Slide seals squealing and grabbing after a summer in the sun, what do you treat them with?

i do this for a living around Mesa so you get the long answer.

your coach has two kinds of rubber on each slide. the wiper seal is the flat flap that drags across the wall as the room moves, that's the one squealing. the bulb seal is the round hollow one that gets squashed when the room is all the way in or all the way out, that's the one keeping the rain out. they fail differently. wipers get hard and grabby, bulbs get flat spots and crack where they stay squashed.

the guy at your park is half right. cheap spray silicone with petroleum solvents in it will dry rubber out over a few years. the stuff isn't evil, it's just the wrong can. what i use on customer coaches is 303 Aerospace Protectant for the UV, wiped on with a rag, not sprayed, and a dedicated slide seal lube on the wipers if they still squeal after that. Protect All makes one, so do a couple of others. twice a year, more in Arizona.

how to tell if it's done: pinch the wiper. if it springs back, treat it. if it stays bent or you see little cracks along the fold, it's done and no can will fix it. a wiper that folds under like yours describes is usually a seal that took a set while the room was in for two months in the heat. try the 303, run the room in and out five or six times, and see if it lays down. if not, it's a replacement and that's a weekend job, not a dealer job.

following, mine does the same thing every spring when we come back from the desert. i'd been blaming the slide motor. Forza 38W, the big slide groans like it's lifting a piano.

good one for the newer folks. a question i get a lot: is it ok to leave the slides out in storage so the seals don't sit squashed? the answer i was given by the Thor service guy in Elkhart was no, bring them in, because a slide out in storage means the topper fabric and the roof over the room take every storm. squash the bulbs and treat them, rather than hand the wind a big flat target.

agree with carol, in, especially in monsoon country. we had a storm come through Apache Junction on the 21st that peeled a topper off a coach at a storage yard like a sardine can.

Marv, when you do the replacement, the new wiper slides into a track. pull the old one out in one piece if you can and take it to the store with you, profiles that look the same aren't. warm the new one in the sun for an hour before you feed it in, it goes in a lot easier, and leave it a half inch long at each end. it shrinks.