Oh, can I answer this one! In short - Yes, we have had problems with the "Botanical" patterned couch in the Alpine. (Ours being a 3640RL.) We noticed it this summer - there on the right-hand side of the couch seat cushion along the seam next to the arm. The seam had pulled away from the piping along some 8 inches exposing the hard foam of the seat cushion and lots of frayed material. I removed the seat cushion (see below) and took it to an upholstery shop to be fixed. This particular upholstery shop does do work on boats, RVs, etc., besides "home furniture". After a week in the shop, Jay called me to come in and "be prepared for the news". Well, the good news was that Jay only charged me $50 to fix what was pulled and to attempt to reinforce all the other seams of the seat cushion. The bad news that Jay had to share was all of his work would probably be destroyed if anything heavier than a Chihuahua sat on it.
Keystone primarily purchases furniture from Flair Industries, Inc. In fact, most RV manufacturers utilize Flair furniture in their RVs. It is the low-end RV furniture manufacturer up there in northern Indiana.
Next time you go to an RV Show, sit on all the couches, etc. and reach down in the folds to find the "Do Not Remove Under Penalty" tag . . . you will find mostly Flair. We did exactly that (only got caught by a salesman once!
) and found we liked the FlexSteel sleeper sofa. Though it is a fairly new fiver, we plan to spend a lot of time over the next few years in it. I found "Bradd and Hall" on the Internet, ordered some fabric swatches, and soon we had a new 80" FlexSteel Sleeper Sofa in rich light brown fabric ordered and on the way.
We "love" our new FlexSteel and feel it was a GREAT decision to replace a relatively new Flair Industries sofa. That Flair sofa is now sitting disassembled in the garage and hopefully this next week will get reassembled in the back of the truck and taken to a local Habitat For Humanity resale shop. Trust me, no one on the Forum wants this!
Ron
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RV furniture is a "different breed". It is constructed to assemble/disassemble to get it in and out the narrow door. For the Flair sofa, there are two sheet metal screws in the back that hold the seat cushion. Removed those screws and the seat cushion and frame slide back and out. The rotating back and air mattress are held on by two shank screws on the sides. The drawer just slides out and away. Once those items are done, the arms and connecting rods are easy enough for one person to pick up and carry out the door! The FlexSteel sofa comes mounted on a long pallet encased in thick cardboard. The back is held on by four bolts. The arms are held in place (on the folding bed and seat cushion frame) by three screws and two bolts each side. The kick panel is held on by four screws. The hardest part is standing the bed frame and seat cushion on end to get into the Alpine door, but if my DW and I can do it, you can probably too!
Once inside and reassembled, it is beautiful. I did find that I needed to use two short 3/8" lag screws to attach the FlexSteel sleeper sofa to the slide floor. When we attempted to fold out the 72"x80"x10.5" spring based queen air mattress, the sofa rotated forward. Now securely attached, it is no problem!
Again, we are extremely pleased with our new FlexSteel sleeper sofa and so happy we got the Flair Industries "thing" out! It was definitely worth the investment! And dealing with Bradd and Hall was also a pleasure! Nothing but good words for those folk!
And I saved the cardboard packing sides to use to crawl under the fiver to mount the tank heaters! Hey, recycling at its best!
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