Brinkley RV's new roof - Are they really flying off?

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]Brinkley RV roofs are just flying off on the highway and Brinkley's not doing anything about it and all of you guys should be concerned. At least that's how my post was construed on Facebook when I shared this image right here of a Brinkley RV roof that flew up. Now, this is their newer roof, the fiberglass decked roof. And as you can see in the photo, it has just completely blown up.

[00:00:23]So, we're going to cover a few things in this video. First and foremost, we are going to cover why I'm covering this topic. Because a lot of you guys know I don't really do a lot of content like this. I focus on things that are brand specific, model specific, or floor plan specific across an entire line. Issues, build quality practices, different things like that. These individual situations are usually more of like a Liz Amazing category. Um, I'm not trying to lean into that category too much, but this situation uh was brought to my attention, and we'll get into why. And then we're going to talk about why I don't think it's impact damage because that's the big debate here is was this impact damage? He must have hit something, a tree branch, any of that.

[00:01:03]And here's the thing, a lot of you guys know I'm completely on your side most of the time with that. There are a lot of times that um damage or warranty claims aren't really warranty claims. So, in a sense, I do understand Brinkley being a little bit standoffish or denying the claim based on the information that they had because this happens so often. It's the same with insurance claims. That's why the insurance companies back off or refuse to pay so often or try and fight you because you got a lot of insurance chasers out there. There's technicians out there, unfortunately, that that's their entire gig is just insurance claims and how they can pay a supplement and how they can bill out $20,000 to an insurance company for a roof.

[00:01:47]The first thing I want to get out of the way here is the the the Brinkley owners that just can't take criticism. First things first here, I've spoken highly of Brinkley since Brinkley was released.

[00:01:59]I've talked with Brinkley. I have shared some concerns or issues with Brinkley and Brinkley has addressed them almost instantly. There was a time at an RV show I made a video on an issue with a Brinkley and it was like addressed that day. So, I've spoken very highly of Brinkley. I was one of the first people to review Brinkleys when they came out.

[00:02:18]I labeled them as absolutely flawless.

[00:02:21]I've spoken very highly of them for many years. So, it is very fair that I provide criticism when I think criticism is due. And this isn't necessarily a shot at Brinkley. That was never my intention. My intention was to bring attention to this because after seeing some of the facts, I can see why this consumer is in the place that he's in.

[00:02:42]So, first things first, why am I talking about this? Why why is this in my wheelhouse right now? Well, a few months ago, this consumer actually reached out to me and he had said he had uh some damage, some roof damage. it was getting fixed at the dealer and he was going to hire me to inspect the work that the dealer did uh and sign off on it and tell him that it was done right or or whatever it be. That was essentially how we got started. Well, there was some back and forth with him and the dealer and I hadn't heard from him in a while and then finally he reached back out again and said that, you know, he was kind of in a pickle. This was all supposed to be covered under warranty.

[00:03:20]it was already, you know, the wheels were already moving. And then out of nowhere, he gets kind of blindsided being told that uh allegedly it was not being covered under warranty and it was needed to be an insurance claim. So, he asked me for my insight. He sent me a bunch of pictures. I've seen all the messages between him and Brinkley. I've seen all the messages between him and the dealer. Um, so I do have facts. Now, I'm not going to be one of those people that's gonna go share the conversations between Brinkley and stuff, but I am going to break down a little bit of what happened here. So, he brought it into the dealer uh after driving home from vacation and they stopped and noticed, hey, my roof is flying off. So, they went to, you know, obviously get an estimate, figure out what happened and I I have the message, I've seen it from the dealer that says, "Hey, we've looked over it. technician found that the adhesive failed. He didn't specify if it was the tape or the adhesive. As you can see here, there are two places that are technically adhering down the fiberglass. You have the attorney style tape around the perimeter, and then you also have uh we'll just call double-sided tape for uh layman's terms here. Those are the two things that are adhering the roof down. And the technician, you know, I don't know if his wording was leaning at this, but another thing I noticed is from the part of the roof that's peeled up, you don't seem to see any adhesive on the roof, or at least not something that's meant to bond fiberglass to OSB. And that was understandable. That was uh allegedly the cause. Uh the adhesive failed, wind got underneath the roof, the roof flipped up, and that's that, right?

