RV Update – Didn’t Pick It Up

I went to pick up the RV this morning, I was very happy to see no white chalk streaks from the huge rain storm we had. They had the rig waiting in the delivery section of the lot and it was nice to see it still relatively clean with no streaks what so ever, fantastic! As I go around the rig I notice new stickers on each side and on the back of the rig plus a new license plate holder, all of them saying Collier RV.  

Last year it took me 6 hours to remove the stickers from the dealer we bought the RV from. Seeing these stickers started the boiler going a bit, who gave these guys permission to put stickers on my RV?!?!? I parked the car and went for a walk around the parking lot, called the wife to let her know we had dealer stickers again and then walked inside.

I walked up to the counter and explained the sticker problem. He has no idea why they would put stickers on a customers rig but offers to have them removed. I paid them for the work performed and went out to start the genny and let it run for awhile to charge up the house batteries a bit and one of the service guys will follow me to storage and drive me back to my car. That was the plan….

I got to the RV and open the door and am met with dirty carpet. Sigh… I shot this video because it does a fantastic job of capturing just how dirty the carpet is, it’s unreal.

Dirty Carpet, they forgot to clean it.

I walk back into the service department and ask the service guy to come out with me. I open the door and go in and he follows, I quietly and nicely explain the carpet is filthy so apparently they might have vacuumed it but forgot to shampoo it. He agrees, he says it’s obviously not cleaned so I shut off the genny and hand him the keys.

They’re going to clean the carpet and remove the dealer stickers this week. I had a talk with him and explained it seems each thing we have worked on takes two times to get right, he apologizes and we head back to the service department.

It’s not like they aren’t nice people, they’re easy to work with and they do finally get it done but with gas costing almost $5.00 a gallon and us living an hour away it gets expensive driving out there only to have to go back home without the rig.

I’m going to call the service manager on Monday and have a talk with him. I’m hoping to get a good break on the carpet cleaning to help offset the gas cost. We’ll see what they say then….

Have a great weekend everybody.

RV Update

Just got a call from Collier RV, it cost $686.00 to do the following work, wash RV, wash RV roof, wax front and rear caps, shampoo carpet in main cabin only, repair emergency flasher(s), replace burnt out bulb in third brake light. Turns out they had to spend hours looking for the flasher problem, it was a ground under the hood. When I took electronics repair, the first thing we were taught to check, was the ground, ugh. The third brake light had to be re-wired completely because they claimed it wasn’t working at all and couldn’t figure out why. So they wired it to one of the brake lights and they claim it’s LED so won’t pose a problem, I don’t remember it being LED so we’ll see when I get there.

I have to take them at their word until I get there, I find it hard to believe that knowledgeable RV mechanics don’t know how the flasher is wired or how the third brake light is wired. Holiday Rambler and Ford both have schematics available as this is the F53 chassis and thousands are out there. I’m trying not to think negatively here but I also remember the dealer we bought from installed new headlights and I had to re-wire not only them but the marker lights and turn signals because everything was wrong and not working properly even though the dealer QC said everything was “perfect”.

Collier ends up doing the job right but in the past I have had to return because it wasn’t done right the first time. In the end they get it right and I have not seen the rig yet so I’m clueless about how good of a job they did. I do know this, they did the washing and carpet cleaning before doing the wiring so that means dirty mechanics have been in and out of the rig after it was cleaned, which seems a bit backwards to me.

Between the tires and this work we are now at the cost of installing the Michelin tires by themselves so I’m glad I found tires that saved us enough to get this work done as well. I am going to try and get there some time this week before they close to I can inspect everything and bring it home to work on the Allure floor and washing the interior and de-winterize it.

I’m going to try and think positive folks I promise! I’ll post an update when I have one.

RV Update

Got an update from Collier RV last night. They are repairing the emergency flashers, the third brake light, shampooing the carpet, waxing the front and rear caps and cleaning the roof and then washing the rig. There will be no more chalking on the rig this year!!

This is going to hurt the pocket book but it needed to get done, they knocked off $25.00 from the carpet cleaning because they assumed I wanted it done when all I wanted was a quote and it was too late to stop them when he called me. All in all it’s worth it, I have no place to clean the carpet and air it out so I’m glad they did it.

