Thursday, September 3, 2009

More Repairs to Finish the Job...sort of

Yesterday was one of those days where you just have to get the job done! Any recreational vehicle will need service or repair from time to time. Our motorhome has just seemed to need a lot of it lately. If we want to travel by RV, then it just has to get done.

We had to get up at 5:30 to drive south 27 miles to I-5 Uhlmann RV in Chehalis, Washington. We had our appointment and it was going to be an all day job. This is the new building I-5 Uhlmann just finished and moved into.....just in time for the big meltdown in the RV industry.
They have been at this new location for about a year. It is a great facility with many service bays and a good waiting area. It is located at exit 76 off Interstate 5 in Washington. We had a couple of minor things we needed done and then 2 "biggies". The first biggie was the finish work on our original problem with the leaking in the 2 slide outs. The slide on the driver side of the coach need the slide-top awning replaced. We could have done it back at the Winnebago factory in August, but it would have meant another 10 days waiting for parts. We opted to head on back here to Washington and have our local dealer make the replacement. The second biggie was once again the satellite dish. This has been a source of irritation for several months. We had it looked at twice on our trip - once in Florida and again at Winnebago. On both occasions it worked perfectly at the repair facility. Don't ya just love when that happens? It quit working and gave up the ghost for the last time, about 3 days out of the Winnebago factory.

After we got back here to Tumwater, we added it to our list of repairs. It is supposed to be covered by our extended warranty policy. The nice man at Uhlmann checked it out and, Praise The Lord, it wouldn't cooperate and lock onto the satellite signal. Finally! He really gave it a workout to see if he could fix anything and he could not. It appears the control panel (or whatever he called it) was kaput. The extended warranty folks would not approve a replacement until an independent service tech came to look at it. So, this morning we drove back to Uhlmann to have that guy look it over. Still wouldn't work. No duh! So, he will make his report to recommend full replacement and we now wait to see how that goes. Fine and dandy as it will save us around $2,000.

Annie gets to come into the service center with us, too. We took her favorite blankie and her water bowl and she slept under the coffee table while we watched TV or read our books. She's a good little girl. Here she is with me outside the Uhlmann building.

Annie and I walked around for a while to get some fresh air and look at the inventory (or lack of) that Uhlmann has on their lot. We found this cute Little Chalet travel trailer. I checked with Annie about that one and she wasn't in favor of a trade-in.
Compare the Little Chalet to this Adventurer and you can see the big difference. If you had several dogs, you could tow this Little Chalet behind the Class A as a dog house for them.

There were several nice looking 5th wheels on the lot like these and a few larger travel trailers as well. When we were at Uhlmann for some RV supplies last winter they had a lot more motorhomes on the lot. They most likely sold them at big discounts to unload their inventory and haven't replaced them as yet. I hope their business picks up and they can hang in there. They are nice people and have a good service center.

This afternoon we are waiting for the phone to ring and give us the news on the satellite dish replacement. I have a good feeling about it, but until you get the final answer......well, you never know!
Until next time.....so long for now!



2 comments:

squawmama said...

Hi Margie... We went through the same stuff so many times... It is no surprise when you think of the bumpy rides on Interstates that these poor motorhomes go through. So yes every once in a while we need repairs... We had big leaks in our Horizon when we first got it... Took several trips and over a year to get them fixed... Hope all comes out well with your Satellite... is it a Kingdome?

Have Fun & Travel Safe
Donna

ps... Annie looks good in the pictures. How is she doing?

Jerry and Suzy said...

All I can say is, in the immortal words of Nick Russell, "It's all part of the adventure."

However, I haven't heard or read Nick saying that recently. I wonder if he's had too many adventures!

Thanks for the update. If we're ever in need of service in southern Washington (or northern Oregon) we know where to go!