[00:05:01]Well, I guess when it came time to actually going along getting approved somewhere in this time frame, uh when he was questioning like, hey, what what's the timeline look like? Things like this, uh allegedly he was told, hey, this is not going to be warranty. This is impact damage, so it's not going to be covered. So, the story switched a little bit. even though he has messages from the dealership stating that it was submitted, it was for sure not impact damage and there was no impact noted and the adhesive had failed. That's the original diagnosis from the technician at that dealership. Mind you, this dealership is a dealership. They're authorized to repair Brinkleys or at very minimum authorized to submit warranty claims and the original diagnosis was that the adhesive failed.

[00:05:50]I don't know who. Maybe it was that same technician changed his mind. Maybe another technician looked at it. Maybe Brinkley looked at it and claimed it was impact. I don't think it was impact. And I'm going to show you a few reasons why.

[00:06:01]And at the end of the day, my goal here, my only goal is to bring attention to this, maybe even learn something myself.

[00:06:08]I could be very wrong. But what I do think needs to happen is I think somebody from Brinkley does need to have eyes on this. That's that's kind of my main goal here. And that's what I told the consumer. Hey, no promises. I don't know what we're going to find here. Um, there's only one person who knows what really happened, and that's the man up in the sky, I guess, because he was driving. His wife was behind him with a dash cam. They don't see impact coming from anywhere. And the roof flew off.

[00:06:34]And let me tell you why I don't think it was impact. And if it was, it was a one ina- million chance. And to describe this a little bit, I got a piece of fiberglass here. This is not what Brinkley makes their roofs out of, full disclosure. But I'm going to use this as an example and you'll see why. So, first we'll debunk a couple things that led people to believe that this is impact damage. One, you have cracked fiberglass. There is a big rip kind of going down that corner, right? As you can see here, there's a large crack.

[00:07:06]Well, obviously when the roof membrane peeled up and was flipping in the wind, that's what caused that big long crack there. The second one, and this is actually the one I was very spec suspicious of, too, but after doing some further digging, um I don't think it's what you think it is, and that is that big black mark that is just off to the left of the damage in this photo here.

[00:07:28]Now, on this piece of fiberglass here, let's say that mark is here. There's a mark there, and my brain went, "Hey, I know it's a one ina million chance. You probably had a tire fly off of a semi, hit your roof, and go flying." But then I started getting really deep into that and realized if a tire were to hit the roof like that, why didn't it crack where the mark is and why is it broken where there is no black marks? Um, so the the scratches and scuffing that all of us are seeing aren't where the actual damage is. And then I wanted to dig deeper into, okay, well, if that's not what happened, what caused those black marks? And from some further pictures uh that I was sent, I found that that black mark lines up perfectly with the air conditioner. So that roof folding back, flapping in the wind was just absolutely beating on the air conditioner. And the air conditioner actually has matching marks to line up with that part. And after going over and trying to figure it out and having him get back up there for me and and kind of pulling it up and seeing how it looks, that lined up exactly with that air conditioner. So again, driving down the road 60, 70 mph, whatever the highway speed is, you've got a corner of the roof flipped up and it's just sitting there beating on the air conditioner. Yeah, it's going to make some marks. Um, again, I I'm not trying to be Scooby-Doo in the gang here, but some of those things were a little obvious when you put some thought into it. So now after that, I'm I'm down the rabbit hole, right? I'm going all through the rabbit hole. I I'm trying to figure out what's what. I've already got the black mark eliminated. And then it came to, okay, well, if something really heavy, really heavy, and I mean really heavy and going really fast, hit it. I could see it breaking a hole in the roof here. But let me tell you why that doesn't make sense either. One, the Brinkley roof that flew off is the fiberglass roof. The impact tough roof, the one you're supposed to be able to drop like cinder blocks or lead balls. I don't remember who did cinder blocks and who did lead balls. Grand Design and Brinkley both came out with these systems about the same time. And they were making all kinds of videos. So, if a cinder block can be dropped on it, lead balls can be dropped on it. You can hit them with hammers, you can do all that. What in the world fell from the sky completely vertically to damage the roof? And why do I say straight down vertically from the sky? Because if you look at the front cap, if you look at the tape, if you look at all of that, there's no damage. If they had dragged a tree branch, hit a bridge, went underneath something low, you would have damage to that tape, you would have damage to that front cap because they sit higher than that roof deck does. So, if it was able to hit and damage that fiberglass, hit it hard enough and grab it hard enough to damage that fiberglass, it would have most certainly damaged that tape and it would have definitely scratched up the front cap.

