Early this month, while off-roading my 1991 Jeep Wrangler YJ at Rowher Flats off-road course just north of Los Angeles, I stumbled upon a $1 Million RV called the 27North Ascender. It was in rough shape. The driveshaft was twisted up like a Twizzler, the winch line was wrapped around the driver’s side mirror, and the camper unit was leaning hard to one side. It seemed to me that the primary problem had to do with too much skinny pedal, too much weight, and too steep of a grade, though the company’s CEO claimed a significant cause of the failure was a defective wheel bearing from Ford. I was skeptical of the claim, and the article resulted in a bit of drama, with the CEO becoming a bit upset with our publication. Now we have videos from YouTube channels Donut Media and Matt’s Off-Road Recovery showing what happened to the over-eight-ton, seven-figure off-road RV.
Let’s recap with pictures. Here’s the vehicle in question:
I wrote a simple blog about what I saw, including this driveshaft failure that appeared to be the main cause of the vehicle’s lack of mobility:
To learn a bit more about the vehicle and what happened, I reached out the 27North. Its CEO, Pavel “Paul” Bosovik, told me that a significant cause of the vehicle’s failure was defective wheel bearings from Ford. Here’s a quote from my previous article:
As for what happened, Paul told me this: “Bearing seized up. That pressure damaged the driveshaft and twisted it. Now Ford is getting it towed back… to their facilities to rebuild the rear axle.”
Paul claims that a failed rear wheel bearing — a part that Ford has allegedly recalled (I haven’t been able to find the recall notice) — caused additional strain on the drivetrain, leading to the factory driveshaft twisting up like a pretzel. “It all came back to defective bearing and Ford’s been covering everything under warranty,” Bosovik told me over the phone.
Bosovik also told me that others in the off-road RV space — including EarthRoamer — have had similar bearing failures as well. In addition, Bosovik said that his team was transitioning from 2022 to newer Ford F-550 chassis, saying the newer models will no longer have these bearing issues. For his part, when asked about bearing failures, EarthRoamer’s CEO Scot Allen told me that his company has had no issues with 2020 and newer F-550 bearings. Allen suggested that a bearing problem on a 2022 chassis — like the one that the Ascender is built on — could be due to an overloaded rear axle.
It wasn’t really a big deal and not the main point of the story, but I was skeptical that a wheel bearing was relevant to this failure at all. The problem appeared to be a driveshaft being overloaded by a heavy machine driving on a rather difficult off-road trail. Here’s what I wrote:
I’m a bit skeptical about this for a number of reasons. First off, who off-roads a truck with a failed wheel bearing? Bosovik claims his team “hired one of the best drivers [they] could find,” so that seems a bit odd. Or did the wheel bearing catastrophically fail off-road? That seems unlikely to me.
[…]
We’ll find out from the media outlet that took this thing off-road how a wheel bearing seizure factored into this whole thing, why they took the truck off-road in the first place with a bad wheel bearing, or if this was just a case of too much weight plus too much pedal equals too much torsional strain on a stock driveshaft.
Well, we now have a bit more information now thanks to Donut Media, the aforementioned unnamed media outlet responsible for the vehicle’s failure. Have a watch:
The video begins with a discussion of the Ascender’s on-road driving experience. “This feels like you’re riding an elephant. Really heavy, steering is like kind of a suggestion,” one of the hosts says. “There’s just so much mass so high that it just pulls you wherever it wants to go,” his co-host chirps before the driver chimes back in: “And when you go over dips it bounces for about a minute in a half.”
Donut tries taking the RV through a McDonald’s drive-through, but the truck is too tall. Then the team goes off-road, and notices the camper section of the truck leaning back and forth on a mild dirt trail. “A lot of flexin’ going on,” one host says.
The team then shows the rather nice interior and power-ejecting stairs, and also notes the Ascender’s decent parking lot maneuverability. There’s a stocked kitchen and a slick screen that turns on various functions. There were apparently some issues getting the stove to work, but Donut figured it out and used it to cook a nice salmon and veggie dinner. As for sleeping, a Donut host says the Ascender is “Better than sleeping on the ground for sure,” and one applauds the fact that he didn’t have to alight from the vehicle to urinate, and that there was no packing needed to continue on the trail in the morning.
