The Wait Is Over!

RadRover Powerbike Purchase

The time has come to purchase a Fat Tired RadRover!

Headlight is a bright as a car, as is the tail light. 

More to come, I've put 56 miles on it so far and loving it!

15 Years Later

Zenith 12S267 Ready For Shipping!

The shipping company picked up the radio on 6/26/16. It is scheduled to ship out today 7/5/16, not sure why it's taking them so long but here are the pictures.

I hope it shows how awesome this radio looks. 

Happy Treason Day!

Happy 4th of July!!!

12S267 Is Sold!

I'm sad to say my beautiful 1938 Zenith 12S267 has been sold!

The shipping company should be here in a few days to pick it up for its trip to NY.

12S267 Pictures & Video

I received a few responses for the 12S267 and wanted to post some pictures and video. The video turned out to be 3gigs, holy crow! So I had to edit it and post it via YouTube since Blogger has a limit of 100megs. Clearly I won't be getting a job as a photographer or video editor any time soon.

I took nearly 60 pictures, my Cannon T3i is a pain to get good pictures from, I'm sure its me but I tried every setting I could find, 90% of the time on auto it couldn't finish the focus... drove me crazy.

I didn't polish the radio, it does need to be polished and gone over from top to bottom with the appropriate wax. The curves had a few spots that had some cracking in year one and never went further, I tried to capture them in the side front pictures.

The radio displays beautifully, if it sells I'm going to miss it, the other one sold back in 2012, if this one goes I won't have any more rare consoles.

12S267 Front

Top Front
(You're not seeing scratches or cracks, it needs to be waxed )

Front Bottom

Right Front Top

Right Front Bottom

Left Front Corner (camera refused to focus!! so I switch to my cell phone) The LED light of the camera changes the color of the pillars. I can't seem to get it sharp without the flash.

Left Side

Left Bottom

Back Top Interior

Back Bottom Speaker Baffle

Video of the radio working, hopefully it shows just how well this radio plays and tunes stations in with just a 5ft wire hung up by the window. I finally got YouTube to encode this as HD, finally.

D Day June 6th 1944

Happy Memorial Day!

Lemon Law Finding's

In Illinois the consumer is told they have rights, but the truth is, in fact they do not. RV lemon law means you have a very short time to vet the RV. If in that time you do not have 3 attempts performed and logged you're SOL.

Since the dealer had the rig for 6 months during each off-season we passed the "statute of limitations" for filing a lemon law suit. So, they treat the RV like a car, you have to use it everyday and have a loss of that usage and time in the repair center to get results. Since the RV is a seasonal vehicle ours sat at the dealer for each off-season so repairs could be made but that time counted against us.

I am filing a complaint against Keystone and Lippert with the BBB and you know what, THEY DON'T CARE, Keystone has 480 and counting, Lippert has zero.

EDIT: just received a call from the dealer, they were told by Keystone and Lippert the issues are almost three years old so they can't do anything, even thought the answer is in the statement itself "the issues are three years old!!!!" This is like dealing with car manufacturers in the 1970's!! Lousy 1 year warranties for product built like crap and they know if they hold things off for long enough you have no leg to stand on.

The dealer states they can install a completely different leveling system based on the "Equalizer" system for $5,000 and instead of mid level jacks which are considered grade c (wouldn't that have been nice to know before the purchase?!?!??) the Equalizer jacks are grade A and will never have this problem.

My wife and I are going to compile a timeline and go over all receipts and dealer tickets since we bought the RV. We are then going to file complaints against all and let the chips fall where they may, we are also going to contact a lawyer to see if we can file a breach of contract against Keystone.

I'll post again when I know more.

RV Repairs Update

This is an update about rig after the repairs were completed prior to this season and using it for over a month.

1. Landing Jacks popping, pure silence for the first month, then yesterday we heard popping from 4 out of the 6 jacks so instead of just the front, now the front and the middle jacks pop.