I still have to de-winterize it and put it back in storage which means no matter what I’ll be detailing it again for our first outing this year. No date has been set yet for that though, it will most likely be Geneseo though since they open before anybody else.

Have a great day everybody!

Email From Da Wife

Ronda is back to work today, I was going to call her to check in when I got to work but when I got there I had a lot to catch up and and lost track of time. I was reminding myself to call her the whole way to work, and forgot.

At 9:00am my wife sent the following…

“I made it to work safely…drive was a little rough, but I made it.  Thanks for asking..  :-/

I’m doin okay…tired…but okay.  Got sick this morning getting out of the shower, but okay now.  Thanks for asking..  :-\

So how u doing??  “

well as you can imagine I called the second I got the email, she was enjoying herself on how witty she was by changing how the face looked by using different slashes. She is good that way, she really knows how to get a message across! :-\

We both had a good laugh, she is doing pretty good and you can actually see the change this surgery has had on her. Her facial expressions are more positive, she smiles more. I’m looking forward to her progressing and feeling better, she deserves it so much.

I also asked her to start blogging again! We’ll see if this post helps nudge her towards doing so.

RV Show & Detailing

I picked up the rig from Scott’s RV yesterday and paid the tab. When I went to unlock the door I found scratches in the black paint around the key hole’s again. I swear, how friggin hard is it to insert the key without bouncing it off the paint first? Every place I take it to scratches the black protective paint around the key holes and it drives me batty.

In the scheme of things it costs 30 bucks to paint so it looks like I’ll be doing it again, heck why not just make painting the the door handle again a yearly thing just for giggles?

         Here is the door handle after re-painting it again last year.

The rig drove so nice with the new tires, expansion joints were nearly silent so I was very happy with them. Collier always scratches the door handle too so I don’t think I can get away from it. As long as the work performed is done properly I guess I can re-paint the door handle, it just sucks people can’t find the key hole.

On to the RV show…

Collier RV was having an RV show/sale so my brother and I decided to check it out since we were dropping the rig off to get the roof cleaned and protected from chalking any way. I didn’t take a picture of our rig because the chalking was so bad there wasn’t any blue showing anywhere, the rig was truly disgusting. Collier is going to check out the roof and see what can be done to prevent the chalking. At some point we are going to paint the rear cap and top of the front cap so bye bye chalk for good.

My battery was almost dead so I got 1 picture at the show. It was of a Serrano 33A front engine diesel that blew me away for the money. We also saw two 5th wheel Redwood models and they were the very top end of the spectrum, very sweet layouts and awesome to look at.

On the way home we saw this fire truck and I had to take a picture of it, how cool is that thing?

Today I decided to detail my wife’s Escape, it took a large chunk of the day to do and I couldn’t get the crap off of the wheels so I need to buy some good chrome cleaner. The unfortunate part of it is the wheels are plastic/chrome so not as easy to clean as real chrome. It turned out pretty well though I think and the wife is happy.

Have a great week everybody!

Health & Tire Updates

I took Ronda to the doctor yesterday and they removed the staples and drain. The removal of the drain removed the main part of what was causing her pain. Apparently it was hitting something inside…   Annnnnnyway she is doing great and today she is on her own for the first time since before the surgery.

I tried to leave without waking her up but the dog and cat made that impossible. The cat believes she is all that matters and makes it well known when she is to be given attention (meaning food). You put her food down and her majesty looks at it, sniffs it a few times and goes back to bed to eat it later…. cats, ugh…  

The dog was doing great, she quietly got up and it seemed she was getting my attempt at letting her out QUIETLY but nope, right in front of Ronda she shakes herself ears flapping, jowls slapping and then she blast through the living room to go out. She stops in front of me and turns her head to look at me funny like she was thinking “what, isn’t this what you wanted?”. Ronda is now awake… … perfect.. She got a good nights sleep but forgot I was going in to work today, I felt guilty leaving but she is doing great so should be ok.