Then the video shows the harder off-roading. “This truck is definitely a little bit overwhelming,” a host says after the rather tall vehicle hits some trees. One host compliments the vehicle’s climbing ability, and another calls the machine “sketchy.”
The team notes the relative lack of weight up front, and that makes it seem like “[the Ascender] could roll over.” Ultimately the truck makes a rather steep climb — which a Donut host calls “impressive.” I agree that that grade is rather difficult.
After Donut notes the truck’s lack of dual locking differentials, one host, Justin, decides to get behind the wheel and try the climb. As shown in the screenshot above, it does not go well. The vehicle appears to hop a bit, and then the driveshaft fails, leaving the vehicle immobile right in the middle of the sketchy hillclimb. Donut tries backing and then towing the vehicle out, but the Ascender is too heavy for their tow rigs.
Donut reaches out to Matt’s Off-Road Recovery YouTube channel. Here’s what that team did to get the Ascender unstuck:
According to Matt, “the guy who owns the vehicle” (that should be 27North itself) apparently tried recovering the truck, but ultimately Donut Media asked for Matt’s help.
As you can see in the video, Matt’s solution to recover the machine was to replace the driveshaft. And not just swap it out, but build a new driveshaft from scratch. Very impressive!
Matt’s team brought along a bunch of metal tubes of various sizes, as they weren’t sure of the exact diameter of the Ascender’s driveshaft. The team sliced off the ends of the stock driveshaft so that they could weld those ends onto a pipe and bolt the whole thing up to the transfer case and rear section of the driveshaft (the vehicle’s rear driveshaft has two sections; the front section is the one that twisted.)
Matt’s team then cut the pipe to the appropriate length (after measuring the distance between the rear pillow bearing and the transfer case yoke) and welded on the ends from the stock driveshaft:
After some iteration, the team seems to have done a great job getting the ends on there nice and square:
It’s obviously not a permanent solution, in part because it’s not balanced, but honestly — the team seems to have done an amazing job. For them to drive to California, assess the situation, remove the failed driveshaft section, and build and install a new one within just a few hours — that’s just legit.
This video shows a recovery that involved solely a driveshaft replacement; there’s no mention of a bad wheel bearing. As a courtesy, I reached out to 27North. Bosovik’s response made it clear that he was rather upset with my coverage and refused to provide a comment — presumably in large because I was skeptical about his wheel bearing failure claim.
Now, I’ve been off-roading for most of my life, I have an engineering background, and I’ve seen driveshaft failures before; never have I seen one caused by a wheel bearing failure. Typically wheel bearing failures happen over a long duration. Why would one drive a vehicle off-road with an already-failing wheel bearing? A wheel bearing could theoretically seize up, but this would probably happen at very high wheel speeds, and again, there would almost certainly be signs beforehand. Plus, I also was unable to find a recall for a 2022 F-550 (which is what underpins the Ascender), and when I asked EarthRoamer, its CEO said it had no issues with 2020+ F-550s (15 issues with pre-2020s). It just didn’t make a lot of sense to me.
Anyway, this little bit of drama is all for naught, really, because the trail was difficult. It’s not like this truck snapped its driveshaft on a newbie trail; that grade is no joke. It failed during the prototype stage, and that’s OK. It happens.
Anyway, Bosovik eventually did provide a comment to The Autopian’s publisher Matt Hardigree, who had messaged him after watching the two videos. Bosovik says that the bearing issue actually happened before the off-road trip, and that this could have caused the driveshaft to weaken. Again, I remain very skeptical that a bearing was the culprit here, but here’s Bosovik’s comment:
We had an issue with a Ford damaged part three weeks prior to the trip, one that Ford covered under warranty, and believed that could have resulted in extra stress on the driveshaft. We are still investigating the issues.
