POTR #66 The Winnebago Factory

PEACE ON THE ROAD

A Visit To The Winnebago Factory

July 8, 2011

According to the calendar it is now almost Independence Day. Summer is fast going past. I would like to tell you about the interesting places that I have visited lately, but that is just a bit limited this time. I left Texas and have traveled north to upper Iowa and then across the upper US. I have spent a lot of time “holed up” waiting for weather, tornadoes and rain to clear ahead of my intended route. Along the way I have seen many places that either I want to visit some time or it looked interesting as I drove past on the Interstate. I have been able to stop and see some friends in a couple places, but for the rest of the time it has been almost a duty to get to a specific destination for some reason.

For several years I have been wondering if it made sense to take the Vectra back to the factory in Forest City, Iowa to have it worked on. Until this year it would have been a rather long specific trip for a small amount of work, or what I thought would be a small amount. This year about the time we reached Oklahoma I looked and saw that we could change our route just a little and go to the factory. So that is just what we have done. We did not think we would have the problem of ordering parts from the factory and waiting a week before they could be delivered and then another week before the part could be installed. Everything we needed would be at the factory. That was excellent in theory but it did not work in practice all that well. It was likely a bit naive of me to think that even the factory would have all the parts necessary for a seven year old motor home. I have gotten a lot of education in coming here. Many parts still have to ordered from somewhere else. But the delivery time is short.

When we called in to see if was possible to get an appointment we got our first surprise. Either we could schedule an appointment for August or we could come in for an unscheduled service anytime and they could get us in within a day or two. I have not been able to figure out how those two work together. Either wait over two months or get in within a couple days. Why would a person wait months unless they lived in the area, but if they lived in the area then why would they wait that long. At any rate we were delayed during the trip up here by the weather. We really did not have the desire to drive through a lot of rain and through areas that were predicting high probability of severe winds and tornadoes. We arrived on a Monday afternoon and they thought that we could in Tuesday afternoon. We could stay in one of their parking lot sites that are reserved for the “unscheduled” people. It was finally Thursday that we were able to get in the first time. Their service day started at 7:00 and ended sharply at 3:00. The Vectra was in the shops for four days, being returned at 3:00 every day and over the weekend. We would move it to the parking area and set up camp every day.

I think that it would be logical for a factory campground to be nice. Again I suppose that I was being naive. The camping area is good gravel, the electricity is 30 amps only, which is just fine for small units that some people have. Nearly all the units that are here for service are large units that really should have 50 amp service. As long as the weather is not too hot, the microwave is not used, the water heater is on LP gas, 30 amp works just fine. But if it gets hot then there are going to be a bunch of people that will be short of power. I am now writing this a thousand miles away from the factory so I can say that we did not have hot weather. In fact it was cool and rainy. The rain was actually to our advantage. A new leak appeared in the front section of the RV last summer. When we were in Denver we took the Vectra into the dealer where it was bought to get the leaks repaired. Four times we took it in and four times we were told that it was fixed. After the last visit it didn't leak for a couple weeks, that is because we did not have any rain, by then we were many miles into our travels. Spending the winter in Texas where there was a severe drought was the best thing we could do. There was little rain and therefore no leaks, that is until we started moving north. The factory techs finally found and sealed (I think and hope) one of the leaks in the front. Another leak was around the windshield so the windshield had to removed and resealed. That led to a broken windshield and the installation of a new one. At least so far, through several rains there have been no leaks that we have detected.

We spent over a week in the parking lot of the visitors center at the Winnebago Factory. In addition to the leaks mentioned we have some issues that are caused by living in our motor home for seven years and there have been some problems from the day that we bought the Vectra. In our rear bedroom slide there has been a leak during every rain that we have been in from day one. We have taken it in to be fixed more times than I care to think about. It has been “fixed” in New York, Texas, Colorado and now here in Forest City, Iowa. We have been told every time that it is fixed. It is until the next rain. I hope that after we leave here I will not be able to say, “It leaked again.” The leaks should never have left the factory. We took a tour of the factory and they claim that all units are water tested with the equivalent of a 50 inch per hour rainstorm. I for one do not believe that was done to our unit before they shipped it, or nobody inspected the inside with any diligence after the test. We had several leaks fixed in New York on our first trip in 2004. For the most part New York did a good job. But many attempts to get the leak in the bedroom slide fixed have failed. Seven years of leaking in the bedroom slide has caused additional damage that will require a factory scheduled time to repair. Since we have the documentation that indicated we have have the leak “fixed” so many times the factory says, “We can work with you on the charges.” So towards the end of August we will return to the factory and hope to have fixed a leak that should have never left the factory in the first place.

