Well, we got up and got the Beast ready to drive the 70 miles to a Spartan Repair Shop 70 miles south in downtown Houston. No problem along the way. It did rain so the Beast lost it’s shine. We arrived a little early of our scheduled 10:30 appointment and they took us right in. I explained to them about the engine shutting down and should them exactly where the problem is which is an electrical box with a lot of wires. They took the Beast into shop and out of sight. That always makes me nervous – out of sight.
Now what do we do? We did tow the Jeep there. We went to Chili’s for lunch on the west side of town. Houston does not hesitate to build overpasses and they have a lot of them.
Carol took this picture of a building with this thing on top.
Then we went to Camping world. They didn’t have anything that we couldn’t live without including RVs for sale. then we went to a nearby Newmar dealer in Kathy. Nothing there. Then on to Toy’s R Us. There went a hundred bucks. I tried to tell Carol that these weren’t my kinda of toys. I guess the grand kids and and some needy local kids will get them.
We get back to Spartan about 3 PM. We talked to the tech for about 15 minutes. He explained they took the coach out for about a 50 mile test. No luck. They couldn’t make the engine shut down. They got back to the shop and it quit on them. They still couldn’t find out what the problem was. They knew where but not why. They cleaned out (with air) the 15 or so major electrical connectors. If it persists they will need the coach for two days. They will then take the electrical connectors apart one by one. Each of the 15 connectors have about 12 wires going into each one of them. Yes, that will take a lot of time. They’re not sure if it would be under warranty until they find what is causing the problem and why. They asked if I can start the coach everyday and see if everything is OK. No charge for today’s work because they couldn’t diagnosis the problem. That’s real nice of them since they warned me it could coast $129 an hour with a minimum of 2 hours. I would guess they spent about 2-3 hours on it.
The trip back was just before Houston’s rush hour and the return trip was pleasant and uneventful. We got back about 5 PM which was time for a quick dinner.
Then it was time for me to get the pulled pork into vacuum bags and into the freezer. Another 11 lbs of great pulled smoked pulled pork for a total of 25 lbs. Plus another 2 lbs of extra hard core bark.
During the day I called Newmar to find out the status of our 4th awning. Newmar said they were out of the fabric and would have to have A&E make it. Earlier in this process around awning #2 I was told that they were blaming A&E for sending the wrong awning and that Nemar did not stock awnings. Sounds like I’m getting lip service now. They can’t get their lies straight. I know the word lie is a strong word but that is what they are doing now. Oh, I called them at this special direct number they gave me at the beginning of all this. Well, today I tried to call them about 6 times and got a voice recording each time. I called on Carol’s phone and got right through. Hmmmm…… I will call them Friday and if I don’t get straight answers I will up it about two levels of management. I’ve only used this once before and things rocked and rolled and lower echelon management at Newmar was calling me with updates daily.
This whole ordeal I feel is almost over and they are starting to drag their feet. I’m not letting them lower my standard of acceptance due to their continued screw ups. Nor should any of us RVers do that!
See ya……
