Mark assures me that there are just as many problems when you buy new as when you buy used. But since I don't have $250,000 to test out his claims, I'll have to take his word for it. Our pre-owned motorhome came with a bundle of hidden problems that made themselves evident in the first week-- starting, of course, with the "basement" air conditioner.
For the uninitiated, the storage area underneath a motorhome is called a basement. Our coach has two air conditioners, one in the basement that supplies heat and cooling to the entire coach through floor vents, much like a house, and a roof cooler that provides supplementary cooling when needed. The roof cooler only cools the front.
Well, once we settled into our first RV site last week, we called out the repairman. He came out promptly the next morning and after about ten minutes, he was ready to deliver the bad news. Out of two condensers, only one was working, and that one not very well; he could try to fix it, but couldn't guarantee that after we put money into repairs it would actually work. "And, by the way, there's a dead mouse in there." The recommendation was to buy a new one, and he could order it and do the work for the tidy sum of $4,500. It will take two weeks.
If only that were the end of the story. The next day he calls back with further bad news. They don't make it anymore. Can't buy new. BUT, there's a company in California that refurbishes old ones and will sell us one for $4,500 with a one-year warranty. Tack on another thousand or so for installation, and we'll be good to go. Poor. But good to go.
So, okay, we're thinking. We got a good price on the motorhome. Even with this expense, we still come out under budget. Breathe, smile, and move forward. Yay...we're living the dream.
It wasn't too long before the next problem presented itself to us... I think it was the afternoon of the same day. Mark was leveling the coach when he discovered that the left rear jack had no pad on it. It was nothing more than a pipe. It used to have a pad on it, so were' not sure where or when it went missing. So he made a trip to Camper World and came back with a hard plastic pad that might work as a temporary solution until we could replace it properly. No sooner had the jack hit the ground that it failed completely, spewing hydraulic fluid and chunks of yellow plastic all over the cement parking pad. Unlike the air conditioner which can be replaced right here in the RV park, the jack requires a lift. So at the end of the month, we will be driving the motorhome over to Noble RV to replace the broken jack and check all the others.
That brings us to this past weekend, where problem number three reared its ugly head. It was the day of the Pierce Family Reunion (Mark's mother's side) in Anoka. We were parked there with our slides out so family and friends could look at our new rig. When it was time to button up and leave, the living room slide, the big one, refused to come in. Something was very wrong with it, but we couldn't tell if it was a bad switch or a bad motor, or just corroded rails. After struggling with it for ten or fifteen minutes, we realized we'd better call CoachNet, our roadside assistance. You can't drive a motorhome down the road with the slides out. We were stuck.
Buying the CoachNet service turns out to be one of the smartest things we've done so far, though we never dreamed we'd be using it so soon. Within a couple hours, they had someone out to our location and got the slide pulled in so we could get moving again.
That was Saturday. As of today, Monday, the slide is still not working. We will add it to the tasks for Noble RV. In the meantime, Mark has to manually crank it closed, poor guy.
They say troubles come in three's. I hope to goodness that's true, because I'm not sure we can cope with another one...not just yet anyway.
Tomorrow, we're taking the motorhome to a truck garage to have the "motor" part of the motorhome checked out. Hopefully, we'll get a clean bill of health and no more bad news.
This baby's gotta be ready for the road by the end of the month! That's when the real adventures start.
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