NHTSA Complaint #11441127 — 2018 THOR MOTOR COACH TUSCANY

On Sunday afternoon 20 June while traveling westbound on I-10 about 50 miles east of Ft. Stockton, TX, the passenger side rear slideout extended on its own. This slideout is about 2 feet deep so the width of my motor home suddenly changed from 8.5 feet wide to 10.5 feet wide. Fortunately there was little traffic on I-10 at this time. I was able to pull to the shoulder and used wood blocks in an effort to keep the slideout from extending. These blocks held until reaching Ft. Stockton where we were able to get off I-10 and into the first campground we came to. By this time the slideout had extended on its own again. I was able to get a truck mechanic to use cargo straps to strap this slideout in place so it would not extend and returned home to Alabama. My RV mechanic had found that both Lippert slideout cylinders had gone into bypass allowing the slideout to extend on its own. By this time the opposite slideout was giving me the same problem and one of its cylinders was found to have gone into bypass. This drivers side slideout gave me the same problem on I-25 southbound about 100 miles north of Denver last summer. A Lippert slideout cylinder was again found to have gone into the bypass mode. And fortunately for me again there was little traffic on this section of I-25. My RV has three slideouts and each slideout is controlled by two Lippert slideout cylinders. In the past two years I've now had three Lippert slideout cylinders fail by going into bypass and allowing two slideouts to extend while traveling on interstate highways. Fortunately, I was traveling in areas with little traffic, but the outcome could have been tragic if I was traveling I-10 through Houston or I-25 through Denver. I've included pictures of these three Lippert slideout cylinders with the part number data tags clearly shown. My recommendation is for an immediate investigation to get this suspect lot of Lippert slideout cylinders off the highway.