Maybe the title of the blog post should have been “If you like fixing things, a travel trailer might be for you!”

As a result of the trip, I have a lot of fixing to do. If you are even reasonably handy, this probably won’t be an issue. However, if you are not a “do it yourself” sort of person you WILL at some point be paying someone to repair things on your travel trailer. This unfortunately is just a fact of life with every RV, no matter what type.

Manufacturers could build stronger, better trailers, but with far fewer competitors than before 2000, that seems unlikely today. Given the state of manufacturing right now, please invest in a independent certified inspector if you’re thinking of buying a new or used travel trailer. You do not want to start your RV adventure with a list of repairs, or worse yet, a lemon RV.

First, you will have your initial shake down period after you buy your trailer. During the first year, you’ll test everything and tackle any problems while your warranty can cover repairs. After that it’s really maintenance and repair as needed. Make a note to yourself – “There will at some point be repairs”.

Our trip this year resulted in a number of things beyond simple maintenance. Here’s my list after our 3316 mile trip through the states of Tennessee, Arkansas, Kentucky, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, and Texas.

1. Two windows need new external seals. I am noticing some pretty substantial shrinkage on the seals. This is not related to the trip, just an observation I made during my inspection.
2. Rebuild floor cabinet next to couch.
3. Re-attach a pantry shelf face-board, and reinforce the top two shelves.
4. Replace the control box on the brand new Lippert Recliner.
5. Replace the bathroom sink.
6. Replace both slide motors on the table/recliner slide.
7. Shower access panel cannot be screwed shut.

The cabinet near the couch collapsing was the result of a poor design by Grand Design. What I didn’t realize it that the cabinet was really just a two sided box with a couple of 3/4″x3/4″ boards stapled to the other two walls to set a shelf on. See picture below.

I stacked the cabinet too heavily, and it gave way because of poor construction. I thought some six packs of home-brew would not be a problem – wrong! However, another person with the exact same model of trailer told me his collapsed with just a dust buster hand held vacuum in it. So what kind of weight can a two sided shelf hold? Not much!

This from the manufacturer that touts Amish craftsmanship – it’s not! Amish workers take each RV part and actively build the units with staple guns and brad nailers, following the manufacturer’s design. No one in their right mind would construct a cabinet this way.

So as a result, I created two plywood side panels. I cut holes in the plywood to accommodate existing wiring. Each side has a bottom and top rail. The bottom has a piece of wood that joins the two sections together. The top rail holds a full-size piece of plywood that has the original stained 1/16″ piece of plywood on top. This is now so strong it could easily support anything I put in there.

The Pantry is probably a prime example of the same sort of shoddy construction. I have now reinforced the top two shelves with a center brace. This would have taken under a minute per shelf at the factory to complete.

I checked under the face boards on each pantry shelf and discovered that each front brace didn’t connect to one side of the cabinet. If this was a high school shop class, the student who built this would not get a passing grade.

The original bathroom sink cracked by the drain. I have no idea why this happened, other than it was cheap thin plastic. Since it had an odd 14×17 size, I ordered the matching Lippert sink. However, the sink is not the same as the original. It has a larger basin and the ABS plastic is thicker now; so I’m hopeful it will last longer.

On the negative side, the way the new sink attaches is not the same as the previous sink. Lippert Manufacturing includes the same brackets but with no hardware to insert in the plastic posts. Worse yet, they have no idea what to use. How can a manufacturer not know how to assemble their own product? They told me to call Grand Design and see what they were using on their line. I have no idea if Grand Design even uses this size sink anymore – I doubt it.

There has been no update from Grand Design after two weeks. So, in the meantime I hack sawed off the old threaded bolts from the old sink and screwed them into the new posts. Time will tell if that is a good solution. If Grand Design comes back with a recommendation, I will buy what they recommend and keep that in the camper, should my fix fail.

I have installed the new sink and water tested all the connections and the drain.

