The tires on mine were wearing with significant wear on the inside shoulders of the tires. The wheels and tires were definitely splayed out. The dealer where I purchased it did the axle replacement along with brake and bearing replacement. The door side had leaked grease and although I had cleaned it up, the magnet showed signs of excessive wear also so the whole brake assemblies were replaced and a new hub was installed on the door side. The slide side hub was okay. Along with the axle repair, a leak in the slide-out was repaired. The whole job cost me about $3,000.  Given how many miles I have been in the pod, it probably worked out to about ten cents a mile.

The other thing to do is to see if its crowned (cambered) or not. Run a string line along the bottom and measure the gap in the center if there is one. 

Re the brakes, if both sides are out its most likely the wiring. If you've convinced yourself that its not a problem in the trailer connector itself, check the wiring to the magnets next.  The crummy insulation displacement connectors FR uses are pretty notorious for coming undone. You can also check for voltage at the brake magnet connections with your brake controller connected and energized (by taping the manual lever on or having a helper hold in on). 

good luck!

it looks bent to me.  also, i just hauled the pod to put up for a while and no trailer brakes.  my brake controller works fine on a flatbed trailer with a bargman connecter, so i dont think it is the controller.  I just reread this whole thread and i am still not sure what Stephen H ended up doing, replace or no? Anyway i guess i am starting down this axle replacement routine.  Please give me some guidance.  I think it is a Dexter axle. 

+1

One of our members has suggested that but no one has tried it yet as far as I know. The only reason it wouldn't work that I can think of is that you might end up with a higher ride height than you would like. You would still have the same issue with a large overhang between the wheels and the trailer frame so a higher rated axle would probably be needed. 

First, my frame tubes were 0.1 inch when I mic'd them, so marwayne, you might want to check your 1/8 inch number again. If FR/Lippert went from a 0.125 thick tube to a 0.1 thick one between 2012 and 2015, on a heavier rPod (179 vs 172) then that's truly annoying. 

The tubing you see here goes all the way to the front.

Do you have a photo of what you did marwayne? 

One of these days I'll take a look at the frame load again and see how much safety factor there is in that. But regardless of where the frame comes out you'd still be picking up liability if something bad happened and you were knowingly overweight on your trailer.  

Whether or not you should get a heavier axle will depend on ow much weight you're carrying on it. if its not near its 3500 lb limit then it probably bent from hitting a pothole really hard or something like that, and a heavier axle wouldn't be either needed or desirable.  But if its at or near its load limit then a heavier axle would probably be an appropriate choice because replacing it with the same axle will likely just result in another bent axle, and because you'd be in the appropriate weight range for the next size up, so the ride wouldn't be a significant issue. 

Can you weigh your axle as you load your trailer currently? Try a public scale or your local wast transfer station.  If you use a weight distribution hitch,  leave that tensioned, it adds weight to the rear axle. 

But it just became too frustrating to get a straight answer from anyone and I also got sticker shock on the cost of a new axle plus new brakes and hubs, about $900.  And after all I don't have an axle problem now and I drive very slowly when I get on rough roads. 

So, I went ahead and ordered  15 inch 5 x 4.5 wheels and 225/75R15 LRD tires to fit the oem axle. The tires and wheels are rated at 2520 lbs so at least this will reduce the likelihood of a catastrophic failure on the road. Axle problems seem like they take time to develop and give  plenty of warning via tire wear, while overloaded tires can suffer blowouts. Time will tell if I made the right decision or not I guess.

I know you have your trailer in the shop now so I'm very curious to hear what they find when they inspect your axle and what solution you go with, so do please keep us posted.

Thanks!

Instead, the new response I got just created more confusion. Josh in the sales configuration group said that the information I was given initially (that our axles could have been rated for 4400 lbs) was incorrect. John said that none of the 3500 lb series torsion axles can be uprated to any higher load rating. 

Sounds like you have your brake issues under control. I'm still working on mine, I have about 800 (mountainous) miles on my new brakes and drums and am still learning and sorting things. There's more on my other thread for the that. 

  

I found out that although the hardware is 4400 lbs, it is derated to 3500 because of the space between the axle arms and the mounting brackets. If it were closer, the rating would be higher. I did not get a good answer to either but I do have an appointment to take it to the dealer where I bought it where the axle and brakes will be checked.

I had cleaned and repacked the bearings and replaced the grease seals before this trip. I think the brakes worked pretty good. However, toward the end, I started to notice a little pulling, probably the door side where the magnet was showing quite a bit more wear than the one on the slide side. Still, the brakes on both sides did not seem excessively warm, even after some significant downhill grades today.

