April 4th through April 24th, 2015 Repairs, Repairs, Repairs and On The Road Again

We are planted here for however long it takes to make repairs. Met up with Tiffin couples in the Tiffin campground that are friends of friends. It is comforting, when sitting for days, sometimes weeks in repair bays, to compare travels, experiences and solutions to commonalities. When you live on a roll, repairs take priority, often times eliminating a leisurely paced arrival to your next destination.

Our Tiffin manufacturer is in Red Bay Alabama and Good Ol’ Boys manage and work the bays. Most of the conversations about our motorhome have had to come from John, something I am not accustomed to, or comfortable with, due to John’s quiet, non-confrontational nature. In my world, Band-Aide repairs are not acceptable as they result in something breaking at the most inopportune moments, usually with astronomical costs.

The laid back work ethics of some Express Bay workers, when you are paying by the hour, are intolerable for me. John, not being one to demand them to focus and stay on task, does not understand my impatience when they repeatedly wander off. They live on Alabama time, a distant cousin of Jamaican time, half the speed of the rest of the country. Standing in the breezeway chatting about weekend benders? Really guys? Save this for your mandatory breaks. Stress, rain, dust and the unpleasant gastronomic dog food odor coming from Sunshine Dog Food Factory up the street remain a constant in our lives for an ever expanding stretch of time.

Waiting for service is like being in suspended animation. Bed covered to keep out the inevitable dust, slides retracted, everyday needs tucked away…location hopefully to be remembered when all is repaired, the household kept in travel mode for the multiple moves to alternating repair bays day after day beginning at 5:30 am and continuing on until 4pm.

Travel Mode

The Tiffin RV park, housing over 100 Tiffin’s waiting for repairs, is made up of row upon row of near identical motorhomes. So much so that one of the new owners we met walked into someone else’s coach to face a shirtless man, not her husband, both of them astonished, red faced and apologetic. This same owner told us she had gone to a safety class giving her instructions on how to exit her motorhome through the bedroom window should the need arise.  I kid you not, she told us that her husband would take the bedspread and hold one end while she climbed out the window, then her husband would shut the bedspread in the window to hold it while he climbed down.  I bit my tongue and smiled politely.  John, tacky daddy that he is, didn’t.

Rows of Tiffins

While sitting at one of the slide repair bay’s, John advanced with a huge forced grin. “Give me a hug” were his first words just seconds after talking to the supervisor. Hmmm. Suspicious and never a good sign. Got my hug, then the news. We need the entire underside of our passenger side kitchen slide replaced as it has snapped and buckled. That is the reason all our kitchen cabinets and drawers are separating.

Our regular repair mode of 5:30 wake time was compounded by the removal of everything in the passenger side kitchen slide from the drawers and cupboards so they can lift the slide out, tilt it and replace the flooring.  Easy right?  Because we have so much extra room to store stuff.

Moving it out Passenger side going down

John felt compelled to pick out every rock and loose screw along the edge to keep himself busy.

Picking out metal pieces and misc screws

After it was removed, we were advised that the repair would take longer than a day.  That afternoon we left LilyPad in the bay and were treated to a night in a king size dog friendly room at Best Western Plus compliments of Bob Tiffin.  Great free omelet breakfast before taking a leisurely drive back to Red Bay.

Overnight in a hotel

And today a new discovery, our kitchen slide on the driver’s side, opposite what is currently being replaced, has broken rollers and the flooring also needs to be replaced. Once we put one side back together, we start taking things out of the other slide…rinse and repeat. Are we having fun yet?

Back in our motorhome, we removed the contents of the other side for the next days repair.  Out, repaired and put back within four hours.

New Flooring drivers slide

Our roof rails needed a tweak (more rivets and then gel coated to secure the replacement made last year) and the wet bay (the floor under the black/grey tanks) is rotting out and must be replaced.

Wet Bay replacement

In another bay, our neighbor went up in the air while our repair man crawled under to fix the newly discovered shorted out sensor in the engine coolant.

Our neighbor going up

When I walked to the back of the motorhome to check on progress, I was surprised to see boots standing inside the back of our engine. My first thought was “maybe we can store something in that empty space”. Then again, probably not.  I doubt I can talk John into crawling under the motorhome to retrieve anything squeezed into that space.

Standing up under our Motorhome Working on our engine

Next bay, another potential repair needed to the back bedroom slide as it is not square to the walls…and the gouge under the fridge slide area appeared again.  Fixed and fixed.

Now, nearly three weeks into repairs, I’m hearing “you need to chill” whenever I explain that the same repair was made last year or that we have just “been here-done that” in another bay. Although exasperating, the silver lining is that if this had been any other brand of motorhome, the cost would have been major.  Tiffin stands behind its motorhomes and almost all of our work is being covered under warrantee. Repairs that are not, are billed at the cost of parts.  Even million dollar motorhomes don’t do repairs gratis six years after purchase.

Taking intermittent breathers, we were able to get away a few times for lunch and dinner with our new friends to chat about life on the road. Saturday we drove to the number one fish restaurant in the area.

Just inside the door

Lash’s Seafood Restaurant has a swampy campy appearance, nothing fancy but as full of atmosphere as a Disney themed diner.  Awesome gumbo but all the other offerings were only mediocre.

Gumbo

I could feel the tension melting away as we sat by the window watching the muddy waters flow past us.

Looking out the window

I usually don’t do the “keeping up with the Jones’s” thing but our new friends have a door bell and I insisted that we needed one. It is set to play “Dixie”. That may not endear us to our Yankee neighbors in Massachusetts, but it will proudly let all who visit us know where our hearts and roots are planted.

Our new doorbell

Our journey to Massachusetts has now been on hold 22 days. Our wood cabinet and drawer repair is done, they replaced the incorrect wet bay tub that was installed when they replaced the wet bay, a new motor for our dishwasher will be ordered (it broke when they took the slide out for repair) and I have heard rumors that we will be done at the end of today. As is the custom here at Red Bay, we will take one entire day to check all repairs before we pay the bill and get ready to roll the next morning.

Early waking up this sunny clear Friday morning.  All is good to go.  Good By Red Bay, see ya next year!  Next stop, Nashville, Tennessee.