Bosovik further added:
27North Inc., a leading innovator in expedition vehicles, is thrilled to announce the triumphant journey of our 27North prototype truck, which became the first official Class C expedition truck to conquer the formidable 30-degree slopes of California. We take immense pride in this accomplishment as it signifies a significant milestone in our mission to engineer robust and versatile vehicles for outdoor enthusiasts and adventurers.During this groundbreaking expedition, our team gained invaluable insights that will shape the future development of the 27North model. As a result, we have committed to enhancing the vehicle’s performance and efficiency. This includes reducing the weight from the current 18,000lbs loaded to 15,000lbs, ensuring improved agility and maneuverability on rugged terrains. Additionally, we will be upgrading the driveshaft to expedition version and partnering with a leading industry suspension company to double the rear axle’s capabilities. Furthermore, we are excited to announce our collaboration with Liquid Spring, as we transition from an air suspension to a liquid spring suspension system, providing unparalleled stability and ride comfort.In our relentless pursuit of excellence, we are already gearing up for the next round of testing. The upgraded prototype will undergo rigorous evaluation in the fall of 2023, where we expect it to surpass expectations and further cement its status as the epitome of class-leading expedition vehicles. Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to push the boundaries of innovation in the world of outdoor exploration.
Asked if he was surprised by the tone of the video, Bosovik added “[W]e gave them our prototype and said ‘break it so we know what we need to do better!'”
@zachary_diehl There’s no way a $1M truck should do this #27north #ascender #offroadtiktok #overlanding #cartok #campertour
In my opinion, the primary issues that caused the driveshaft failure were these five: 1. Lots of weight. 2. A steep grade. 3. An obviously-not-strong-enough shaft for this application/these conditions 4. The line chosen by the driver and the driver’s limited experience piloting that vehicle and 5. An apparent lack of locking differentials (you can see some front axle wheelspin in the clip above).
That last point is key. In my experience off-roading, axle and driveshaft failure is almost always a product of a wheel spinning up due to lack of traction and then quickly hitting the ground. This instantaneous traction creates a shock load that tends to snap shafts. Including lockers in the Ascender would almost certainly make failures like this less frequent, as lockers would limit wheelspin. For $1 Million, these should be standard anyway, in my opinion.
“This is heavy heavy heavy. You can just feel it,” Matt from Matt’s Off Road Recovery says while driving the Ascender after fixing its driveshaft. “So this rig is a lot of things…I’m not gonna get into what it is. But I’m gonna get into what it isn’t. It isn’t made for this. This is a very, very steep hill,” he says.
“This is a very very heavy rig,” he continues. “I understand why it twisted driveshafts. It’s super heavy. And really really steep hills — any bouncing, one bounce, and BOOM it’s done. Ask me how I know.” He later says: “It just feels like the wrong rig to be here in.”
So anyway, moderate reporting drama aside: impressive work by Matt and his team getting this heavy beast off that steep trail. And you know what, good on 27North for putting their truck through such a grueling test and planning to use it to make improvements.
Looks like they gave it “THE BEANS”
Shoot me now
I feel the venn diagram of “Donut media fans” and “people who can afford this” is just two very distant circles.
You forgot the 3rd circle….people dumb enough to buy it. When taken together it kinda starts to make a weird stretched out Audi logo.
So funny how they talk about this this trail being hard, when it’s where Farah goes to test stuff like the bronco sport….
Good on David for not being cowed by the flim-flam man at 27 North.
Ford releasing a defective part? Shocked, I am shocked!
Why would you have an insanely expensive 15,000 lb rig like this and not have dual rear wheels and triple locking diffs as standard equipment? If you have to have only 4 wheels, start with an actual military truck. Watching that thing lean to port and starboard like that is startling, with that high center of gravity tipping over on those SRWs seems a lot more possible in forseeable trail conditions than it should be.
I laugh at the fact they loaned this thing to Donut (whom I love). Brands like this usually reach out for some influencer who will just swoon over how awesome it is. Donut guys give close to zero f***s and do poorly thought out things. They never go in with the intention of breaking something, but then they do so in such a hilariously humble way almost every time.