We have read many places that tires should be replaced every six to seven years no matter how few miles it has. UV rays and oxygen cause tire rubber to deteriorate. Cracks develop in the sidewalls and the cord inside starts to weaken. My tires were seven years old in the last week of June. Again the factory should have tires. Right? Wrong! It was going to be up to ten weeks before any tires of the size I need would be produced by the tire manufacturer and then a while longer to be available. The service adviser called a local tire dealer. This is a small dealer in a small Iowa farm town that he called. He could have them in two days. That in itself was amazing to me but equally amazing was his price. He was at least $200 cheaper than any other price I had found including the factory if they ever got any. Don't get the idea the dealer was cheap. I need six tires and each one was over $500, mounted, balanced and exchanged. It is no wonder that many motor home owners will keep tires on for ten to fifteen years. We have heard numerous stories of tire failures which resulted in thousands of dollars in damages to the motor home. Also we have heard similar stories from people that bought low quality, cheap tires that perhaps were not maintained properly. Early in our travels I bought a tire pressure monitoring system that will warn me of tire pressure drop. It will allow me to check all the pressures of the six tires on the Vectra and on the four on the Jeep that I tow in about ten seconds even while driving. Actually Erma does the checking if I am driving about every hour so and any slow leak will be detected. I hope that this system tells me if any rapid pressure drops long before there is any major damage. In all the years I have never had any leaks. I have always believed that balancing a tire was good practice. Many times I have seen five or more ounces of wheel weights put on an auto tire. The tires of the Vectra are a LOT heavier than an auto tire so I expected more weights to be used. But tires are made with better balance than they were thirty or more years ago and the balancing technology has improved. The way they balanced the motor home tire was to pour ten ounces of glass beads inside the tire. I have seen balancing systems that put marble sized glass balls in a hula hoop like ring and then fastened the ring to the tire. These are very tiny glass beads, like the glass beads on reflective highway signs, which seek the light side of the tire and rebalance every time you drive. It really is quite a concept. According to the dealer it works much better than lead weights attached to the rim.

It must have been 25 years ago that I read a book about living the “Full Timing” lifestyle. The book told of several people who were “living full time” in some sort of RV and it indicated the amount that they were spending. Bear in mind that it was 25 years ago or more and the book might have been 5 years old at the time that I read it. Some of the people were living for as little as $250 a month. The ones that seemed to be living high off the hog were spending $1500 a month. I imagine that most of them were living in small RV's too. Times have changed for sure.

On the north side of Rochester is a beautiful light house that we were privileged to visit this week. For over a hundred years the town of Charlotte at the mouth of the Genessee river which flows into Lake Ontario was a very important port for many sailing ships and paddle wheelers which carried supplies for international trade and coal from Pennsylvania. In 1822 a forty foot light house was built on a small hill on the west side of the river. Subsequently piers for the lake trade were built into the harbor. The piers reduced the effectiveness of the light so it was decommissioned and the cast iron lens housing and Fresnel lens was moved to the west pier location by the river. For a hundred years the top of the tower was covered with a roof to keep rain out. It was being considered for demolition at one point. Charlotte high school students rallied to save the tower. The current tower top was built by the Edison Technical High school shop teacher and students. The light keepers house has been converted to a museum and gift shop. It is the second oldest lighthouse in all of the Great Lakes.

THE CHARLOTTE GENESSEE LIGHTHOUSE

This was written over a couple weeks so it is a bit rambling. I hope you had a wonderful holiday and the rest of your summer goes well. We will spend a few more weeks in Rochester and then go, slower than three days, back to the factory in Forest City, Iowa for additional repairs to our motor home.

Till later this is Doug of

Peace On The Road