I got the results back from the Oncology/Hematology Doctor, my blood work didn’t show any kind of disease or issues except my Lymphocyte count is still low but everything else was spot on. I have to say I was very happy about that, Ronda is on the way to losing weight and becoming more healthy, which means bye bye CPAP and possibly no more BP drugs and I’m slowly losing weight and bringing my A1C down, life is good. That’s 3 words you have not seen in this blog EVER. It felt great to say it.

On to the RV, Scott called me to say I was missing a wheel cover lug nut cover, which I knew but have not been able to find and he also said he has to grind off one of my valve cover extensions. The valve cover extensions were installed last March, how could it have rusted already?!?!? Ugh so there will be a little more money going into this but hopefully not too much.

He still has to do the brake inspection and he thinks he has a spare lug nut cover so hopefully the brake news is good.I should hear more today or tomorrow. If all goes well I will be taking the RV to Collier RV on Saturday to get the roof cleaned and hopefully they wash the RV as well. I’ll be calling today to make the appointment, oh yeah, have to get the propane filled as well. Thankfully I filled the gas tank a few weeks ago!

What can I say, we have our health, a very nice RV and we both have jobs, too many people aren’t as lucky so we consider ourselves blessed.

Have a great Thursday everybody!

 

The fake lug nut cover looks like the ones pictured below.  

They go into the wheel simulators that make our ugly wheels look nice and shiny.

The RV Is Getting New Shoes

The front tires on the RV are Cooper Roadmaster RM170’s that the dealer installed as part of our purchase agreement. I didn’t request this model, it’s what they installed and me being ignorant of RV tires I was just happy to get new ones. Had I known better at the time I would have asked for all 6 tires to be replaced even if I had to pay out of pocket. They seem to be decent tires so why didn’t I check into these tires for the rear? I have no idea but Scott did and called me this morning to tell me that he can do all 4 installed at $1,400.00. As you can imagine that’s a sizeable difference to the Michelin’s so I gave him the go ahead.

I checked into re-treads and Chinese tires to try and save money but in the end there is just no way I can justify it. My wife tells me to do what I think is right, which means she is putting her safety in my hands, she trusts me so how can I install tires I have told my brother he would be crazy to  install? Answer is, I can’t, I would prefer the RV sit in storage until we can afford the proper tires than put our lives at risk.

These are the cheapest tires I feel comfortable installing. Why? Because I have been driving on them for two years up front and they have performed fine. With a G rating they are more than ample for the load, H would have been overkill so Scott is installing four 245 70R G 19.5’s and it should be ready tomorrow. It’s going to be a squeeze getting it done but that’s the breaks. So many people want to be able to own an RV but can’t so we are very blessed.

I’ll post pictures when we pick up the rig, not the wife and I, my brother is going to help me this weekend. Ronda isn’t allowed to drive until she gets cleared by her doctor.

Here is the Roadmaster RM170, it looks like a stout tire I think.

Comment Responses

Big Matt - She works for an Oncology office and I had to go there myself last Monday. I should have test results by this Monday but the Doc said most likely everything is fine so not worrying.

Merikay - Agreed, she is looking forward to seeing the progress and making the best out of this.

Kathy’s Klothesline - Agreed 1000%! She is so happy to be home.

TexCyn - She got some good sleep last night. :)

Diane - She had problems the first few days with nausea but it's getting better. She has done so much research she is ready for this new journey and can’t wait to heal and lose weight. I’m not sure where you sent the email, I checked my account and don’t see it?

Donna B. McNicol - Double knee surgery, wow that’s what I’m due for as well. Ronda has taken great care of me over the years, I hope to do as well caring for her while she is recovering. My problem is stores, I can never seem to find anything!

Margie and Roger - Yeah she is a tough cookie! The price of oil has driven the price of tires through the roof as well. Trying to get two shops to agree on tire size is my newest problem, Camping World says my rig uses load range “G” and Scott’s RV says it takes load range “H”. CW says they don’t see this load range at all anywhere for 245 series. You’d think finding tires would be easier.

JoJo – I’m glad your surgery went well! I also hope your blogger issues get better, it can be frustrating I’m sure.

Thanks again folks!

Wife Update

Ronda would like to thank all of you for your comments, they mean a lot! I brought her home last night and we got her set up in the living room. We bought home theater recliners a few years back and so she can comfortably sleep downstairs since she isn’t allowed to walk upstairs yet.