There is no benefit to 27N loaning to Donut under the (clearly made up after-the-fact) pretense of push it til you break it. The Donut guys mocked the thing from go (like they do) and then broke it when they did some ill-advised things in the most Donut of ways (like trying to do a 30* crawl when the thing looked like it was going to eject the camper from flex and roll on the drive to the trail). Ummm, wrong guys to promote your million dollar toy, fellas. In fact, Donut is a channel that champions doing more with less on a lot of their videos….or, um, just trying to do anything with crap off of Wish.
My guess. 27N had no idea who they were getting into bed with. Targeted Donut due to popularity and numbers, expecting their joke of a top heavy camper to be paraded and oohed and awed over. Instead, it was mocked. Nearly broken, Non-functional. Broken. Then broken some more. Then fixed by dudes who actually know what they are doing on the side of the fricking trail because your team engineered precisely nothing on your stupid “overlander.” Well done, 27N. Well done indeed.
All publicity is good publicity right? They just have to manage the fall out correctly. It does remind me of a fella trying to sell his Falcon, with the headline “As seen on Today Tonight”. They used footage of him ripping a skid with every single hoon article they did. Just leaned right in to it.
Nah, ask that “smart” juicer company….what was their name….Juicero. Got tons of publicity when someone pointed out just squeezing their stupid bags did the same thing as their spendy machine. Tons of publicity. Where are they now? Non-existent.
Some press you can’t spin. Competitors will be pointing out this failure (not just the drive train, everything about it) to their clients who are cross-shopping. Whatever investment they had will begin to dry up. Orders they had lined up (if they are taking any yet) will start backing out. They may make and ship a few. They’ll pivot to pushing their other model in an attempt to move past this and try to salvage something. 5 years from now it will be a laughable footnote to look back on. Maybe they are still around making van life conversions. Maybe they’ll have the smaller 250 based model actually on the road. This chapter though will be a failure.
Yup. Juicero was a fantastically engineered product that is massively overbuilt for it’s use case, and actually deserved it’s $600 price tag (dead serious, watch the AvE teardown on utube, those things were not cheap to build). And didn’t do anything your hands couldn’t do. Just like this giant POS doesn’t do anything a 20k Taco can’t do, and fails at many things the Taco can do.
It’s a shame, because so many consumer products have shit engineering and all of the talent is busy chasing luxury industry dollars.
But how many times have you peed in your Toyota?
I don’t think they were doing anything particularly ill-advised. It was a steep climb, but this was a $1 million off-road machine. The truth is 27North overpromised and underdelivered.
Did you see the body roll on the drive up? Super top heavy, super heavy period. It wasn’t the dumbest thing they did, but they knew going in it was ill-advised. Then they pulled it off and were a bit surprised all while laughing about the front starting to lift on the way up. Then decided to do it again instead of stopping while they were ahead.
To be clear, 100% not blaming the Donut guys. I love their irreverent approach. Just pointing out, it wasn’t the most sensible decision making, and I bet 27N had no idea that was the predetermined outcome. So yup, overpromised, underdelivered, and should have loaned it to a van life influencer instead.
David: I’ve had a front passenger wheel bearing fail on an 89 XJ Laredo (I’m sorry). I can tell you they don’t fail right away. They fail from a failure to stop ignoring a problem and failure to do something about a noise. I was fresh out of college, had little money and wanted to go camping in the Rockies. So we took the old XJ with the wheel bearing that had been squeaking for weeks. It got louder and I distinctly remember making some young comment and turning up the stereo. My girlfriend later said “there is a glowing red color” that she could see as we drove, at night, 100 miles into the Rockies on a dirt road. Then I started steering left to go straight since I was melting the hub assembly. Darn-it we were going to get to that campsite. We did, and the wheel was flopping at 35degrees and the hub was a molten mass that even heated up the axle housing. We camped for the weekend and got an expensive tow home. The memories were humorous, but older me scolds my young and dumb self and am glad I didn’t start a forest fire with my ignorance. That Jeep was repaired, stolen and recovered 2x and is probably still alive somewhere out there.