The Baja roads are way better than in the good old days I gather ... but the portions of Highway 1 near the State border and Guerrero Negro were nerve-wracking and awfully narrow, crumbled and potholed.  Then we tried to cut up to the new road being built South from San Filipe on our way back North, which ended up being a 30 mile or so adventure over rubble and some really crazy rough patches more suited to rock-crawling 4x4s.  That road will be fantastic when completed in another year or so - they had a ton of crews and equipment working on it.

The trip was exceptionally interesting and exotic, there was beautiful solitude and camping right on the beach both on the Pacific side and Gulf of California.  We had only two slight negative experiences - out of the dozen or so military checkpoints one slow, surly search fingering stuff in our cupboards and drawers which was annoying, obviously intended for us to give some items away, but it ended with no problem.  Then a bad experience with town dogs in Santa Rosalia while we were walking.  Ended without any bites but I was definitely into fight or flight mode and do not like the way they let their very territorial dogs roam in some of the towns.

Sorry for any thread hijack ... our trip was actually an illustration of the “fake” marketing aspect of the HRE models made to appear as if they can be backcountry vehicles.  Not really.  The construction is too conventional and the bouncing, flexing aspects are not addressed by the engineering.  Even with the axle risers I have bent both rear stabilizers, bent the axle, broken some interior trim pieces, had drawers and cupboards fly open with ensuing mayhem and mess.  We have pushed the limits, true, but really the proper limits are well-graded gravel, and maybe very low speed last few miles to destination over less maintained roads.  

Will consider a 15 inch wheel - I gather it is far more common and there are a lot more tire choices, when I got caught with my tires wearing I found out there isn’t a lot of 14 inch choice readily available in the load ratings we require.  But maybe adding in new wheels and tires is too much expense.  I have to also figure I’m putting money into a 6 year old trailer that already has a list of to-do items as the components start to fail from age or use - broken electric switch on the water heater, broken support strap on the grey water outlet pipe, seals requiring their second major overhaul, new propane regulator, new TV/DVD player.  Last year we upgraded the mattress (great), replaced the rear curtain with a de-browned new curtain complete with black-out liner, new shower head, upgraded the dinette cushions ... repainted and de scaled all the exterior black steel ... I do catch myself looking at new Lances and, (lottery win required) Airstreams.  But I gather they all have their maintenance problems.  The Airstreams in particular leave a fair gap between the marketing position of being premium and the best, and a host of regularly occurring defects and failures, especially water infiltration, that’s disappointing to new owners.

Could be worse - I used to own a sailboat, and marine quality maintenance and repair was incredibly expensive compared to RV’s.  Love my Pod and the places it has taken us.

Gotta love the topes in Baja....been "surprised" by those in the past too .  But Baja is just too nice to not visit just because of that. 

Sounds like you are shopping for a new axle.  For Lippert the load range we have is 3500-4400 lbs.  If so and you want to try to reduce the likelihood of a bent axle in the future, you might want to go for the next load range higher, which starts at 5200 lbs, otherwise is likely you'd be getting the same axle. The heavier axle has 6 bolt hubs, so new wheels would be required. Don't know about Dexter, but probably its similar. 

Watching this thread.

I bent both sides toe-out pretty badly on a rough trip through Baja this Spring.  Roads were awful and unavoidable potholes and broken pavement in places, but I suspect it was some unmarked topes (those speed humps they have on the highways around towns)  that did us in.  Slapped on the brakes but still the trailer took to the air air once or twice, even though we were on the lookout ... best plans poor execution.  And the WDH no doubt made it worse.

Thought maybe just earlier tire replacement would be enough, but wore a set of new tires down to the cords showing after less than 5000 miles, so that is a no-go approach not just on cost and inconvenience, but also safety.  A preventable tire blow out is way too risky.

Not handy enough or mechanical enough to replace myself, so dreading the cost, but after looking around and researching I gather there is no easy fix but replacement, and the fact of the matter is these 3500# (or even if they are down-labeled 4200#) torsion axles are just not robust enough to leave a sufficient margin for typical unintended abuse over many years, whether from overloading or road hazards.  In my case we have never overloaded, but there just isn't a huge margin for vertical pressure on those spindles in any event.

I am developing a preference for better roads I think.  But have to say the axle did not pack it in until it had carried the trailer over some very rough terrain, we dragged it to some amazing places over the years.