Coachmen Freedom Express RV Factory Tour!

well it's that time of year again when we get to go down to the factories and do some walkthroughs and training one of the nice benefits of being a local dealer but first the donut store we are here at the freedom Express plant this is actually the coachmen main campus behind us one of the things that's kind of cool is like everything they build comes off one spot they don't have like different factories scattered around all the property behind us much further than the eye can see it's all in one spot so we're going to go through here and I usually tell you how these things are put together but today you're going to get to see it which is a lot different now guys keep in mind as footage like this Gail Gaines age as it gets older certain things can be outdated certain things can change so this will give you a really good idea through time how a free to express is built but keep in mind there might be a little variances as we go so this is one of the coolest things I think about the freedom expresses I've seen it bandits purpose-built machines that rolls can see these guys just got done putting on the underbelly running the propane line putting on the tires but you notice how it rolls it over with that like belts that's something I've really met seen in other brands despite all the tumors that I've been on usually what you end up seeing is there's like these big metal hooks that will latch onto something and it like jerks around and twist it and stresses it one of the things that impressed me is by having points of contact on opposite ends of the chassis and then smoothly rolling it there never squishing buckling and stressing that chassis and I do apologize for a lavash kappa noice i thought about doing an overdub on this but i just thought it wouldn't feel the same i kind of wanted you folks to sort of get a feel of the environment here in a production facility so like most brands that's going to start here with the raw chassis they roll are in what's kind of cool is Freedom Express has every one of their chassis is built to their own specs they do all of their own engineering every single chassis for every single floor plan is engineered for a per more plan basis what's also kinda neat here as you can see how the slide-out comes pre-installed that's the slight voter right there this is actually the slide-out override there's usually a little hole in the fender where you can put a tool and to get to that now another thing here is the way that these slides can be adjusted it has a six way slide got wall three-way adjustment I guess you can go front to back and call that two directions but anyway so these down here that you see hanging around on campers that's a vertical slide adjustment one of the other ones it's very easy to see this right here is a side to side adjustment and that right here isn't in the out adjustment you know this is really important if it opens too far you'll crush your interior you know fascia if it doesn't open far enough that means it closes too far and you'll crush your outside flange so the idea behind this is that it ships in at factory spec but at the same time after 10 years of bouncing down pothole roads you can always have this thing adjusted so that all the seals and everything marry up properly now once they move on you can see that they're starting to put through wiring runs and install things like your your relays and whatnot now I'm being a little conscious and careful of some of my camera angles here there are a lot of individuals that work in these factories that prefer not to have their pictures taken and whatnot and I do want to be respectful of that there's a lot of beliefs of no graven images things of that nature so I'm always gonna kind of try to be up close and personal here and not capture a lot of faces and at this point it kind of it looks like a whole mess of spaghetti going on in this thing but this is all the pre-work this is where all the wiring is preset effectively so that they can start running it up to all the light fixtures and sockets and outlets and all that stuff next you'll see the floors go on and what you can't see from here is where they're attaching these are the outriggers although in house I think they're often referred to as the ears of the chassis but what they're going to do here because they have a one-piece laminated floor they attach that floor on top of the outrigger on the outside of the outrigger they actually don't attach on the inside of the outrigger so that this thing can twist and flex because as I mentioned in a lot of my RV videos an RV is like a it's it's a rolling earthquake with a hurricane-force wind outside you have to build a little bit of wiggle into it otherwise it's just gonna break now from here on top of the laminated floor they gave down all their laminate flooring and then what's kind of interesting with throws people office these things are almost built from the inside out like this is the front bedroom cabinet that we're looking at right here like if I spin around you can sort of see it already starting to take shape you can see the bed platform there your bed side stands these are your bedside closets they just haven't been in close down the nose yet I think when people imagine this stuff they kind of imagine home construction where the walls go up and then they build the rooms this is really the opposite you see the skeleton of the room first and then the walls are shaped around it once they have the base fixtures in place you start to see the cabinet's come down and this is what's called mezzanine style construction it's unbelievably efficient compared to having a totally separate cabinet shop and then shifting stuff around because the cabinets are built locally they're moved on a smaller distance there's less chance of defect and damage this is a really easy place to get to see the pocket screen that's going on here so up top is the cabinet shop but they can have all the space working below it as well so you get twice the output out of you know the