[00:10:19]You'd have had damage to that awning head. You' you would have had damage somewhere else around that area before you had damage there. So, that's why I'm sticking with something had to have fallen vertically. But, let me tell you why I don't buy that either. We'll go to this side of the board. And this is recycled from another project uh that we did. This is very, very thin fiberglass on the top here. This isn't reinforced.

[00:10:40]This is This is maybe an eighth of an inch thick. This is pretty thin stuff.

[00:10:44]It's got some styrofoam between it. It's kind of like what your door on your RV would be like. So, let's say this was that front corner up here. We're going to go ahead and take a hammer because that's what you break holes in fiberglass with. And we're going to smack it. Right. That was a pretty good blow on thin fiberglass. And as you can see, yes, I I made a dent in it. Right.

[00:11:04]I made I made some damage. It definitely didn't blow pieces of the fiberglass away and completely blow this open so that air can get underneath it and just pull the roof membrane away. Another thing I want you guys to note here, I'm going to go ahead and peel this fiberglass back. If something hit that fiberglass hard enough to puncture through it, allowing air underneath it, notice how we have damage to the styrofoam, right? There's damage underneath. But again, if we look at the photos, you'll see that that OSB, which isn't very strong wood, by the way, has no damage, no visible damage. If something fell out of the sky hard enough to grab a hold of that fiberglass and blow it to pieces and remove a chunk enough for air to get underneath and essentially inflate the roof and blow it off, you'd have damage to the OSB. We can get a forensics team involved, but there's a lot of evidence just from the photos that I think is being overlooked.

[00:12:00]So, let's say it wasn't a hammer falling off of an overpass or something like that, which again, even still, impact tough roof, even a tool falling off a bridge or a heavy rock or something like that, it's bouncing right off here. It's not even making a mark, right? So that's why I'm I'm leaning so far away from vertical impact unless it was a one ina- million shot. Again, we would never know the answer. So the last one people said is tree branch. And again, tree branches do it a lot. Most people don't realize they're doing it. Most people don't realize they're hitting low things, hitting tree branches, and you drag the edge of a membrane roof. This is a fiberglass roof. Okay? I I want to keep reiterating that because it's going to be completely different from how a membrane would act in this situation.

[00:12:48]So, if it was say a tree branch or something sticking out, again, not having any damage to the tape, not having any damage to the awning, not having any damage to the front cap, that all seems really suspicious for something that dragged. So, let's say somehow there was something bouncing, a branch swaying in the wind, and right as they drove it, it just it got that corner of the roof because again, it didn't hit the front cap or anything.