Now, on to the most involved repair:

Click hear to read my post on our schwintek slide issue in June. Now the slide motors on the opposite slide started sounding old and very tired. While retracting the slide you could hear the motors struggling to get to speed. We actually were on pins and needles wondering if we would get home before they completely stopped working. Tammy said that they sounded so bad that she wanted nothing to do with moving the slides in or out.

At our last stop I told Tammy “They only need to work two more times and we are good”. Had they failed on the road, I was prepared. I had two spare motors waiting inside the trailer in case it was necessary to make the change. However, no one really wants to spend their time in a campground messing with repairs.

So when I got home, I immediately replaced both of the tired motors. Now they sound brand new and operate great.

Now I only have one original motor left, and I’ve ordered a replacement for that one since it seems like the old motors have reached their expiration date.

So in conclusion – I have no idea what a dealership would have charged me for all the work I did…but it would have been a lot. Ball park labor rates are probably $125.00/hour. I would guess that they would have charged me at least eight hours of labor plus the parts (which would have had a mark-up) and not fixed things as well as I did. My guess is that I would have been pushing towards a 2000 dollar repair bill.

This is why it pays to do things yourself if possible. My cost was a total of 260 dollars in parts. Another benefit is that my trailer isn’t sitting on a dealers lot waiting for someone to repair it, which can take weeks and sometimes longer. If leaving your trailer in a dealers lot gives you separation anxiety – you are not alone!

Things are going to break; it is a fact of travel trailer ownership. It is much better if you can fix things yourself. You will be surprised how much you learn about your rig when you repair it yourself…good and bad.

Personally I enjoy fixing things, but you may not. That’s why RV repair facilities exist. If you are not comfortable with maintaining or repairing your RV you should definitely find a repair facility or Mobil RV repair person you can trust. I know there will be things I may not be comfortable fixing. In those cases I will need to rely on a repair facility.

Repairs can be somewhat minimized if you “get religion” around maintaining your travel trailer. Of course there will always be those things that break that have nothing to do with maintenance (just like the cabinet and sink issue above). So, in some cases the best you can do is become intimately familiar with your rig and stay on top of issues as they arise.

Safe Travels!

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Packing and sorting in the back of the truck continued for the last few days at Cliffside. In the middle of the packing I made a call to the manufacturer and found the rep that had made our appointment had left the company. What followed was a back and forth with another rep that could not find anything on the scheduled repair. Needless to say when you don’t have access to the computer that holds all your email correspondence it’s hard to reconstruct all the conversations.

After going through some sent emails on my iPhone, I located an email where the service department was copied on the repair. Next I left a voice mail for the head of service and Trent and I took off in the truck to make a visit to Dollar General. As we were leaving the store, the phone rang and I was told that the manufacturer was ready for us to drop the trailer. What a relief!!!

Trent and I stopped later on to pick up some McDonalds and I finished packing the truck after lunch. When Jennifer arrived later in the day we emptied out our refrigerator and gave her all our perishable food items as we couldn’t very well take them with us after dropping the trailer. This also allowed me to clean and dry the fridge.

The next morning we left about 9:00 AM to head to Indiana. However, first we needed to dump the tanks on the way out of the park. After we completed that task and threw our trash in the dumpster we were ready to leave Wisconsin. We entered the address in the navigation system and rolled out of the park.

I’m not keen on driving through Chicago during the day, but as it turned out, Chicago wasn’t really an issue. What was an issue was the interstate heading out of Wisconsin. At least twice Semi’s came into my lane forcing me to swerve and lay on my horn. This coupled with some pretty heavy winds were a little more than I bargained for. The wind at this point would be nothing compared to what hit later in the day after we had already arrived at the manufacturers campground.

I would like to note here that I got a rude awakening on the charge for using the skyway bridge to leave Illinois. The cost was $26.50 USD. That is ridiculous! Next time I’ll go 30 miles longer to avoid that toll. If I had gone at off-peak hours (which I guess is around midnight to 4:00 AM), I would have only paid $18.00…and that is still ridiculous.