2. Tank valves continue to work fine, I'll be dumping tanks this Thursday so we'll see how it goes then.

3. Tanks leaking, so far so good on this.

4. Losing power in the kitchen island, so far so good

5. Front LED's, this repair was never done right, I verified they are connected properly but some of the new LED's are already failing, again. Made in China, say no more.

6. Main AC unit, I have found a guy who can make a self contained $1,500.00 disposable AC unit repairable. We may have him come out next week, depends on leveling system.

7. Bulging storage door, the new door looks fine but no longer locks on the left side, looks like an alignment problem. I'm going to try and repair this Friday.

8. Returning issue, the new kitchen counter looks like it may have been repaired instead of replaced, the repair looks to have changed color and looks like goop now. I'll take a picture and post the before and after, sending this info to the dealer later today.

The main system that levels the rig cannot be allowed to fail, if it does it can cause damage to the chassis and everything above it, which is everything.

I just called the dealer to report the return of the popping, the service writer that handled this is no longer there so I explained the issues to the new writer, he is going to look into it. I called Lippert and they claim NOBODY has opened a ticket with them regarding our VIN number so we have to start fresh. I got a ticket number started and I'm calling a lemon law attorney to see if we have a case.

I've been nice thus far, now I'm going to see if the law can help me force Keystone to make it right or be forced to take it back.

Rebuilding A Prevost

I've been watching for months as this guy decides to rip his expensive Prevost apart to rebuild it to suit his family and then does it.

This man is incredible, I wish I had his genius. Check out all of his videos, there are a lot of them!

Here is a link to his channel.  RV Chief Prevost

A Trip Back To October 16th 2015

Last year my Doctor diagnosed me with Basal Carcinoma on my nose and Melanoma in 2 places on my back. I had surgery to remove them so during this time the RV sat with the slides open for most of the season.

On Friday October 16th last year I was well enough to clean up the mess. This is what it looked like... walnut trees are a real pain in the rear.

Here are the pictures of the 8 hour cleaning process.

I power washed it and then scrubbed it.... this season, we put the slides in and I'll be cleaning the roof once a month so I don't have to repeat this nasty mess again! 

We Miss Traveling

We suspected we would, being at the same campground has it's advantages such as saving gas and it's a very nice campground where we always have a great spot.

However, we miss being able to head out to Geneseo at the beginning of each season, we miss that place a lot. Here we are April 1st 2011. Going there was something we looked forward to more than we thought. We also miss going to other States and seeing the sights.

Some day we will figure out what we want to do..... :)

Keystone RV Review

I posted my review at the Pissed Consumer Website, supposedly Keystone will be notified and will be able to answer. I doubt they'll respond any different than they have before, which was all hot air.

I missed a few things... drat.

I Leased A New Car - 2016 Ford Edge

I decided to trade in my 2013 Ford Taurus Limited which has been the best car I have ever owned. I traded it because of the great deal I was able to get and to get more room and also because I can step down from the new car and I had to step up from the Taurus. Something that bothered my knees pretty often.

The new car is a 2016 Ford Edge SEL AWD. The color is "Too Good To Be Blue!" it changes colors depending on the sun or darkness. It doesn't have all of the fancy toys that the Taurus had, so I don't get adaptive cruise control or air conditioned seats, both of which I'll miss but weren't needed. I also don't get the 20" spoke wheels that I loved on the Taurus, the Edge has 18" wheels which offer a better ride. It also has all wheel drive, which I will never do without again.

Also, my payment went down which was important and I now have Sync 3! This is a major upgrade from My Ford Touch which was ok to at times horrible. Especially the Navigation, if it lost the route it would drive you insane. Sync 3 adjusts on the fly and is instant, no waiting for anything, press to do something and it instantly happens.

I got the Edge on April 14th, and on April 14th of 2019 I will be trading it in and either walking away with no car payments, buying a cheap used car or leasing a 2019 Ford that I'll figure out prior to that date, until then I'm going to enjoy this fantastic new SUV!

Best Experience Dumping The Tanks Since We Bought The Rig!

We got here Friday afternoon, 3 weeks of making sure the tanks were full, no leaks that we can see and when I pulled the lever for the black tank, it was like butter, so was the gray tanks....

