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This summer I climbed up top to inspect the seals and found that the caulking appeared to be in the process of "pulling away" from the fiberglass... seal beginning to fail, broken seal - whatever you want to call it. Basically it looks like if you ignored it the caulking could eventually fail. I removed and cleaned just beyond the areas that looked like they could fail and replaced the caulking with what one of the local trailer/rv shops recommended - Dicor Lap Sealant. I also touched up a couple of areas below that would likely not leak anyway but original caulk was applied "generously". It looks a lot better now. The other area I did was the spoiler - I'd like to yank it off and just get rid if it. It is a very flexible black plastic as has been mentioned that may be slightly buckled where it is screwed in. What a terrible design idea.... So I resealed those as well since some of the gobs of caulk over the screws were barely hanging on or gone! Luckily no leaks yet - that I know of.
This is long winded but I have some time and dry weather and decided to do a bit more up top and the rear window before they failed since it is so prevalent. After additional research I believe the better caulk to use is ProFlex RV flexible sealant. If I could specify exactly what I wanted in a trailer I'd get rid of the R-Pod. Also I asked about trailers that don't require seal maintenance and apparently they ALL need seal inspection and maintenance so I'll stick with the R-Pod-
While there the sales guy said the caulk is just the secondary seal on the outside and what actually keeps the water out is behind the trim - that makes sense to me. He stated the best way to check seals is to bring it in and have them run something like a compression test. They hook up a fan to the door and then check all the areas that are sealed, seams with soapy water and if it bubbles it needs to be re-caulked / sealed. $150 for this test. He said check it yearly... sounds like it might not be a bad way to go but it seems to me that R-Pods are not air tight & I don't see how that test can be that reliable. In addition like so many things it depends on the technician running the test.
Have any of you had this type of test done on your R-Pod as the yearly seal inspection? Advice?
I'd love to replace that flat rear window with a curved one that opens also.....
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R-Podder by process of elimination
2014 RP179
2011 GMC CrewCab Short Bed
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