We have been fortunate to have avoided any real technical issues with our motorhome until now. \u00a0 Although not serious, I thought I’d share some of the challenges that can happen on the road, even in a new RV.<\/p>\n
It started as we prepared to depart from our week long stay on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) land outside of Joshua Tree National park south of Palm Springs, CA. \u00a0 BLM land is great because you can stay free! \u00a0This area is just outside the southern entrance to Joshua Tree and has great Verizon coverage (unlike inside the park). \u00a0There are no hookups for water, electricity or sewer on BLM land, but there was a \u00a0campground 6 miles away in JTNP that has a dump station and water. \u00a0We’ve learned we can go about 7 days without needing hookups. \u00a0So, as Lisa is pulling in the back bedroom slide she calls me and says “we’ve got a problem.” \u00a0After coming in 1\/2 way, the slide motor on one side just quit. \u00a0We tried get it to go out, no luck. \u00a0Tried to bring it in again, no luck. \u00a0 The left side motor was working so if we kept pressing the switch the room would twist out of alignment. \u00a0Not good.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, we were only returning to the Thousand Trails Palm Springs campground about 30 minutes away so we had time to solve the problem without worrying. \u00a0After some trial and error, we discovered\u00a0we could manually push the slide in on the broken side while the motor pulled in the other side. \u00a0This was good news! \u00a0Soon we had it pushed in and we traveled to our campground. \u00a0I later learned I should have done something to lock the room in (such as a 2×4 brace) as it could have slid out if the other motor shaft broke during transit. \u00a0Fortunately, we arrived without incident at our current campground.<\/p>\n
I called Winnebago Customer Service and the technician said that although our motorhome is now out of warranty (1 year old as of February), they would cover this repair if I could bring it to a local dealer. \u00a0This is the challenge as we have learned on this trip. \u00a0Trying to get an appointment for service work is harder than a meeting with the President! \u00a0We have a small list of things (nothing serious) that are all warranty issues that we have been trying to get fixed since we stared on this adventure last summer. \u00a0Each time we try to get into an authorized repair facility, they say it will be 6 – 8 weeks before we can get in, by which time we are somewhere else.<\/p>\n
So I wasn’t hopeful when I called the local Itasca dealer, Mike Thompson \u00a0RV. \u00a0The service advisor was pleasant, but told me the earliest he could get us in is April 29. \u00a0Several more calls to Winnebago and attempts with other dealers in a 200 mile area yielded nothing better.<\/p>\n
In addition to the slide not working, our propane system stopped working after we refilled our tank here. \u00a0I searched the online forums, talked to the Winnebago tech and although we tried several things, nothing worked. \u00a0So, we are without propane until we can get in to a dealer also. \u00a0We were able to remedy the propane problem by purchasing a small 2 burner electric appliance which, along with our microwave\/convection oven, will make things easier until we can get it fixed.<\/p>\n
This has been our biggest disappointment from the road – the lack of available dealer technicians to fix things. \u00a0If consumers had to wait 6 weeks to get their cars repaired, they would be furious but RV customers are just supposed to accept this. \u00a0I have heard from many fellow RVers that this is normal. \u00a0While it may be “normal” it is completely unacceptable and I hope things change soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We have been fortunate to have avoided any real technical issues with our motorhome until now. \u00a0 Although not serious, I thought I’d share some of the challenges that can happen on the road, even in a new RV. It started as we prepared to depart from our week long stay on Bureau of Land … Continue reading Technical Difficulties<\/span>