[00:13:13]So, it was just perfect timing, just every all the stars aligned, right? If that were to happen, one, the amount of vertical force to stab through that roof to be able to get underneath it and actually pick that roof up or blow a hole in it or crinkle it up like this and pull it out of the tape is just astronomical. And again, if that were to happen, if something were to come down and catch the roof like that and dig in enough that it could pull back and and damage the roof or take it and I can't do it with my hands, I don't think, but take that roof and bunch it up and fold it up like that. Again, you would have damage to that OSB underneath. I don't see how that's possible. Again, one in a million shot. It is possible. Anything's possible. But when you just take a deeper look and analyze everything you're looking at, and you know what, I'll be honest with you. Maybe I spend too much time with my wife who watches tons of Law and Order and I'm looking way too deep into a lot of these uh crime scene details, if you will. But again, this guy is just frustrated. He has no problem doing an insurance claim if that's what he needs to do. But he truly believes that this was something that happened naturally. And I don't know, a few months back when I did a Brinkley inspection and it happened to have one of those new roofs, I shared those concerns. I said that I I think Brinkley is on a a great track for this new roof system. Um it's definitely a lot better than a membrane, but I did think they were putting a little bit too much faith in the tape. Now, if you look at the photos, you can see that that front piece of fiberglass is only tucked underneath that front cap maybe an inch.

[00:14:58]It looks like, you know, the photos don't tell you everything, but it looks like it's only tucked under about an inch. You have that adhesive tape underneath. You have that adhesive tape on the top. And that that's really it.

[00:15:10]You know, if that tape fails or that tape gets ripped, it allows air to get underneath the roof. Which brings me to my most possible accident damage or impact damage, if you will. This is the most likely. And if this was in fact a a branch or something like that, then this is how I think it would have happened.

[00:15:31]My thoughts are the tape maybe along the side could have gotten torn or a small puncture uh that allowed air to get underneath and started the lift process.

[00:15:41]It doesn't take that big of a hole to allow that much air in at 60 70 miles an hour to start lifting it up. Once it lifts up, it starts collecting more air and it's just a chain of events, right?

[00:15:51]It's hard to tell. The tape isn't really damaged. Um the tape looks stretched which would have been from when the roof pulled up and pulled away. You know, it eventually gave way. Um so it it did stretch. So there is some signs of damage to the tape, but I think that was honestly from when the roof blew up and separated from it. Um it so my my only way I would lean towards damage would be that tape. And honestly, again, it's hard to ever know. But my concern there is if it's that easy, again, putting a lot of faith in tape, if a small little tiny puncture could potentially mean your entire sheet of fiberglasses ripping off your roof, in my opinion, I I do think Brinkley should go back to the drawing board on the roof at that point. uh do a little bit more R&D and figure out like, hey, even if we can prove that this wasn't our fault, this roof may be a learning experience to the catastrophic results of even a small bit of damage. Again, a little slit in the tape. We'll never know, right? The the tape's been damaged, the damage has been done, and now the damage has been covered up until he can get his insurance involved or hopefully Brinkley. Again, the entire point of this video, that post was to bring attention to the issue and maybe get the right eyes on it because one of the things I really disliked hearing was, "Hey, he got a message that said the technician stated that this was adhesive failure and not impact damage." But that was a good that's usually a good enough answer, right? Like that's that that's all you need for a warranty claim. And then their rebuttal for why is this no longer being covered and why is this insurance and why is this and it's well because the technician said that it's impact damage. So you either have a technician who misdiagnosed it from the beginning uh and then tried to cover himself. You had a technician who lied in the beginning to try and get a warranty ticket. You had a a maybe a service center who wasn't getting paid enough hours for the roof replacement.

[00:17:59]So, they kind of switched things up and said, "You know what? Never mind. This is impact damage. You need to go through insurance so we can get more money." The only reason I'm bringing that situation into play is cuz I used to work for a dealership. I've seen a lot of things happen. Um, I personally think if it wasn't for that initial message from the dealership diagnosing it, saying this, this might have been a completely different story. He might have never reached out to me. He might have just went through his insurance and said, "Yeah, that's that." Right? But the fact that you have a dealership going back and forth, going from we're 100% sure that this is adhesive failure to flipping the script to we're 100% sure this is impact damage. That's where things get fishy. My big issue there again is how Brinkley uh immediately said, "Yep, dealer said it's impact damage. We're out." Like, "We're not covering that. It's impact damage. You need to call your insurance."