same amount of square foot of space and this is a they're not the only brand that does this but it's definitely becoming the new standardized construction method for RV production so this is actually something I just stumbled on to one of my salesman here pointed it out to me this little foam weatherstripping right here on the side of what forms the bottom of the closet this is your pass-through storage what they do if you notice the wall is going to set right on top of here so they put this foam here so the wall can butt up against it but it's creating basically like an air break it's creating its weather stripping effectively so that hot or cold air doesn't exist change and I can't tell you the number of times I go into a camper when I'm doing my RV tours if I have the baggage door open and I have that closet open I can usually see a lot of daylight through here and I never really thought about it until seeing this that's not something I see in a freedom expressed because they take the extra time extra labor extra material just to put that extra little thing in there to make sure the outside stays outside and the inside stays inside now from here if I back up the the last three or four stations they kind of look the same there's just they're starting to put like you know your heat ducting and your furnace in but now is when it really starts to take shape now is when the nose skin goes on now's when the side walls go on and this is the easiest place for me to get to show you the as Dell substrate below the fiberglass wall usually the only time you can see it's right in the door jamb but that's what this stuff is right here this is as as compared to luan so what this material does for us guys it does a lot of things it's lighter weight and it's it's basically a hard moisture barrier this material is waterproof not resistant the material itself is waterproof but what it kind of does here is it forms a really good bond with the fiberglass and it it just effectively excess of moisture barrier so that moisture can't get in or out of wall now with this being lighter weight it allows them to build the interior there are every three inches taller which is one of the cool things about a freedom Express is there a large light weight and those are two things that just don't normally go together now we're here in this loud noisy shop and one of the don't really see the advantage of one of the other things here that is that as they'll actually has a little bit of a sound dampening quality it also has a slightly better r-value normally an inch and a half ultra light wall as an AR seven value because of the as though freedom expresses still have an AR nine side wall value so I'll give you bonus points if from this angle right here you guys can tell me what model this is it's kind of fun it's always like a little game that I play whenever I see them getting built on points like I wonder what model that is and it takes me a minute to figure it out at this point in the production line it's a lot easier to spot it but one of the things I wanted to zero in on here is this galvanized steel wheel well I don't know what I really talked about that much unfreedom expresses I know I talked about it on other brands hook the lines move and check this out you see these little roller pulleys right here RVs used to be built in what's called elephant style construction where they were nose-to-tail like an elephant line you know holding tails and noses while they found out you can get more stations and you can get more specialized construction by having more stations and when you turn the trailer this way and you slide it when it's time to move you can get more stations but back to that galvanized wheel well one of the things I thought was cool on that this god forbid that radial tire there has some kind of defect damage blowout you know what if you catch debris on the road well it gives you a chance to get this thing brought down from high speeds the other thing here is a lot of their models you notice have wide stance stability axles what that's going to do is it's going to help reduce the amount of bouncing and swaying the trailer receives in transit and where that's really handy is if you have a shorter wheelbase vehicle now that is not a replacement for a weight distribution and anti-sway system it is a supplement thereof now you can also see that as soon as the walls go up the decals start going on and I tell you I don't know how they get this many details put on by hand this accurately that's a job I could never do right there now this part right here kind of reminds me of like a giant sewing facility you see all these wires running through these looms off these rolls this is where they start running the wiring like up through the ceiling area to be able to get to all your light fixtures I've got a really neat opportunity here to look at something one of the options that you have available on a freedom Express RV is their radiant barrier package and I can talk about it all day but if they build it right you can't see it so this is a normal freedom express eventually installation is going to be hand tucked into this wall and your fiberglass skin will be applied over one of the cool things about having a non laminated rear wall as you can see there's all the structure in the world back here it's not less structural that's one of those misconceptions people think that if a rear wall on a trailer is not laminated then it's not strong it has nothing to do with strength this is equally strong the benefit of doing this though is that you can install outlets in this rear wall you can run wires it's much much easier to access from a service standpoint but this is the standard I'm Express whereas right here you see the radiant barrier package and the silvery foil that they put in the rear wall they put this in the rear wall around the roof around the nose and basically guys what that does is when the Sun is baking this thing it keeps the Sun out or in the spring and the fall it helps keep the furnace down inside now this giant