We arrived at about 1:00 PM in Middlebury, Indiana at the Grand Design Repair facility. I met with Valerie who leads the customer service department and we did a walk around the RV and I added a few items for her to investigate.

As I have mentioned on several different occasions; I think this company has the best customer service organization of all the RV manufacturers currently. We owned many different brands and I have to say they are second to none. Of course it would be great if you never needed customer service, but that is just not the real world with travel trailers.

After Valerie finished her paperwork, I took Eva for a walk around the grounds but she was more interested in all the noise coming from the factory. She is a very inquisitive seven month old puppy.

As the day continued, the wind increased. I was thankful we were not under that tree at Cliffside any longer.

The next morning the winds had subsided, and we rolled out of the campground at 7:00 AM EST. We drove straight home, making stops for Eva along the way, over a 900 mile trip. There was also a lot of conversation about upgrading the tow vehicle. I will talk about this in the next blog post.

We rolled into the house at about 11:00 PM; and I started unloading some stuff from the back of the truck. Eva did not appreciate this at all, since she was in the house and unable to help. It led to much barking, which I’m sure woke up Corrine and Jeff. They had arrived there the day before us.

In short order we went to bed; but I knew what was waiting for me tomorrow. Lot’s of cleaning and straightening things out before the October return to Grand Design.

This will not be the last time we go to Cliffside; it’s a yearly trip. We have found very few places that rival this campground. If you decide to visit I encourage you to make your reservations early. You are able to do that online. For information about Cliffside Park click here. You will love this campground!

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The Owners Manual (in my case a Dometic Unit) is going to describe how to remove the filter, and perform other routing maintenance on your unit. The manual will also have a small section on trouble shooting any problems you may experience.

There are three specific tasks that you will want to perform on a regular basis. The first is the cleaning of the AC Filter. Remember to ALWAYS turn your power completely off when doing work on your travel trailer. Also, if you are nervous doing work on your unit, find a competent repair facility to do the work for you.

Task 1

The recommended filter cleaning schedule is as follows. A minimum of every two weeks of operation, remove the air filter and wash it with soap and warm water. Then let it air dry and reinstall it. Never run your unit without the air filter in place. That will plug the evaporator coil with dirt and will cause performance issues. Keeping that filter clean increases the efficiency of your AC unit. That in turn keeps you cooler.

I cleaned my filter earlier in the year and we’ve have only been on two short trips. I pulled the filter and at first glance it looked clean. (Keep in mind calling it a filter is a bit of a stretch; it’s just a fine thin mesh.) Then I ran a paper towel over it… it was disgusting!

If you have an AC unit in your bedroom, you should check it at the same time. Get religion around cleaning your filters..like you would on checking tire pressures.

Task 2

You will also need to conduct an inspection each year on the mounting bolts. These are the four bolts that hold the unit to the roof. In-between the lower unit and the upper unit there is a foam gasket. The purpose of this gasket is to keep and water out of your travel trailer. It can only succeed in this task of the bolts are tight enough to compress the gasket and make a waterproof seal. On my unit the torque specifications are 40-50 INCH pounds. I highlighted Inch for a reason. If you don’t read the specs correctly you may think FOOT pounds, and 40-50 foot pounds would probably damage your unit.

So, you will need to purchase a special INCH torque wrench to do this task. Follow your owners manual instructions on how to disassemble your lower fan Air Distribution Box (the AC lower cover) so you can access the four bolts. This was easy on my main unit, and less easy on my bedroom unit.

Task 3

Lastly, you are going to want to get up on your roof and pull the AC shroud at least yearly and look at what is lurking inside.

Step 1 – While on the roof, remove the four screws that hold the shroud onto the Unit. On my unit there are two screws in the front of the shroud and two screws on the rear sides.

Next lift the shroud off and gently place it in a safe spot on your trailer. Remember it is very light and if it’s windy it could blow off the roof of the trailer. Next perform a visual inspection. Here’s what I found just yesterday:

I was not thrilled to find these mud dauber nests on the AC unit. However, they were easy to remove and then I cleaned the unit completely. I do this inspection yearly, so it looks like I will be doing it more often now. It’s interesting to report that there were no nests in the front AC unit (bedroom).

