We spent the night in the RV for the first time. We had the A/C turned really low due to the high heat during the day. I woke up at 4am freezing, the RV had really cooled off over night. I couldn’t get to the thermostat since my son’s bed blocked my path. It was really cold and all of us were feeling it. I finally got up and took my shower only to find there really wasn’t any hot water. I could feel a slight heat to the water but it was definitely not right. Since the techs were coming to get the RV, I made sure to disconnect us from shore power and from the water connection. I also had the slides in and we were ready for them prior to 8am. Around 8:30am Lee showed up to fix the problem with the propane. I also had a list of items we found overnight. They included the toilet leaked, the hot water wasn’t working, the surround sound back speakers didn’t work, and the water inlet leaked. Lee was very pleased to get our list.
He started working on the issue with the propane and told me he would fix everything else. We decided to give him some space and go eat breakfast. We went to Cracker Barrel hoping to get a filling meal that would last us until we arrived at home later that day. Our intention was to still leave around 10am, which to me meant if we leave at 11am we will be lucky.
Breakfast was good and we got back to the RV around 10am hoping the RV would be ready. Lee stated he got the propane issue fixed, it was caused by two wires touching during the carbon monoxide detector install. The problem with the water heater is due to the mixing not being set correctly. Apparently the water heater mixes cold and hot water together so you don’t get burnt when using it. Lee stated if he couldn’t get the mix correct he might have to just cap off the cold water leaving us with boiling hot water. I let him know that was not an option. He eventually got it mixed correctly. Two things down!
Next up was the surround sound, he had confirmed the speakers were working the signal just wasn’t getting to them. He reconnected them to the receiver and they started working. This didn’t take long and things were looking better.
He put a washer in the water inlet connection to resolve the leak issue.
Last up was the leaking toilet, which he sent someone out to get a part from a local store. My wife and I walked to the office to use the restroom and by the time we got back the part had been delivered. Unfortunately it was the wrong part. Our toilet has a sprayer attached to it and this part didn’t allow this. Lee started making calls to see if the correct part could be obtained. In the mean time I had noticed our tank level indicator display was no longer working along with the main battery information. Lee took a look at it but got distracted on something else (this will come in to play a little later). Jim arrived to inform me they couldn’t get the correct part for the toilet today but if I was willing they would ship it to me and the toilet will work fine with the part they do have until I get the new one installed. This was fine with me so I gave him our shipping address and it looked like we were good to go.
Jim and Lee both left and we started getting prepared to leave. I asked my daughter to check the tank levels to make sure we had plenty of water and grey tank available for the trip home. She pressed the button and nothing happened. I took a look at it and realized Lee hadn’t fixed the problem so I called the office and about 30 minutes later Lee showed up. We went back through the problem but he wasn’t having any luck fixing it. He went back and got Jim, they both looked at the issue unable to resolve it. Jim said he would send up one of the 12v system techs and they left. We waited in the RV only to have a horrible storm hit for about 30 minutes. After the storm a new tech arrived and with in a few minutes he determined 3 fuses had been blown, more that likely while Lee was working on the other issue since I had check the levels prior to Lee’s arrival and they were all working. He replaced the fuses and we were actually ready to.
The RV purchase was very difficult not from the perspective of paperwork or getting financing those were very easy. The problem was the dealership taking way too long to get things completed. They were give 3 full weeks to get the RV ready for pickup. It seems like they waited until the day before we arrived to begin prepping the RV and they found problems that had to be corrected. While Jim and the technicians worked very hard to resolve the issues the pressure they felt was all due to poor communication in the company. Items we had agreed on during the negotiations were not passed on to the service people. This was very frustrating to my family. I expected to have some items not complete but really the majority of items were not addressed. I am not sure how we will avoid this next time we buy an RV.