Much Worse Than We Thought! After our BLOW OUT earlier this year, we knew there was major damage as Dave had to replace the gas line to the stove and water line to the fridge, and we knew we’d have to take it in to an RV repair shop for other damages such as an all new trim piece on the slide, brackets, bent metal, etc.
Click on smaller photos for links to videos below. Larger pictures are photos only.
We have three places that we will take our DRV for repairs: Indiana Interstate Enterprise in LaGrange, Indiana, Whiskey Mountain RV in Mesa, Arizona and Rolling Retreats in Elk City, Oklahoma. They all specialize in DRV’s, so we chose the closest one to us in Indiana. Paul and Kay Cross have done awesome work for us in the past. Plus, they are only minutes from the DRV manufacturing plant in Elkhart if supplies are needed (if available). Paul used to be the Service Manager for DRV many years ago.
There is always a long wait for an appointment, especially when you have so many things to be repaired, but Dave had already made everything operational, so we knew the wait would not affect us. So, we made the appointment 6 months in advance for Indiana Interstate for July. We sent a repair list with many photos to them and they said they would need it for 2 weeks. 2weeks? Yes, 2 weeks! As time went by, we started finding more things to be fixed on our 2015 38RSB3 home and added that to the list.
*KITCHEN SLIDE FLOOR HOLE!*
After the blow out, Dave had to do some repairs under the kitchen slide that contains the fridge, stove, pantry and entertainment area. While doing those repairs, he found a hole in the bottom of the kitchen slide. So, we contacted Paul and Kay to let them know, so they could get the floor ordered.
*OMG! MORE SLIDE PROBLEMS!*
While we were going over our list with Paul and Kay on site, Paul immediately went to the bedroom vanity slide and pushed up on the bottom right corner and it was soft. Apparently, this is a common trademark for DRV as he didn’t even look at it, he just walked up and pressed under the slide floor. So, guess what? We’re getting that replaced too.
And as if that wasn’t bad enough, as he was inspecting the bedroom slide with the washer and dryer closet, he noticed it was rotten too. It was replaced 3 years ago! The hose on the washer had a slow, unnoticeable leak that was eating away at the slide floor. So, guess what? Slide #3 getting replaced. Paul mentioned that the hoses should be changed every 3 years whether it looks like it is needed or not. Here is the picture Paul sent us after he took it apart.
*CRACKS ON THE OUTSIDE WALLS!*
As I was using the leveling equipment one day, I noticed a crack under the bedroom slide at the front. I looked at the other side and sure enough, there was one there too. They were actually bulging out a bit. We had never heard of this before and let them know about the newly found issue. They said they could fix that and had seen it many times before.
*TORN AWNINGS!*
Since our RV is getting older, so is everything associated with it. We noticed the awnings starting to tear on the ends. Sometimes they would have bubbles the size of your fist in the awning material and you could start to see day light coming through tiny holes. We used black Gorilla Tape to hold them together until we could get them replaced, and that worked very well. So, time for replacements and that was added to the list. In addition, the awnings were not closing all the way properly and that needed to be adjusted too.
*ENTRY DOOR PROBLEMS!*
While we were at Blue Beacon one time, we failed to get out and check out the RV before we left. Big Mistake – Lesson Learned! They had ripped off the door grab handle and it scratched the door. So now we need one of those and some paint touch up. In addition to that, the plastic cover on the inside over the lock cracked off. And another thing was the front entry door lock. Even with new batteries, it will work sometimes and not others. So, going to have Indiana Interstate look at that too.
*ICE MAKER WON’T WORK!*
We have the front door water/ice dispenser on our fridge and it will provide water, but it will not make ice. We had the ice maker replaced, but it still didn’t work. In fact, we had it worked on twice. And as you probably know, moving those big residential fridges in an RV is not any fun. So, we decided to forgo a third time and just bought a portal ice maker a couple of years ago. But, we thought, we’d give it one more shot while we were at Indiana Interstate.
*HYDRAULICS GIVING US PROBLEMS!*
About a year after we bought our RV, we started having problems with the old style front land gear dropping on their own. They would not hold the front end up all the time, so we had a temporary fix to hold the legs in place until we could get them fixed. We took them to Robert’s Quality RV Repair (now retired) back then and he did a great job fixing them.
However, in last few months, we started to have problems with the front legs not going up high enough when auto leveling while setting up in a campsite. Everything seems to work just fine until that last automatic push up on the front legs…it won’t go. Close, but not quite there even when using blocks. Dave added fluid and that seemed to help, but occasionally it would decide not to do the final lift.
Then, once we arrived at Indiana Interstate, Paul noticed hydraulic fluid laying on our snap pad on the front left leg. We hadn’t seen that before. So apparently there is a bad seal or something that needs to be checked into.
*WHAT’S A TAIL WAG?*
While we were going over our list of repairs, etc., Paul mentioned the “Tail Wag”. Come to find out the rear cap of the RV isn’t really secured to anything but the skin of the RV. So, the rear cap starts to move around as the RV flexes going down the road. Then the rear cap starts to separate from the skin because of the lack of support/ attachment. Dave repaired this joint separation some time ago not knowing about the "Tail Wag".
However, the wag is still there, so the flexing has to affect something and now we have a rip under the power cord compartment and it is separating on the other side as well. So, Paul is going to add some steel support to stop the wag and repair the rip.
*PAINT WEARING OFF CAP*
At the top of our front cap, we noticed the paint was wearing away. We showed it to Paul and he is going to see about fixing and painting that too.
*AND THERE’S MORE!*
Since we’d have our RV there for a while, we figured let’s have them repair the smaller stuff too. Some not so small!
1. Check all the rollers and add additional rollers under fridge.
2. Re-caulk the roof.
3. Repair some roof gutter tears.
4. Tighten exterior door locks.
5. Adjust Dish satellite to not hit the AC unit on the roof.
6. Square up the slides so they sit properly when open.
7. Replace brackets on slide toppers to eliminate sag.
8. Replace C02 detector.
9. Replace electric power cord hatch door (broken).
10. Get some parts for us:
a. MCD blind end caps
b. Cabinet lift arms
c. Extra key for basement door locks
d. 2 new hubcaps lost from blow out
*RVING AIN’T CHEAP!”
At this point you are probably thinking DRVs are a piece of sh*t! 💩 However, all homes, whether sticks and bricks or an RV have problems. Our RV is our home and we travel extensively with it, therefore it gets a lot of wear and tear. We hear horror stories all the time from campers about problems they have with all RV makers. So, if you think your RV will never have any problems, you better think again. Honestly, if we were to buy another RV, we would probably by another DRV. We like the thick wall insulation, the frame, the floor plans, the quality of the materials, the dealers/repair shops and the community. We would say, the installation of the materials and design could definitely use some improvement.
*THE GOOD NEWS!*
Fortunately, our RV insurance is covering the blow out slide repairs and the washer/dryer leak slide repair. And, our Cornerstone Extended Warranty is covering some of the minor stuff such as the C02 detector, the ice maker and possibly other items.
*REPAIR VIDEO*
We will be posting a video on these repairs in the future and feel that Paul & Kay will make our RV home, Dixie, like new again.