[00:18:49]Why weren't you just as excited and just as you know happy golucky with your decision when they said this is impact or this isn't impact damage that this is adhesive failure you know it seems like Brinkley was leaning more towards like how do we find a way to get out of this oh dealership said this cool we're done uh when in reality it's a new roof system it's a completely new design it's something nobody else has done before and that is one of those situations where I think somebody from Brinkley should have had their eyes on it.

[00:19:20]Brinkley should have had one of their techs out. They should have had one of the roof specialists out. Um, you know, I'm not saying Nate himself should have gone out there. That's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying top level, but I'm saying somebody who does have the experience to go out there and look at it because let's say it was adhesive failure. That means you guys can spot the issue, catch it, correct it, TSB recall, whatever it be, or you could at least have the facts. And I'm not saying that every manufacturer needs to do that with every single situation where they have to personally send one of their guys out. You should be able to trust the technicians at the dealership. You should be able to trust their diagnosis and hope that they're true.

[00:19:56]Unfortunately, I do know there is a lot of fraudulent claims out there. So, that does make the uh manufacturers a little bit more tight. again, just like the insurance companies. But in these rare one-off situations, I do think maybe the manufacturer should have a little bit more involvement, especially on a very new product. Now, allegedly, there's been a couple more of these. I'm saying allegedly because I have not spoken with them. I have not seen these pictures. Um the client who reached out to me about this roof, uh he had some people reach out to him, but I same thing I told him unless they reach out to me and I get the facts behind their story and everything, I'm not going to share those as well, which is why we're still going to call this a very isolated situation that I just think Brinkley should look a little bit more into. So, I'm trying to bring a little bit more attention to it and show you guys why I don't want to lean towards impact damage unless it is again that one in a million shot like a piece of space debris fell out like something really heavy fell out of the sky um and and landed on the roof, but there's just we could go back and forth all day on on why that's not possible, but at the end of the day, none of us are going to know for sure. Um, there's even small details like, you know, if something fell on the roof and damaged it, why did it not damage any of the air conditioners, why did it not damage any vents, you know, because if it hit and then it went back, it just didn't seem to do anything. They can't find anything on their dash cam from the wife that was driving behind them from the whole trip.

[00:21:22]Um, so again, I just I hope this brings the right attention. I know the the the initial post irritated some people, but I've spoken truthfully about RVs for nearly the last five years, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And if you were in this consumer seat, you'd be excited that I was trying to help you, too, or at least get some answers on this subject. And I just I honest I I just want to throw this last part in there. I just think it's it it's funny. I don't know about I don't know if funny is the right word. I can criticize and and throw words about every manufacturer and nobody goes to bat for their brand as much as Brinkley owners. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. You know, I can definitely say Brinkley's marketing and their uh as some people call it the Brinkley cult. They've definitely built that. But here's the thing to Brinkley owners. Again, I've spoken very highly of the product that you own. I've pointed out criticism.

[00:22:18]Brinkley has taken action and actually improve those things or whatever when I do point that criticism out, which has been very little from that manufacturer.

[00:22:26]So, yes, I'm going to criticize things and call them out when I see them. And this is one of those situations. And again, if it was you in this situation, being told it's not covered on an RV you just bought, you would probably appreciate a little bit of help or a little bit of attention to the subject.

[00:22:43]So maybe put yourself in this owner's shoes who just bought an RV and the roof is flying off of it that was supposed to be impact tough and all that. Um that's the only one little jab I will throw in all these people saying it's impact damage. It's impact damage. It's impact damage. It's called an impact guard roof. It you know I I don't think they market it as like 100% impact resistant bulletproof but should be able to handle just a little something falling out of the sky. And I'm pretty sure a hammer falling out of the sky is about the most you'd have to worry about, unless like a meteor or something falls out of the sky. But until that day comes, if you want to see some more no BSRB tech tips, tricks, and tutorials, make sure you guys press that subscribe button.