When a Dishwasher Does More Than Wash Dishes

Parked at St. George/Hurricane KOA
(an RPI park)

A little over two months ago the dishwasher stopped working. I never had a dishwasher in our first RV, And for the first year or so in this one, the dishwasher was inoperable. By a strange fluke that we still can't really pin down, it suddenly began to work and worked beautifully for a couple years. I got used to it. It's one of those things that you think you can live without... until you have one and then suddenly you don't. Now I can't imagine having to wash my dishes by hand for the rest of ever.

So Mark began to do what he does so well-- figure out how to either fix it or get it fixed. He searched the internet and found a manual for it, but the manual was no help. Next he started calling around to a few local appliance repair establishments (we were in Minnesota at the time). "It's in an RV? Sorry, we don't fix dishwashers in RVs." So he thought, we're heading to Spokane next; I'll check there. And he looked up some places there. "No can do." One place he called told him that if he pulled the dishwasher out of the RV and brought it in, they would look at it. Now, exactly how much different is it to work on a dishwasher (or pull it out for that matter) in an RV than it is in a house? None of it made any sense to me. But try as we might, there was no finding any repair shop willing to tackle the job. 

In the end, he called a place in the Salt Lake City area that many Alfa owners have praised for its reliable and quality service called Charlie's Service Center. Since our route after leaving Nampa would be taking us right past Salt Lake City on our way to Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks, Mark called them and asked if fixing a dishwasher was something they could do. "Yes, we can certainly look at it." And he made an appointment.

We arrived the day before and were comfortably installed in a parking spot with full hookups. 

Of course, since we were going to be at an RV service center, Mark reasoned, they may as well check out a few other potential trouble issues that he had been monitoring-- the main one being the motor/drive on our main slide, which had been acting up off and on over the past six months or so. Our service tech, Gilberto, went over everything with Mark to get a feel for what needed doing and also did a cursory check of the engine. After inspecting everything, he announced, "You can't drive this the way it is! Your turbo is shot. I'm surprised you even made it here. Your engine could have caught fire."

Also the slide drive gear was busted-- missing teeth. He told us that at some point--probably quite soon--we wouldn't be able to move the slide in or out at all. 

And they pulled out the dishwasher.

Instantly I understood why we couldn't find anyplace along our way that would fix our dishwasher. Had we taken care of the dishwasher problem, we would never have ended up in exactly the place we needed to be at exactly the time we needed to be there to get two very serious problems resolved. I saw the hand of God at work as clearly as if he had spoken to me.

Gilberto said, "You are lucky!" I replied, "No. Not lucky. Blessed!"

A one day repair turned into a full week, and we missed our visit to Bryce Canyon. But that just means we have something yet to visit that we can look forward to in the future.

Charlie's replaced our old broken slide drive assembly with a center drive, which is more reliable and should last the life of the coach. And they put in a new turbo.

But the dishwasher was toast. Repairing it would cost more than a new one. I couldn't help but laugh.

The sad hole where the dishwasher used to be

Now we're looking at our options for a replacement and plan to take care of that at Leisure Coach Works in Fontana next month. 

For now, we're washing dishes by hand and enjoying the beauty of Zion National Park. 

God is good. Always.

Safe travels (and maybe get your turbo checked) ...