[rverdlm]

This is our 3rd full time 5th wheel trailer. When we bought our first one I had the same concern that you seem to have. Some companies said "we will never use hydraulics because they are unreliable". Well, we bought one with hydraulics anyway because we liked the trailer and I thought the issue was a wash. It turned out to be a good trailer, but I did have one problem with the slide. We had an end seal fail on the ram. This caused some oil to leak, but the slide still worked fine. Four years later we were again in the market for a new trailer. Now the company that said never was using hydraulics and the company that made our first trailer had gone to electro-mechanical. We bought the trailer with electro-mecanical. Over the next 4 years we did have problems with this system. Bad motor and later a broken gear box. These failures put you in a bad position because the slides won't move. Both these trailers had mechanical landing gear jacks and stab jacks. While in Newfoundland the landing gear jacks seized and I had to use a bottle jack and blocks to finally get the trailer back on the truck and I was unable to unhook for several days until I was in a place where I could repair it. Dealer support and/or parts were not available in Newfoundland. Now I have full hydraulics from Lippert and I think this is the best system we've had. That does not mean it will never fail, but the effort and time required to set up this trailer is significantly improved. FWIW Teton has gone to Lippert hydraulics and they consider it to be one of their most significant improvements ever. In summary, both systems work, but neither is fool proof and IMHO should not be a deciding factor in a purchase.