James Tucker

James Tucker purchased his Qualitec/Stealth trailer on June 13, 2024.  We filed a warranty claim for Mr. Tucker on April 24, 2025.  Many issues were noted with this trailer in the submission to the trailer manufacturer.

• Significant rust at the ball mount.
• Significant frame rust.  This rust was primarily the front section of the frame and significant rust in the rear channels.
• Rear door hinges exhibited evidence of “cold” welds with lack of penetration into the parent material.  This resulted in all the rear drop down door hinges with broken welds, creating a significant road hazard.
• Inside door was rusting and the tension wire mounts were unpainted.
• Separation of the front driver’s side panels due to screws backing out.
• Other screws throughout the trailer were loose.

Due to this being a pattern of failures, we suggested that these trailers needed to go back to the manufacturer for proper repair.  Qualitec/Stealth’s response was to send a copy of the warranty and deny coverage.

We have pointed out that the trailers come with a one year warranty for “Paint & Undercoat” and also “Exterior Corrosion”.  

Stealth’s position is that these trailers are excluded by their “Explicit Warranty Exclusions”, specifically sections 1, 3, and 8.

We strongly disagree with Stealth’s assessment of the warranty claim and asked to escalate to their executive team with no response to that request.  “Exterior Corrosion”, “Paint & Undercoat”, and “Seals & Sealants” are specifically covered under the One Year Specific Item Limited Warranty. Four trailers with the exact same problems in the exact same areas across four same production run VINs is indicative of manufacturing deficiencies.  We sell trailers from multiple manufacturers and none of them show this type of corrosion and poor workmanship.  We do not have a corrosion claim at any of our five locations with any manufacturer other than Qualitec.

Exclusions in a warranty do not absolve a company of manufacturing defects and poor workmanship.  Screws backing out of a trailer this new is not normal. The range of current or in process claims is 4-9 months old. It is the manufacturer’s responsibility to build a trailer correctly and as previously described, it was noted that many of these screws are stripped out and cannot be tightened.

We informed Stealth of our intention of creating this website to share Stealth/Qualitec customer experiences and we received no response to the notification.

On May 28th, Mr. Tucker reached out to us again letting us know that the rear drop-down door/ramp hinges had completely failed.  Qualitec requested another warranty submission.  We filed a secondary claim again.  Despite clear evidence of bad welds, Stealth/Qualitec blamed the customer for the hinge failure due to corrosion.  Pictures taken during trailer inspection prove that there was no penetration into the parent material and corrosion had nothing to do with the weld failure.  

The second warranty document that we received from Qualitec was not blank, but instead had information filled out by a dealer in North Dakota that had many of the same issues as Mr. Tucker, including panel separation.  We discussed this trailer with the North Dakota dealership and they confirmed that screws were stripped out and missing on their customer’s trailer and had rust issues as well. We also discovered that both trailers were made within a week of each other. A pattern is shown when three of the four trailers our customers have issues with, plus the one in North Dakota from another dealership were all built between May 21 and June 4, 2024.

Qualitec/Stealth offered five hours repair for the screws throughout the North Dakota trailer and two hours on the panels.  We pointed out that it was the same issue, but Qualitec offered nothing other than sending screws out for Mr. Tucker to repair himself and denied that they were responsible. 

According to Mr. Tucker, “We wash our trucks and trailers every other Friday all year round and sometimes in between depending on weather and salt as we want to present our company as clean and professional. I had this trailer for less than 365 days before it completely rusted out and the rear door fell off. I have other trailers that are 5 to 10 years old that don’t have these issues. It’s very sad that Qualitec is refusing to stand by its product.”