the camper’s stairs. The rear door’s stairs hang so far up off the ground that they’re simply inaccessible for my elderly parents. The main entry stair? My parents have trouble climbing them without any sort of handle to grab onto. The only handle is that little afterthought shown in the picture.

RV buyers trend toward older age groups, so it is a bit weird that this trailer sucks for an elderly person to get into. Thankfully, RV supplier Lippert does sell a $67 handrail attachment that you can put onto these stairs. But I’m left wondering why this $62,800 trailer didn’t have it from the factory in the first place.

My mom also hates the trailer’s stereo. It doesn’t have any ability to connect to Bluetooth, and the radio antenna is so weak it barely captures local stations. Again, this is an issue that can be fixed with an aftermarket stereo, but still, you’d think that such a mod shouldn’t have to be done in a unit built in 2022.

Earlier, I said that the trailer has room for at least nine sleepers. How does that work? Up to two people can be expected to sleep in the primary bedroom up front. Two more people can take the pull-out sofa, one or two people can take the dinette bed, and up to four people can sleep in the bunkhouse in the rear.

The bunkhouse arrangement doesn’t really work. One person gets to sleep on a shelf above the outdoor kitchen. There’s no railing here, so I hope this person doesn’t toss and turn. Another person gets to take a bed that comes down from the wall. Two more people can sleep on the folding cushions on the floor. But here’s the stupid catch: If you fold out the cushions, you can no longer open the door to the bunkhouse without folding one of the cushions first. Brilliant.

Good Ideas, Bad Execution

It’s not all bad. There are lots of things that I love about this trailer.

I love how the blinds actually darken the trailer, so you can continue sleeping even after the sun has come up. I also like how stable the trailer is on the highway and how the stabilizer jacks aren’t weak arms. I also dig the power awning and those super secure stairs. I even like how the main entry door holds itself open using friction rather than a flimsy plastic prop. It’s even clever how the bathroom can be accessed from the outside for those emergency roadside visits to the toilet.

There are lots of good ideas here, but they’re just surrounded by bad quality.

Last year, my parents had already come to the conclusion that they didn’t want the trailer anymore. However, current Mallard M33 values suggest that selling it would result in a $30,000 loss. So, my parents aren’t quite sure what to do next. They’ve concluded that the Mallard experience was a failure for them, but they don’t want to stomach losing so much money. For now, my parents will continue reluctantly taking the trailer out.

If you take anything away from this, it’s that you should never buy a camper sight-unseen. Always look over a unit before you part ways with any money. If you don’t know what to look for, hire someone who does. As for the RV industry, all I ask is for better quality control. I don’t hate you! I love RVs! I just want them to be better.