I slept in one of the recliners as well, actually, didn’t sleep until after 6am… hoping to make up for that tonight. The important thing is Ronda slept and is recovering well, her look is much better today, by that I mean skin tone, her eyes, everything looks better, more healthy. It’s said if you want to get better, get out of the hospital, I can’t argue with that!

We hope everybody is having a great weekend!

Wife Update

Ronda had to be taken to get a CT scan last night because of some issues that I won’t get into here but the results came back as close to normal as they could hope for. They took care of what needed to be taken care of so today she is finally able to eat some bland jello and broth. She had a migraine all day and night and that has finally subsided as well, which is great because that’s what was causing her the most grief, besides the lady who screamed all night.

She is walking every few hours and back on track to hopefully be released tomorrow. We’ll see how it goes, I’ll be staying there until they kick me out tonight because I’m off tomorrow so I can help her walk and get ready to leave which she of course wants to do.

More tomorrow when I have more information.. thanks for the comments, she really liked hearing from people.

Wife’s Surgery Update & Tires Update

Ronda is doing very well, they kept her in recovery much longer than anticipated but she finally got into a room mid afternoon. The pain from the surgery is much less today than last night and she is walking around so all in all so far so good! We aren’t sure of her release yet, maybe tomorrow or maybe Friday, we’ll find out for sure hopefully today so I can make plans at work.

Regarding the tires, Scott’s RV called yesterday while I was sitting with Ronda in the recovery room to tell me he quoted me tire prices for a rig with 16 inch tires.    Ours takes 245/70 19.5 so the new quote is $2,000.00!!!! I had to take a deep breath after which I told Scott I don’t have $2,000.00, how the heck are they over $400.00 each?!?!? To make a long story short he is looking for better pricing and so am I, it was a mistake and he apologized but dammit man….

If I buy the tires a huge part of our camping budget is blown, we have to pay for our part of Ronda’s surgery, we owe big time taxes again, 3 years running (this is after claiming 0 AND having extra taken out) so money right now is very tight.

I could say the heck with the tires and see how it holds up for another season but I don’t feel comfortable with that at all, not even a little bit. I have two other shops checking for tires but the best price so far prior to installation and taxes etc.. is Sumitomo ST718 at $360.00 for the H load range. Not sure how I feel about that brand so doing some research.

I’m at a loss on what to do, clearly right now Ronda’s recovery is priority but the rig is at the repair shop so I need to make a decision…     what to do?

Ronda’s Surgery Is Tomorrow At 7:30am

We leave the house very early tomorrow morning for Ronda’s surgery. As some of you may know she is having bariatric bypass surgery to help her lose weight. She passed all of the rigorous testing and preparations and today did the “cleanse” part to prepare for tomorrow.

The surgery we are told takes about an hour and she will be in recovery for up to 3 hours after. She should be out of the hospital by this Friday, we hope! Then she has to stay home up to two weeks recovering and after that she should be able to resume pretty much normal activity however eating will be very different for her for the rest of her life.

We haven’t scheduled a trip for the end of March yet, I put that on hold until she knows what she wants to do. I can wait until she is ready, until she is I’ll work on the rig and get it ready.

I’ll write an update tomorrow, until then have a great night!   

RV House Batteries

Ya know, back in November of 2010 I blogged about buying new batteries. I waited until Spring of 2011 and during the whole winter the batteries I was told needed replacing were holding up as they should. After 4 weeks they would be down maybe 10% to 15% tops which from my reading is the norm so I left them alone and they worked fine through the 2011 season.

Here it is 2012 and they still seem fine, the water level holds firm and they only need topping off mid-season. So I’m going to again see how they will hold up this year. I think I’ll buy new ones this Fall so I don’t push my luck.

Just thinking out loud… have a great weekend everybody!

Scott’s RV Comes Through!

I just made an appointment with Scott’s RV, brand new RV tires from BF Goodrich $975.00 installed out the door. This includes using the best old tire to replace the current spare. Considering Champion quoted me $1,500 for Chinese tires last Fall this is great news!

