Amazing What Filth Some People Can Live In…

Wow, it is hard to believe the last time I blogged was way back on Saturday, July 20, 2019, nearly four weeks ago. Where did the time go and what were we doing during that hiatus?. Well we were mostly working very hard on our rent house although we did have a few fun days (mostly in July).

One fun thing we did was attend the Dixie Chicken’s (a well known college bar near the Texas A&M University campus) 40th birthday party. We do recall having had a little too much fun on a few occasions there in the 1970’s. Anyway, this was a great little event even though it was pretty dang hot. We has some fun listening to a lot of musicians at the bash, the best of which was Roger Craeger.

 

We actually hoped to be out of College Station by August 7th but the tenant in our rent house informed us he couldn’t be out of the rent house until July 24th. Well the 24th came and went. They did not move out until the 30th. We had an agreement where we could go in before they moved to do some work but that meant we would really only have 7 days to flip the house and make it ready for new tenants. That was definitely not enough time so we added yet another week to our stay.

As you may remember from our last blog these renters have been the most disgusting renters we have ever had with regard to cleanliness. They were great in making their rental payments every moth for the last 8 years but apparently they never ever cleaned the place… NOT EVEN ONCE in 8 years. I mean there was even dirt and dog hair on the ceiling – did I mention they had three large dogs even though only one dog was allowed in the lease? Some of these pictures are taken before and then after we cleaned…

We soon discovered we had several major projects to do. We had already built a new fence and replaced the concrete driveway but after seeing the inside we realized we needed new flooring, new paint, several repairs and a massive cleaning of their filth left behind.

Once they moved out the first thing to go was all of the carpet. Although it was only 8 years old it had been destroyed by the dogs digging holes in it and peeing all over the place. After donning gloves the carpet was cut into smaller pieces and carted out to the curbside thrown atop the huge pile of junk the renters left behind.

I neglected to mention that upon entering our rental the stench of dog urine and dirty dog smell was overwhelming. We thought removal of the carpet would help eradicate  the foul smell but it hardly made a dent.

I will rant a bit more about our ordeal in the next blog but just to let you know we are now happily back on the road of retirement…

NOTE: We are back on the road and in Waco Texas until  August 18th and then up to Wichita Falls to see our new nephew working our way to New Mexico via Childress and Pampa, Texas…

Stuck in Freightliner Hell…

Oh well, this too shall pass… That was the last sentence of my last blog. I know it is true but what I didn’t know was how long it would take. We spent 10 days in Albuquerque with all but two of them with our RV either in the shop for the day (two days) or in the shop overnight (5 days). When we first noticed the check engine light flicker my guess was that we had a fuel line or fuel filter issue. Boy was I wrong.

The initial diagnosis was that we had a failed Turbo but were told there could be other issues as well but they wouldn't know until the turbo was removed. The CAC or the engine could have also been damaged. Yikes!!!

Lonestar Trucking is the one and only Freightliner Cummins shop in town. As a result they are swamped with trucks as they also work on Cats, Western Star and others. They also don’t take appointments instead taking customers on a first come first served policy. They open at 7:00 am but close at 7:00 pm whereas a lot of other trucking repair facilities have an overnight crew.

Once the techs took off our Turbo we were informed that the CAC and engine appeared to be fine but that it was discovered we also had a warped intake manifold. We do recall the Freightliner people in Gaffney SC telling us at a previous maintenance visit that we had an exhaust leak that would have to be taken care of in the future (aka now!). The manifold had to come from Denver so our RV was tucked into a corner to await the part.

The man we spoke with the most was named Dan L. and his customer service skills were… well, let’s say sorely lacking. Communication at this trucking service center is weak at best. Fortunately for us one of Sharon’s best friends lives in Albuquerque so we packed up and went over to stay at their house. We hoped it would be a few days but it turned into five…

While we did have a blast reconnecting with Vicki and Roger and greatly appreciated their hospitality we were itching to get back home. Most of the pictures in this blog are from a Summertime Event held in Albuquerque where we had a great time listening to various bands  and from a day trip to the top of Sandia Peak. We needed these diversions to relax and forget about all the stress the repairs were causing.

I won’t go into the detail about how poor communication with customers was between the service center and their customers (including us) but will highlight one truckers issue when he found out he had been waiting in the lounge for a “simple repair” to his truck’s air conditioning only to learn (by him asking) that the tech who was working on his truck had left for home several hours earlier and they didn't know how much work he had done or when he would be back! This was a perfect example of how bad it was.