It’s good for The Autopian to be sticking to its guns here. It wouldn’t actually take much of an engineer to see the problems going on, some of which are inexcusable. There is some impressive word engineering in the mfr. statements though. Meanwhile an actual off-road guy, most of whom I know also have mechanic/fabrication skill because you have to, would have had that driveshaft off and to a shop the next morning for at-least a rudimentary repair while leaving a watchman at the truck, then been back within a day.
As said by others, lockers can greatly increase the strain on driveline parts and in this overweight vehicle which was being loaned out, its’ probably better to not have them. If the person driving were adequately educated in their use, then yes. This is really a vehicle where the 4×4 capability would be for traction in sand or mud on more-level surfaces. A lesson for the company owner would be to direct his testers that way next time.
The worst thing I saw there was attempting to back down the hill with so little weight on the front tires to keep direction. It could have been cabled up to the Jeep to hold it straight. Get sideways and over she goes. Fortunately they didn’t push what they saw wasn’t working.
For a summer job as a youth I drove a deuce-and-a-half 6×6 water truck over steeper terrain than that with of-course no issues, lotsa fun, really.
I was thinking about that. Typically Jeepers won’t put lockers on Dana 35 axles, since they tend to lack the strength needed to handle heavy off-road use.
But here’s the thing: If this vehicle had lockers, you’d think you’d be able to handle trail undulations more easily, and thus you’d be able to avoid dealing with as many shock loads.
And now, for something other than the blatant lies about the shaft, an honest question from someone that can’t watch the video for another 8h: why was it easier to fabricate a new part in the middle of a trail than to bring a real OEM part? We’re they afraid that the new (and probably expensive one) would break the same way?
I assume there’s a few reasons….off the shelf availability, cost, maybe not OEM, etc. But I bet the largest reason is a bit more simple….
Advertise your off-road recovery company (and Youtube channel) by showing off that you can fab parts on the fly in the field, which I’m sure they do from time to time in recoveries. Much cooler and better viewing than rolling up and bolting on an OEM part.
They picked up the tubes from an actual driveshaft company, but they also took 3 or 4 sizes of tube out with them. So they didn’t know exactly what was on it, or if it was aftermarket, and I expect that availability/cost would limit them from taking completed shafts in all possible combinations.
There’s a life lesson here – really! Telling the truth and owning up is actually better for the ego. You will never be called out in your bullshit if you don’t peddle any.
Or AT LEAST be quiet. “We’re still investigating” is a perfect cromulent answer that neither owns up to your obvious mistake, nor does it shift the blame to someone else.
I find your remark embiggening.
Someone help my out here… how is the weight of the vehicle an issue? Don’t f-550s tow like 20,000 pounds or more?
Read rootwyrm’s comment on page 1, they explain it very well.
Bosovik sounds like a real “visionary”.
Soon to be entertaining the submarine space….
My concern, aside from the pretzelized prop shaft, is the amount of rub at full lock and a slight flex.
During the recovery, the drivers front tire was contacting the (all metal?) fender flare or pinch weld. On my clapped out $2k Toyota with 33″s on it, that’s not only acceptable, it’s expected. On a $1mil vehicle, however, its plain unacceptable.
1.2 mil my ass.
That’s the price, not the cost. 🙂
Someone on youtube wrote “it’s built to separate rich people from their money”… ????
Agreed.
I admittedly know very little about offroading or the engineering of such a vehicle but this seems incredibly poorly designed. Obviously it is horrendously ugly but man that failure was bound to happen. You could easily say that it wasn’t designed for that type of offroading which would be fair but it looked sketch on a simple trail that my Miata wouldn’t struggle with. I can’t imagine avtually paying over a million for that disaster on wheels. It isn’t even nice on the inside.
My guess is that it’s actual real world usage would be to fancy-camp at something like Burning Man. Minimal off road abilities needed, but some rich dude gets to pretend he is rad.