Utterly amazing...... tomorrow I'm picking up a twin battery powered lawnmower. No more gas, no more oil, it can hang on the wall in the shed... looking forward to cutting the grass when we get back from the in-laws tomorrow. It has enough power to do the entire camp site with just one, we'll see how it does. I can get it cheaper at Menards than Amazon which is nice, if it has issues it's easy to return. We're crossing our fingers!

GreenWorks 25302 Twin Force G-MAX 

HAPPY MOTHERSDAY!!

DO NOT BUY A MONTANA OR OTHER KEYSTONE PRODUCT!!!!

UPDATE on repairs since the last post on April 17th:

I have purposely not dumped the tanks yet, so far the external valve shows nothing has leaked through which is a good sign, but then I have not used the valves yet. Regarding the front LED's, a few of them have already started failing, great quality.... said nobody. When we get to the rig tonight I will be checking for valve leakage, water on the belly and to see if our newest issue is still there. I'm also going to do a full dumping of the tanks, we'll see how well the new valves work, considering their cost they better be like butter. I want to have a positive attitude, but.... well....shit...

New issue... 

The dining room slide went out normally last weekend however, when I went outside to see if all of the seals were even I saw this gap. I took a deep breath and thought, well, shit.... by Sunday it had mostly returned to normal hugging the side of the slide but of course it rained all weekend so I had to pray the seal behind this seal was doing its job, we'll see. I may look up how much the new seal costs and attempt to replace it myself. 3 seasons and possible seal replacement would have shocked me but hey, this is a Keystone product, anything is possible.

One of the repairs included adding a special additive to the hydraulic fluid to help prevent the popping issues. Keystone and Collier blame the slight slope of our site for the issues. I walked around the campground, most have a similar angle none report issues with hydraulic's, one of them is a Rosewood, no issues, of course.


Keystone called me on Wednesday 05/04/16. I thought wow maybe they do care, until he started talking, this isn't word for word but close enough since I didn't record the conversation.

Rep - "I was calling to find out if the repairs had been completed"
Me - "Yes they have minus the main AC"
Rep - "Ok, thank you"
Me - "Is that it? Do you want to know if the repairs were done properly?"
Rep - "Sure"
Me - "I'm not sure yet, we haven't used it enough, we just got it back"
Rep - "Ok, well that's all I needed, we wanted to make sure we did our part"
Me - "You're part? You literally did nothing, we have had these problems since new, this cost me a boatload and Keystone didn't do anything"
Rep - "Well the purpose of this call was to make sure we followed up"
Me - "CLICK"

I hung up on him, I rarely hang up on people as I find it rude but in this case, it was either that or start screaming into the phone that Keystone RV sucks nuts, build's RV's like crap and I will NEVER, EVER buy another product made by any of the many companies they build products for.

Check out this link, incredible how bad this company is, if I can prevent a person from wasting their money on a Keystone I'll be happy.

Click this link to read more. http://keystone-rv.pissedconsumer.com/

Great start to new season!

It cost is plenty to get the black and gray tank valves replaced, the leveling jacks pump replaced, fancy schmancy fluid added to make the hydraulic system stronger (why isn't it used by the factory?) and the black and gray tanks have new seals to prevent leaks, also the electronics for the power loss were worked on. We still need the main cabin AC unit replaced but I'm going to do that myself.

We paid the $2,800 repair bill, I argued, I fought to get it lowered but in the end the bill could have been higher. My new service writer worked with me and did a 1,000 times better job than the previous guy. We spent Thursday night in the rig and heard no pops from the leveling system, a FIRST since we bought the rig in July of 2013.

The RV was delivered on time, it leveled itself perfectly, by the way, Leibert blames the driveway at the campground for the hydraulic problems! Anyway, after spending the weekend in the rig, filling the black and gray tanks we can report no leaks! Also, the tank drain valves operate easily now, when new they didn't work this well.

I left the tanks as full as possible for the week, when we get there next weekend I'll fill them up more Friday night and Saturday morning I'll check them again and we'll see how it goes then.