Anyhow after five days of going back and forth to learn about the status of our RV we were finally told we could probably have our RV back at just before closing. I decided to take it for a test run over to a casino about 10 miles away to fill it up with diesel and give our girl a test drive. Well, all was going well and we did notice the engine was much quieter but then all of the sudden the gauges all stopped working.

The next morning we took it back at 8:00 am and it wasn’t till 3:00 pm while on a walk around the building to stretch our legs we learned what happened from a tech (not the customer service people). We apparently had a failed ABS module another part which of course needed to be ordered. The service guys informed us the part would be about $900 plus labor which completely shocked us. This is after we just paid $7,500 for the previous work.

Well I told them that the gauges worked perfectly before their repairs and it must of been something they had done to damage the module. While they wouldn’t budge on taking the blame they did finally say they would discount the part and also not charge me any additional freight, shipping or labor. At least it was still drive-able so we could go back to the RV park down the street for the night until the part arrives.

The part was supposed ship overnight but of course it did not, so after calling and then stopping by, Don assured us it was scheduled to arrive the next day at 10:30 am. He asked us to drop off the RV at that time so they could work on it soon after the part was received. We went off for a little last minute shopping and lunch but when we returned the RV hadn’t moved an inch. Exasperated, we inquired about the status and after another 1/2 hour we at last saw the RV drive into a bay for the repair.

It was finally repaired and test driven but then began the exhaustive wait for the final paperwork. The total bill for all repairs was nearly $8500. YIKES!!! We did use our FCOC membership card to get 10% off parts (which in itself was a chore since no one knew how to do that adjustment without help from the main parts manager). But we were sure willing to wait as the adjustment of a nearly $500 discount was great especially given the $10 membership fee this year.

We celebrated the finishing of our repairs at Nevus Tap House with two former full time RV’ers who now reside in Albuquerque. What fun we had catching up with Catherine and Jo Beth sharing laughs and stories over a nice beer…While we really enjoyed Albuquerque and our friends we were SO VERY GLAD to hit the road once again!

NOTE: We left Sumner Lake State Park in New Mexico and spent 10 days in Albuquerque NM but we are now in Questa NM…

Cummins Service Center Experience and Lessons Learned…

I felt a little follow up on my Jacksonville Florida Cummins experience is in order. Before we left the Cummins dealer I also had a tech come out to our rig and show me exactly what the problem was. What happened is that the “doghouse” in our rig is made of wood and then covered with carpet. Well where the doghouse was attached to the firewall area there was a piece of it in contact with the hose. Over time the wood on the edge of the doghouse acted as a saw and after thousands of miles of RV vibration it actually cut through the hose thus presenting the whooshing noise we heard.

From what I could tell after the tech showed me what happened I felt there was no way it should cost $1000 to repair this!  We were so glad  that they couldn’t get to the repairs as I feel sure I will be able to do this on my own for no additional cost (unless I have to replace the hose clamps). So, some friendly advice, is to pull your doghouse up and look under it to make sure none of the sharp edges of the wood is in contact with any part of the engine.

Before we left Jacksonville I lifted our doghouse and contorted my body in such a way as to be able to saw off the offending piece of doghouse. It took about 10 minutes of time and Cummins was going to charge me $100 just for doing that! Next I went to Walmart and bought some self sealing silicone tape to use to temporarily patch the hose until we get to a location where I have time to actually replace it.

The job of wrapping the hose with this silicone tape was not an easy task due to the tight working space under the doghouse. When I finished I also put on a piece of Gorilla tape to keep it secured. When we packed up to leave Jacksonville FL the motor was making no noise at first. However, after a few miles of travel it started whistling at a high pitch much to our chagrin. What happened was that the silicone tape was too narrow and small gaps were made between the wraps, thus the whistling as the air was being sucked past the tape. Groan. If it hadn’t been so hard to wrap I probably needed to wrap it more in multiple layers.

At the next rest stop I attacked it with more Gorilla Tape which didn’t totally silence the whistle but made it bearable. Happily we drove on to our next stop near Flagler Beach at Gamble Rogers State Rec Area which is one of my favorite coastal parks. We were only there for two nights but we certainly enjoyed some beach time.. We also enjoyed a few happy hours at both the Funky Pelican with great views of the Flagler Beach Pier and the High Tides on the beach which we could actually walk to from our RV site! (Todays pictures are from that area)

So what lessons did I learn from our Cummins experience that I can pass on?