So here is another fun fact. While you are up there with the shroud off (and the power off too), reach in front of the fan blades as if you want to touch the center shaft were it comes through the fan. Mud daubers LOVE to built nests there and on the shaft of the fan. You should be concerned about this as it will throw the balance off on the motor and make a heck of a racket when the AC runs. Just ask my buddy Al…it happened to him this spring. Keep in mind the fan motor is factory lubricated and needs no service. So this inspection will probably suffice.

You could inspect the evaporator coil while you are up there and see if it needs any cleaning, but beware, you need to be really gentle so you do not bend any fins. My coil looked very clean.

OK, once you have your unit clean you can reinstall the shroud. Now you should be ready to resume cooling your travel trailer.

Finally remember that how well your air conditioner works also depends on the heat gain inside your travel trailer. Doing the following will help you reduce that heat gain and help your AC unit run more efficiently:

1. Park in a shady spot
2. Use Window shades, blinds or curtains. You might also consider getting your windows UV tinted. If you want to read about tinting windows click here.
3. Minimize the amount of going in and out of the trailer.
4. Avoid using heat producing appliances.

Having a nice cool RV depends on you; So do not neglect your Air Conditioner. Stay Safe and enjoy your travel trailer!

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After reading this post I immediately thought of my Dad who we referred to as the “Anti-Handyman”. If something needed fixing around the house or with one of the cars, it wasn’t going to be my dad fixing it. My Dad was smart; he knew his limitations. He realized that he could actually make things worse by doing it himself. As my brother Bill and I got older we both became quite handy which worked in my Dads favor.

After reading the post, I checked a series of comments and felt surprised when some people actually encouraged this RV owner to “go for it… if it’s already broke, you can’t make it any worse.” Actually, this is really bad advice. If you don’t have the knowledge and basic skills to do a job you actually can make things much worse. Just ask amateur mechanics that have broken off engine bolts. Later they had to go through the extra work of having the broken stud removed.

I’ve restored eight vintage motorcycles.I can disassemble the bikes, paint the frames, replace faulty parts, repair brakes and bearings, and put them back together easily. I avoid working on the engines because mistakes outside my expertise would likely cost a lot to fix.

A Travel Trailer is just another vehicle, it just doesn’t have a motor. However, there is still a lot that can go wrong, and if you don’t have the basic skills to handle it, you can make things worse.

Many RV novices end up with broken water lines each year because they winterized their trailers incorrectly. Even resealing your roof the wrong way can set you up for trouble.

So what can the anti handyman do? Here’s a few suggestions:

1. There are classes on RV maintenance that are being offered at RV dealerships. Sign up for classes that you think will benefit you the most.
2. Pair up with a trusted friend that has an RV. Have him/her help you with whatever needs to be done. Don’t just watch him/her do the work; be actively involved doing the repair while they coach you.
3. YouTube – There are many great videos on how to do things. Repacking wheel bearings comes to mind because there are quite a few videos on that. Keep in mind, even though the videos go into great detail, they are not interactive; so that if you have a problem (Such as removing a bearing race), you will be on your own. So have a back-up plan.
4. Facebook – I found Facebook to be good for finding some information but many times the routines are just photos. Remember photos only tell one second of a story. Now one thing that might help is if you can leverage a person from your Facebook group (that lives nearby) to teach you in person.

These are just a few suggestions. I am sure that a simple google search on RV repair classes etc. may give you even more ideas.

My main caution is just “don’t make things worse”. Additionally, if you’re under warranty, it’s probably best to have your trailer fixed by the dealership. Screwing something up under the warranty period may just void your entire travel trailer warranty. This will make you really sad and frustrated when something big happens and you need to rely on that warranty.

Learning how to maintain your RV is a great thing; it makes you independent and can save you thousands of dollars. You just need to make sure to take your time and learn the proper way to make the repairs. Even an Anti Handyman can become quite skilled given patience and good instruction.

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