The RV goes in this weekend for new shoes! Whoohoo! I’m not crazy about spending $1,000.00 but from the blogs I read we’re getting off lucky! I need to get the roof cleaned professionally, no way my back is going to handle that so that’s the next thing to save for. Thank God I filled the gas tank, we’re good for our first few trips until I have to worry about that again, and by then it will be much higher than the $3.89 I paid.

The wife is going in next week for her surgery so we’re not sure yet when our first trip is going to be. Typically we head out on my birthday for our first trip at the end of March but this year we aren’t sure. It depends on how well she recovers, I told her I’ll do everything, she can just rest in the rig, we’ll see how it goes.

Have a great day everybody!

Play Mass Effect 3, Watch HDTV & Remote Control Network

All on 4 screens run off of one computer. Unreal and this sucker is 4 years old!! Amazing what can be done when you know what to throw at something. This things raw CPU output is equal to a brand new i7-3820. It may not have the memory bandwidth a machine with the 3820 may have but at 32gigs (I upgraded today) of Quad channel memory it does pretty durn good!

The MSI ATI 6950 with 2 gigs of memory ain’t the fastest video card but quad monitor support or the ability to play one game on all 4 monitors… AWESOME!!!

I’m not a gamer but I figure why not see what this machine can do so I downloaded Mass Effect 3, started that on one screen, kicked on some HDTV on the next screen and remote controlled several servers on the last two monitors so 4 monitors going full tilt. With 2 SSD drives in RAID 0 this thing is butter smooth and insane fast.

I’m in ADD heaven!!!!

I Forgot – High Oil Prices Means High Tire Prices!!

We decided last year to wait until this Spring to replace the 4 rear tires. I just got a new quote and it’s almost $400.00 more than last year for the same tires. I told him the date codes better be from this year if I have to hand out that much more money! I don’t think I’ll get that lucky. I also priced Goodyear RV tires, holy Toledo $500.00 each for 19.5’s?!?!?

This is going to be a very expensive year for RV’ing…

RV Update & Gas Rant

I went up to the RV today to check for mice, fill up the tank and check all the systems out. I found no traces of mice at all for this year which is fantastic. Everything fired up and worked great. The roof really really needs to be cleaned, the chalk lines are embarrassing and disgusting. Here is Route 20 going East, road conditions were pretty good but the wind was between 20 and 35mph making the drive interesting.

I drove my usual 18 or so total miles to make sure all moisture is out of the exhaust and the genny got a real good workout. Since the gas station is 2 blocks from storage I could fill it up and know the tank is full for our first trip of the year. The total came to $61.00, considering the tank was showing over 3/4 full it really hurt to see that 15.6 gallons still made it into the tank. The same amount of gas 2 weeks ago would have cost almost $10.00 less. 

Beginning political rant… if you like or love Obama you may want to stop here..

We have to completely re-think where we are going to go this year if the gas prices continue on this path. The energy boss in our wonderful administration of hope and change has stated publicly that he has no issue with gas prices reaching parity with Europe. Our President clearly has no interest in lower gas prices considering his response to the pipeline and his fear of going against his base by drilling more here. 3 years of study wasn’t long enough but 4 failed solar companies being fast tracked through for loan guarantees costing the tax payer billions is A’OK… maybe I missed something in math class but this crap just doesn’t add up. The President actually stated if people kept their tires inflated we could save just as much oil as could be pumped here, he is either stupid or thinks we are.

For those that think I have an agenda against Obama, take a good long look at what he’s done. NOT what he brags about in campaign speeches because while he is right that US oil production is up, it’s NOT because of him. President Clinton and Bush before him are why production is up now as screwed up as that is but that’s another post. President Obama tried very hard to get that increase in production STOPPED. Don’t believe me, I invite you to do the leg work and find out the truth for yourself. It’s on the Government’s own websites and Obama’s position on energy is out there for everybody to read and hear. This is one campaign promise he kept and people love him for it, even as they are going broke filling their gas tanks but hey, it’s Bush’s fault folks. Back when I blogged daily about politics I used to vent about Bush pretty heavily so don’t think I’m hard on Obama just because he is from a different party. BOTH parties stink, I’m sick of them.