• ask for someone’s name and number who will be accountable for communicating about the work being done
• after diagnosing the problem ask them to show specifically what the problem is and how it was diagnosed (you will pay a hefty diagnosis fee of $350 so I feel you should at least learn something from their work)
• in our case if they were going to complete the work (quoted to us as at least $1000) I would have questioned the 5-6 hours of labor they were going to charge me for a job that I believe I can do in 2 hours or less – of course that remains to be seen if I can)
• if you can do the work yourself after learning of the diagnosis tell them that you don’t need them to do the repairs and bank the money they would have charged.
• as for my “patch” I would strongly suggest purchasing both 1” Silicone Rubber Self Fusing Tape and a wider 2” Silicone Rubber Self Fusing Tape (I think a wider tape would have prevented the whistling we got in our patch job)
• as part of our diagnosis, new heat shield insulation for the inside of the doghouse was ordered but did not arrive prior to our departure as promised. We paid for this and the staff was trying to charge us to ship it to our next location. However when we stood our ground they eventually did the right thing and shipped it as we requested at no additional charge.

This Silicone Rubber Self Fusing Tape is a miracle product and can be used to repair hose leaks or even plumbing leaks with very little effort. I plan to have rolls of it in my RV and in my car as I can see this saving the day if I ever experience another leaking hose!!! Hopefully our experience will help other RVers who need to stop at a Cummins Service Center. Judging from a comment on our last blog, others have had some not so pleasant experiences....

NOTE: We are now near Mims Florida where we booked a weeklong stay…

Fighting for a Cause Close to their Hearts… Gettysburg PA

We finally did leave the Shenandoah Valley. After a short 108 mile drive north we were all set up in the Artillery Campground in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The coolest thing about the drive was the fact that in only 108 miles we had driven in the RV on roads in four states. Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Our first full day we made a plan to do a self guided walking tour of the old town of Gettysburg. We had done the Gettysburg National Military Park the last time we were here so we thought we would add something different this trip. Afterwards we would revisit the Military Park and drive the auto tour loop of the battlefield later in the afternoon.

Right after lunch we stopped at the Visitor’s and Convention Bureau to pick up the free guide for the walking tour of historic downtown Gettysburg. Once we had the map in hand we found the old Gettysburg Train Station to begin our walk.There were lots of Civil War era buildings along this route that were steeped in history. Some buildings still had bullet holes and artillery projectiles embedded in them. One highlight was seeing the oldest building remaining in Gettysburg which was built in 1790 and I think it looks a hell of a lot better than most homes built in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

As much as we enjoyed the walk in the downtown historic district I was looking forward to seeing the Gettysburg battlefield again. Our first trip we could literally feel the ghosts of war all around us. It was impossible not to empathize with the thousands of mothers and fathers who suffered the loss of their sons.

This time we had a much different experience not because we felt any different but given the current affairs in our country. It was eerie to be walking the fields where many young American men, both confederate and union, had fallen. Each young man was fighting for a cause he so wholeheartedly believed in. Somehow in history the civil war has been defined as simply a war over slavery but to the young men on both sides it must have been much more than that in that they laid their lives on the line.They were each fighting for a cause close to their hearts.

Walking among the Union memorials and statues felt no different to me than walking among the confederate memorials and statues. I am confused how we in America can condemn anyone for fighting for what they believe in even if we don’t agree with them and their views. Why is it that we simply can’t agree to disagree in our country anymore! Haven't we learned from the past?

I am not one to pen a political blog but I will admit to being an Independent in our political system as I see good and bad in both sides about what is just and right for our country. Today we all value our right of free speech yet it seems many of us only want it when and if the views expressed agree with our own views. Walking among the many who died fighting with other Americans makes me wonder in our current state of polarization if we aren't heading back in that historic direction.

Sorry to go off on a rant but I sure hope we think twice about taking down any of the Civil War monuments in this beautiful and serene historic park. It would be a sad day when parents can’t bring their children to see the statues and explain what they thought was right and wrong about the Civil War. Above all the statues should remind us of what can happen if we do not make an effort to discuss our differences to find a middle ground rather than demonizing, hating and killing one another.

NOTE: We will be in Gettysburg for another day then move on to Springs Mills, PA for a couple of days before going to Tioga, PA where we will be for the partial eclipse.