scaffolding here this thing is really cool to watch an operation each side can move up and down independently what I like is the really modern nature of this facility this plant was literally built only to build freedom expresses they don't also do other things here pre goes press is a very popular high demand high-volume brand so they put high-level facilities in here to keep making a higher quality product but what you see here is right before the scaffolding we actually have like no roof trusses or anything and what that allows these folks that work here to do is they can raise and lower each side of this to make sure it's the right height for them to be at the right level to build this now there's a very unique thing going on within the freedom express roofing here so you can see how they have these vaulted trusses up here wood trusses are awesome insulators they can Bend they can deflect they return to shape they are very good product and you'll see these like up through luxury fifth wheels most luxury fifth wheels have a wouldn't rust like this because of its load-bearing and flexible nature but what's different is the perimeter of their roof is actually tubular aluminum and that really threw me off the first time I saw it and the reason that they do that is you have a laminated aluminum framed sidewall well where the roof meets that wall right there you want to make sure that you have an even merger well wooden beams can be all kinds of different shape so by having an aluminum perimeter on this thing you make sure that you have a smooth seamless sidewall to roof merger and that is one of the highest stress zones on an RV is one of the most important things to have done correctly and they do an extra little thing here in a couple different ways to make sure that's done properly after they got the trusses in place after they have the wire and you're on the hand tuck the insulation through the roof and what I like about freedom Express is they don't try to advertise these nonsense bolts are 40 are whatever values they just say yeah we've got like an are 11 roof they have the thermal package it's an excellent functioning three season extended camper especially let's be radiant package wow we got the air gun fire it over here but to use a 3/8 decking up top to make this fully walkable so it's easy to service it's long lasting is something that you can take care of a huge for a long time it's not there's no gaps on here it's glued in place so that it doesn't fall down in France next obviously they got a real thin skin on the rear wall and again as soon as that wall goes up you see they start plate look at these guys like oh no they're fine as soon as the wall goes up you start seeing decals go in place and each station actually different people have different things that they're doing here so there's always work being done both inside and outside the RV and what's great as I'm hearing these people communicate the entire time saying that note we need to do this wait don't move the trailer yet so something needs done they're not just pushing ahead they're making sure it's done right first now a neat thing here that in theory you never see but it does a good job for you at the bottom of the slides they're actually putting these wipe seals so that if you're running the slide in and out if it's raining if there's condensation on it first of all the wipe seals gonna catch the worst of it and get it off there but if some of that gets passed they actually put this molded plastic tray in that will drain down and shunt water out away from the slide so it does dribble down it doesn't get dribbled into the camper because that's the wrong thing obviously check this guy out he's sealing around every single exterior fixture here and that's something I can talk about but I think it's valuable for folks to actually see that that gets done they go all the way around every exterior feature to make sure that there's low potential areas for water penetration and the thing is guys not every brand does that what a lot of brands are gonna say as well if we clip it on there tight enough if we screw it down tight enough water shouldn't get in and I agree it shouldn't but water can do funny things when you're riding a box down the road in a rolling earthquake with hurricane-force winds outside there's how those lips work you can see how each side can go up or down independently but the extra time and effort they put into not just top ceiling but fully exterior ceiling they're pictures I've inked it that is another one of those reasons I say all the time high like I'm a little bit biased toward I really personally like freedom expresses and it is those little things they do but those are the things that you miss on paper you know now this right here this is a big roll of the roofing material that goes out on a freedom expressed they're not in process of putting on one right at this very moment they're actually getting prepped and ready for that but basically they they grab the sheet of this they run it across the entire roof and pardon the funny camera angle again I am trying to be respectful of everyone that works here and their preferences and beliefs the they pull us across the roof across the decking and before they put the the roof membrane on they actually pour glue on the roof then they take like a paintbrush roller and they roll it across everything so that it's even and it touches from side to side front to back some brands can you can save money by taking a little sprayer on and spraying glue out but when you do that you will tend the the guy at the factory like let's just say that the roof is right here if the edge of the roof is over here he'll tend to only spray in this area and not the side so that overspray doesn't goop up the side of it so that's one of those things that we don't have happening up here so that you get more even distribution of all your adhesives so that the roof membrane stays in place because if it doesn't if it can twist if it can buckle it can tear and then you got a leak now they're