It was already swaying like crazy even before they went offroad.
Oof, that big beast looks like a miserable experience off-road. At that point, like, just rent a cabin. You’re not even camping anymore when you’re taking a full-on house with you like that. Buy some luxe overlanding rig that’s comfier on-road and off-, and get your ten-ply ass a cabin.
I do like the rainbow-handle cookware, though. I’ve got a set of chopsticks like that and I love them! Where do I get the matching pots and pans?
I hear 27North has a lightly used set of pots and pans that they’d be happy to sell to you. Just send a check for $1.2million to Pavel Bosovik, and they’re yours. The free F550 that comes with them has some issues, but you could probably part it out.
hahahahahahahaha (hard pass)
You forgot to mention the high precision instrumentation that Matt used to make his measurements…eyeball and Matt Strap lol! My kind of wrenching!
How many buyers will know you need an HGV license in most parts of the world? At least for the bits before you go off road.
Some of the luxury SUVs like Bentley are very close to the limit — 3.5 tones PTAC in Europe too, probably why they do not have tow hitches.
Years back, late 1970s, I hung out with brothers who co-owned a small Ford Anglia and they squeezed in an Escort 1.6 with banana bunch stainless steel exhaust.
When it went it was a riot. But one day the prop shaft dropped into the tarmac at around 40 mph and the back did its best to act like a pole vaulter.
No one hurt much but the Escort was wreck from skidding on its roof.
They are still arguing about who did not do the bolts on the drive shaft.
27North Inc. is doing a fantastic job of digging their own grave. Not only does this thing look like it was built in someone’s back yard, but it’s a visibly terrible vehicle both on and off road. Nobody in their right mind would want one of these, and certainly not for $1.2M. The driveshaft failure is so obviously not a result of a seized wheel bearing, which amazingly was not seized when the repaired driveshaft is installed… Shocker.
Anytime a startup uses phrases like “push the boundaries of innovation”, you know it’s going to be junk.
OceanGate is another “maximum innovation” company.
“ Nobody in their right mind would want one of these”
This is a Burning Man Special and there are dopes With more money than brains who most certainly want one of them.
this shit is aimes straight as a driveshaft at tech scum for whom money is no object but the idea of overlanding makes them turgid.
‘Move fast and break things’ should not apply to an automotive startup.
“Nobody in their right mind would want one of these”
The entire “overlanding” scene is infested with rich fucks who have far too much money that would buy this. Sadly, it will still likely sell quite well.
Wow a Mashup of three of my favorite car media outlets
The reason you go off-roading, is to get out of the house, and enjoy a bit of the outdoors. You should not try putting the house in the back of a huge pickup, and then go to the outdoors in it. That is dumb.
I’m not really sure anyone who would buy something like this cares though.
As a general rule, I can’t carry on a lengthy conversation with folks like this. Either my jaw is hanging open, just staring at them in disbelief, or I’m laughing too hard to be able to talk. My failing, I know.
Rob Gray, a wildlife photographer in Australia, built an off road motorhome on an old army truck chassis. The real advantage was being able to get 100 meters further into the wilderness than other campers. Makes for peace and quiet. His website https://www.robgray.com/
Or you could just, you know, walk.
If you want to actually enjoy wilderness, backpacking is way better for you and way more respectful of the wilderness. Overlanding is just a way to sell tons of gear, consume a crazy amount of fuel, and avoid the slightest amount of exercise.
“The reason you go off-roading, is to get out of the house, and enjoy a bit of the outdoors.”
Maybe for you. For some others the outdoors is something to grind down and piss on.
I can’t look at the profile of this thing without flashing back to the broken-frame Dodge:
Too much ass on both.
Man, that whole line about wheel bearings is such garbage.
Even if they had a failure that is not the kind of damage it would cause.
And if they did have a bearing failure it had less to do with anything Ford did wrong EVERYTHING to do with the weird spacer setup on the rear wheels
Mr. Bosovik should soon expect a certified letter from Ford Motor Company Legal Division.