Back to our energy Czar, gas prices in Europe have been high for decades and those economies have adjusted over time for those prices, ours most definitely has not. I make good money and these prices are killing me, imagine how somebody making $8.00 an hour feels, or somebody on the same fixed income they were on where gas was $1.80 a gallon. Our President talking about solar, wind, algae and electric cars with a lousy range of 35 to 45 miles does that person no good. Where do these electric cars get plugged in Mr. Obama? COAL FIRED OUTLETS for Petes sakes! The very same Coal President Obama has said very clearly he wants to put out of business and nobody asks him about it, where the hell is the media?? The Government forcing a car company to build a car that costs tens upon tens of thousands more to build than they can sell it for doesn’t help anybody except during speeches in front of the UAW. By the way, production of the Volt, you know, the car that Obama brags is selling great was halted for a month or two causing the loss of 1,300 jobs because the Volt is selling like shit and they can’t cook the books on it, great job! Who would’a thunk it?

The car company bailouts worked right? Ask the non-union workers that lost their jobs by the thousands that question. The difference between what the public is told and what really happened is vile and disgusting and it sickens me that the media gives this President a pass so their agenda of 4 more years can happen.

Gas is projected into the $5.00 to $8.00 per gallon range this summer yet in some places like Florida it’s already $6.00. I hate to think Obama is being tough on Iran to spur higher gas prices so he can further his "green energy program", because his stance is exactly why prices are going up. His stance with Israel is weak sauce yet without reaching out to them he is pushing hard against Iran while telling Israel to back off from doing anything. President Obama says he is the most pro Israel President in history, was he called out on that lie? No, again, do just a tad of research and you’ll find Obama has not been an Israeli ally but he knows that people believe him when he talks, even when he openly lies he knows people will believe it anyway.

We have a President that voted present for nearly everything prior to becoming President, he refused to take a stance and we gave him the keys to the oval office. He blames Bush for every single thing that goes wrong and says he inherited the bad economy. Funny thing though, this President VOTED YAY for the bail out & stimulus packages, why couldn’t he just vote present for that one ‘eh? The weakened mortgage rules passed by Democrats (and Obama!!) that helped bring our economy to its knees and considering the Democrats had charge of much of the economy since they took power in 2006 means he needs to look at himself and his fellow Democrats that had power during the same period that he blamed every thing on Bush for. Does he think we don’t understand how things work, wait, he’s right, it seems most don’t!

President Bush warned in 2001 that Democrats weakening the mortgage rules will have a devastating effect on the economy. Yet he is blamed for it. What have the Republicans done? Much of the same damn thing and since they did nothing to stop the new rules from going into law they share as much of the blame in my view. Then again we don’t have a Republican President going from country to country apologizing for every single thing the US does and we don’t have a Republican President blaming the previous administration for every single thing that is occurring now and we don’t have a Republican President bowing to other world leaders in the manner they consider to be subservient in their eyes.

I am against Obama because a community organizer does not a President make. A Chicago yes man does not a President make. A Senator with barely a record does not a President make and President Obama has spent over 3 years proving why we need to get him out of office because if he is this bad the first 4 years imagine how bad it will be when he doesn’t have to worry about running for office again in 4 years.

You think the checkbook is on fire now? He’ll have a bonfire going on and Obamacare will be the kindling. Do some research on how the Obamacare healthcare plan is tuning up cost wise, very scary stuff. My Dad doesn’t understand why his medical and prescriptions have gone up so much and I can’t say anything because he loves Obama dearly, the man walks on water so anything I say falls on deaf ears.

I need to go have some coffee, I have a headache and ranting about Obamacare would take pages.. Have a good weekend everybody.

Losing Followers

4 gone in 2 weeks, wow talking about computers that boring? Don’t answer that, my wife just said yes.. mean woman…

I don’t think I ever stopped following anybody…

On the RV front I was sick this past weekend, that is going to cost me about 30 cents per gallon more when I fill up the RV this weekend. So, about 22 bucks extra to fill it, nuts. If I wait until the weekend after, could be up yet another 30 cents or 44 bucks more, INSANE.

But hey, we don’t need to drill here or put in the pipeline, Algae is going to save the day… My God in heaven above…