putting in a slide out right here and it's kind of crazy they got this little like hand truck basically and that yellow device right there that will lift the room and then they just physically slide it in place by hand now the guys go through they measure everything to make sure that it you know it's sitting at the right place when it's attached that slide mechanism and that's why you have that three way slide adjustment because all of these slides are built just about the same but there's little tolerance those guys so every one of these things is like a fingerprint they might have to tweak up tweak down left right you know in or out a little bit but the idea here is that before it leaves the factory they have the facilities to get that measured in place now after 10 years of bouncing down Midwestern highways or wherever you live I don't know about you guys but I know around the Michigan Indiana Ohio area we have potholes that have names they're so serious and you know it'll it'll jar something out of place very quickly so whether it's year number one or year number ten or your number whatever you can always get that slide adjusted so it is right back to square where it should be set all the seals and everything you're doing their job thankfully that's not a real common need now from here on the outside everything looks pretty good you can see how they're starting to finish up some wiring and then you see the lights pick on you can see how they're starting to test wire they're testing the lights on the nose they're testing the lights in the pass through they're actively quality controlling things as it's still on the production line so that if they need to they can correct something live and not have to worry about you know having you come back for warranty work now there's always a lot of dust particulate things flying around a shop environment is a a busy dirty place but you see how they are actually actively cleaning the camper before they start putting a lot of the the final touches on it so that they do the best that they reasonably can to make sure that this is a you know a clean product they can be proud of before reaches here now one of the other things that we do for you at Halen RV is we actually clean every camper in sight now before you take a home we do so at no additional charge now this is me right here you see this hose they're doing a gas trap test they're testing the propane system because the last thing you want is to have a leak somewhere in your propane system because you know you don't want your Co detect you don't want your co Tector to have to do its job I think is the best way that I can say it now this is a newer update at the time in this filming a lot of people aren't aware of it it's what's called a late 2019 update and forward they've added a simple battery disconnect to all their freedom expresses whether it's a Liberty or base ultra light like we're looking at and what's cool about that is these things have so much in the way of like electronic now you've got stereos and you've got water heaters and fridges they all have their own little circuit boards well you don't want those things trickle growing off your battery causing a dead battery experience and you know that extra little battery disconnect it doesn't cost much but it's worth so much I think that's again the details that they put in us I say all the time in my freedom Express tours this is a brand of camera that's built for the people that actually own it it's not built for the people that sell it and that's a key key difference between these guys and so so many others now every brand has some level of random inspection for one of the things I like here is that they 100% every single inspect rather every single Freedom Express built at both of their plans for you know electrical functionality and water systems check that's what they're doing right here they're pumping water into it they're running stuff through the pump they're making sure everything works they're getting the water drain back out of it and then if it's chilly in the Midwestern seasons like it is here right now they'll actually go ahead and winterize it before it ever leaves the factory that's one of the things again they are free checking pre-screening every single thing from the factory level they're not expecting just dealerships to do that because unfortunately not every dealer is like hey Lela Darvey where we will go ahead and reinforce our one but there so everything that we sell basically in a freedom Express has been at least like triple check because it's been checked here we check stuff at least twice at the dealership before it leaves remember how it said they're already actively cleaning everything take a look at this this is the end result you know is it something that I would say you'd eat off the floor no because obviously you don't want to eat chili off the floor of a camper but the fact is they've done a pretty darn good job of making sure that this is like straight from the factory line if you were ready something that you could just put right in your backyard and not have to like you know spend a weekend cleaning it out although again at haloed RV we do that for you at no additional charge so this is an electrical testing station here this is something that they've rigged up and kind of like I have there's a little battery in here acting as a 12 volt power source but if you notice what they've got here they can check electric brakes they can check their backups I mean they can they can check all the stuff right from here and they can see the readout to make sure it's working if they find out something has a defect because maybe a guy messed up maybe I put a screw gun in the wrong place maybe you got hit a wiring loom whatever it is they can actively address it and fix it if they find two in a row they have the same thing the whole line stops they actually start tracing back through their stations until they find where that problem was so they can stop it they can correct the five or six that need corrected if that