This was the first time since we bought the Montana 3725RL in July of 2013 that we had a weekend without issues! It felt good just locking it up for the week, so this is what it feels like! :)

We'll see how it goes next weekend!

RV Update Number 2

I've been trying to reach Leibert and Dometic, no joy... we have gone ahead with the repairs, what choice do we have right? The jacks have to function properly as do the tank valves so we are having them all repaired. In the end, I am going to be having a meeting with the dealer asking and if needed demanding an explanation on how they could give a clean bill of health and then suddenly, after spending $500.00 on repairs we have another $3,500.00 before it's actually.....fixed or their version of fixed.

I'm going to walk back my comment about possibly giving up the RV lifestyle, we simply can't, we enjoy it too much! I work a pretty stressful job, I love the job, but there is a lot of stress. Being able to unwind at the campground really helps me, but having to fix the fix, for somebody with OCD and being a perfectionist, not getting even half assed repair's done is mindbogglingly frustrating because I know if I did that repair for somebody I could put my name on it, I would OWN it and be proud of it because I can guaranfriggintee it would be done right, I believe in a handshake being my bond and my work a contract that it will be as good as new or better.

We tentatively have next Friday as delivery day and our hopes are that the dealer will come through.

Well it's been a while, a few quick personal updates and an RV update. Last year I had two surgeries, one on my back for melanoma and one on my nose for basal carcinoma. Work is going well, keeping me busy which is good!

We dropped off the RV last October 15th for the following repairs, continued leaking of the black tank into the belly of the RV, battling the smell through the summer months became a weekly event. They also had to work on the black and gray tank valves, again and the jacks were still popping and we were still losing power in the kitchen island and storage area and of course the front cap LED's were falling off.

Nothing to make owning an RV fun right? I received a call finally from the dealer two weeks ago (after the entire winter went by) that the repairs have all been completed! My cost, a tad over $500.00, so we scheduled the delivery date for Friday April 8th, all was good to go.

Saturday March 19th I decided to go to the dealer for their annual RV show with my brother. While there I got the keys and went to check out the rig, LED's still not fixed, check, RV sitting low in the front probably due to jacks popping through the winter, check, so that wasn't fixed, natch, check the black and gray valves, neither of them work, AT ALL, locked in place, check, the living room AC has never worked, as in NEVER... something new, the chain for the huge bedroom slide, the slide I mentioned when new I would need to make sure lasted, was sitting on the top of the slide, obviously a lot of slack since we dropped it off last year.

I talked to the dealer, they will of course check it out...... wait almost 2 weeks, take Monday the 28th off to go back to the dealer to see when things would be scheduled only to find out nothing has been scheduled, nothing has been fixed. I let a few people there know I'm getting beyond angry and would like to see something happen, ASAP. The service tech says they will get right on it.

Fast forward to this morning I get a call, the landing jacks pump is bad, again, the black and gray tank valves are bad again, the chain took over an hour to adjust because.... well apparently adjusting a chain.... is hard.... on and on we go.

I stopped him and ask, how is it, that it got a clean bill of health two weeks ago, you took my money and now suddenly all of this shit has gone wrong? You're telling me that since it got that clean bill of health, the pump went bad, the valves went bad.... seriously. After we went back and forth, the total is over $3,500.00..... on top of the $500.00 we have paid.

I called Keystone and had a very extensive conversation with them, tomorrow I'm having a conversation with a lemon law attorney and Saturday I'm having a conversation with the dealership owners, this incompetence has to be addressed, the list of their incompetence is insane....

The wife and I have had it with this RV, it's nice to look at, but we're done, no matter the outcome we will be looking for something different, we know when we're licked, this is bullshit RV # 2, apparently we just aren't meant to have something nice. Depending on Saturdays outcome, we will never give Collier RV our business again and may get out of RV'ing completely, I don't know of another couple with this many problems with either a used or new rig, or the ability to have two dealers with tech's that NEVER DO A DAMN THING RIGHT.

I give up, seriously, tents are looking so good right now.