We’re Camping!! + Slide Topper & Cyclone Update

We decided to go camping and test the rig out just in case they had installed the Cyclone roof vents and to be close to the in-laws for a birthday party. We arrived at the body shop and I saw right away the slide topper was missing the cover. The dealer said they installed a Carefree KIII slide topper which included a wind/weather cover, the one on the rig as we drove up clearly lacked a cover. Honestly, not a big deal but they told me it would include the cover, since the KIII with a cover costs $677.00 at Camping World I need to find out how many hours they put into drilling 9 holes to mount this cover since they billed State Farm $2,800.00.

Simple math means they spent a good 19 + hours installing the cover allowing for $300.00 or more in profit in the cover itself since they went with the cheaper version. I spoke with Carefree, they claim this install is maybe a half day depending on how good the Tech is. Many people would say who cares? Insurance is paying for it! I happen to be somebody that believes how they bill the insurance is how they would bill me. I don’t like being taken advantage of and I am definitely contacting the dealer to take them to task for this on Monday.

PLUS, when I opened up the rig I found that all basement doors were unlocked (I have 2 sets of tools in one compartment, a grill and ladder in others) the basement main light switch was on which means that all but one compartment lights were on. The one that wasn’t is the sewer compartment, it has a momentary switch that automatically turns off the compartment light when the door is closed. So, our house batteries were dead, it was 115f inside the RV so I had to actually step outside to cool off, it was 92f outside, imagine that. So no generator AC for me right? I started the RV and found that using the aux start switch and then the generator start button worked, the genny started and I waited a few minutes and turned on the AC.

It’s not all bad news though, this new cover overhangs the slide by about 10 inches which means we no longer have to worry about AC run off or rain run off getting onto the top of the slide as we close it, which to me is fantastic! The install while dirty turned out good, I can clean off the black marks that are all over the topper caps (how hard is it to clean up after yourself?!?!?). EDIT: See below, the black marks didn't come off. The body shop did a great job repairing the holes left behind from the old slide topper. Keep reading for the remarkable Cyclone vent install.

I climbed the roof to check and see if the Cyclone vent caps were installed and to my delight, they were!! I walked over to the first one, the black tank vent and…. it doesn’t budge... Ugh, so I walk over to the gray tank vent and it works fine. Let me ask you good folks, if you’re the tech doing the install I imagine you have enough gray matter to understand the concept of the device being installed so when you finish the install you’d realize it isn’t working the way it’s supposed to and clearly isn’t working the way the other one you just installed is working, but hey call it a day and say job well done right?  

How NOT to install a Cyclone vent cap.

I know there are places out there that are dependable and have good workers but I have to say, I give up, seriously, I give. From now on, unless something has blown up or caught fire I am not taking my rig to a dealer again.

I’m contacting the dealer tomorrow and very patiently telling them thank you for trying but clearly their techs take nearly 3 days to install a slide topper and the tech who installed the vents isn’t qualified to do the work. I’m going to ask for a break down of the slide topper install so I can call State Farm and issue a complaint if it does show 19 hours of install time. If it doesn’t but shows they sold the slide topper for much higher than Camping World does I’m still going to issue a complaint. Then I’m going to ask for a reduced bill on the Cyclone vents since I now have to remove one of them and do it over again.

I just climbed the ladder, this black mark doesn’t come off with typical cleaners, it looks like it was dragged on the ground prior to installing it, this scrap is on both sides. If I did my job like RV dealers do theirs, I’d be out of work.

Here is our site, OG21 in phase 2 at Sugar Shores, the slide topper looks great from here. Cell coverage was poor, typically I can get 3 bars on my MiFi but it was spotty all weekend, same with TV reception, normally at night signals improve, here we lost most channels after 10pm, very weird! Could be because of the power transformer and big power distribution wall behind the rig.

Power distribution and power transformer, walking about 50ft away and cell phone goes from 1 bar to full signal, so we’ll avoid this section from now on. The site was nice though and we had nice neighbors as well.

That’s all for now, I’m going to order a new Cyclone vent and some dicor so I can replace the botched up vent they installed. They got dicor in the rotating part of the vent so I don’t want to take a chance by re-using it. I’ll post again when I have some answers from the dealer, this should be interesting.