is the case thankfully it is incredibly uncommon but once again the active quality controls they have going on here right on the line that is very impressive to me not every brand will give a person working right on the line empower them with the ability to say stop production because no production means no money right ladies and gentlemen but they'll say no production stop this right here we've got a problem it's a major one we have to find where it is now not later this can't ship out again huge confidence builder for me when I see something like that and when we hit this point it's just final finish they're just shining up polishing up they're just sweeping her out getting the last little particulate that they possibly can get out of here they might be tossing in something like a mattress here and there but this is something that actually we have here at haloed RV also this is called a steel tech machine you see how that insert actually fits right into the doorway what it's actually doing is they're pumping air into the RV they're pressurizing the RV and one of the other things that they were doing here is they were spraying a little like basically soapy water on the camper and what that's gonna do is if there is anywhere that there's a gap a void a leak effectively they are first of all they're pushing water away from it by pumping the air into the RV but it'll bubble and they can see if there is a defect once again right at the factory level here but in a way that doesn't can't cause damage the RV but actually actively make sure that if there was a defect it's being fixed without ever being a a damaged item in the first place now a machine like we've just got one of these recently here at halo Darvey and it is absolutely awesome the Diagnostics that it allows us to perform to locate leaks if someone has any concerns if they did some resealing if they're not sure if they see we've actually had people buy a used RV and that maybe the roof was questionable maybe they couldn't feel like they could really trust the person that they bought it from for whatever reason it allows us to hook up any camper new used otherwise and make sure that it is you know tight and sound before it leaves you hey Joe take it steep so there's a lot that goes into this and again I couldn't get to up front and in people's faces because one I didn't want to be disrespectful I didn't want to interfere with them doing their jobs because that is how they you know pay for their bills and that's how they take care of their families but here's another thing everything that we've seen if it's any little particulate on the floor if it's water that drains out this is a 100% green facility anything that is not used is recycled in some fashion they are 100% landfill free and if you think about it guys manufacturers almost more than anyone they're the ones that should be conscious and aware that because if we don't have the great outdoors then we have nowhere to go camping and you know I'm not trying to get too much on the soapbox here but this is something these kind of processes that's something that more brands need to adopt that's something the more brands need to get behind if they want to continue long term I really appreciate Coachman's commitment to things like that now this is another one of the cool things about this modernized freedom Express plant you see that metal set of grates right there you see the metal planks right here that's actually a scale they live scale every unit as it's built coming out of the facility not every factory has their own in-house skills a lot of brands have a like a general company scale that they all have to kind of like take turns using effectively well the thing is brands are not required to weigh their campers on a per trailer basis actually all they're required to do is what build one way one and then knowing the weight of each option they're actually allowed to publish a weight based on estimations of what that camper weighs based on the options that are present in it and I guess something being technically okay and something being truly okay are two different things and they're doing it the truly okay way here by scaling every single individual camper and when you're on our haloed RV website when there's a little weight rating in the upper right corner of the first picture of any listing you see that is the actual dry weight off of that scale of each individual trailer that comes in to us and there you have it guys hopefully that gives you a little bit of an idea of what it kind of the environment and the the lifestyle is kind of inside of an RV production facility they're all a little different and I haven't done a lot of like factory tour videos before and I kind of wanted to start with something like Freedom Express because the facility was so neat and so new that I wanted to go see it personally have nothing else now again due to the you know belief structures of some of the people that work within those facilities I couldn't get to up close and personal on certain things I I wasn't supposed to be in certain areas of production like if up on roof scaffoldings and stuff like that so there were certain things that I just didn't have the opportunity to get up close and look at with you if there is anything that you didn't see or you have questions on or something else that we can try to cover for you definitely just give us a call and of course guys at the end of the day if you like what you saw and you like the idea of a freedom express RV they give our team here at Haley at our vehicle it does not matter where you live in as always we don't do hidden dealer fees here a letter B so take care stay safe have fun and happy camping everyone you

Channel: Josh the RV Nerd at Bish's RV

Views: 95,417

Keywords: Michigan, RV Dealer, camper, wholesale, guaranty, bullyan, general rv, camping world, terrytown, ultralite, azdel, coachmen, campers, camping, travel trailer, josh the rv nerd

Id: hQ0BZ09HGxg

Length: 28min 4sec (1684 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 02 2019