SA Japanese Tea Gardens and a follow up to our engine repairs…

When in San Antonio I forgot to mention a neat place, we visited while staying at our son’s house. Our son told us we need to check out the Japanese Tea Garden close to where the Cummins Service Center was located. So, one afternoon after we went to check on the RV at Cummins to stop by.

The Japanese Tea Garden is a lush, beautiful park that was created from an abandoned rock quarry. The garden includes a 60 foot waterfall, koi ponds, a pagoda-style pavilion, and a café. There are walking paths and trails that take you around the garden. Several picturesque stone bridges. Cross the waterways.

It was constructed in 1918 by prisoners for about  $7,000.It has paid  for itself multiple times over as it includes areas that are available for rent for functions such as for small weddings. A small wedding was being set up while visited. It is a nice place to visit on hot day in San Antonio.

When I last blogged we had just left San Antonio and were  quite pleased at how the RV handled during our drive. When we arrived in College Station Texas we set up our site and settled in.

As soon as set up Sharon insisted we needed to rent a carpet cleaner because the Cummins service folks left quite a mess around the opening to the engine.Curious about the work they had done we started to inspect things closer. There was quite a bit of engine grime all around the front area so I decided I needed to take this up with the Cummins people.

Before calling I lifted up the engine opening cover to inspect their work.  The top of the engine was very clean but when I crawled under the RV to inspect the underside of the engine I was horrified to see oil everywhere. Oil was dripping off of multiple surfaces prompting me to immediately call Cummins in San Antonio.

When I called the service manager was very understanding and told us have the carpets cleaned and they would pay for the service. He also stated that we should take our RV to a nearby service center and if the oil leak was due to their work they would pay for it.

We chose to simply rent a carpet cleaner so we could do the cleaning ourselves to our satisfaction. As for the oil leak it took a while before we could get it serviced. Once we did they determined the valve cover gasket was the likely culprit and ordered the part. We have since returned and had the service performed.

While we certainly weren't pleased with the original work on our RV we were very pleased with how their customer service made things right. We would return for service there because of that and do recommend them for the same reason.

Fingers crossed that this is now all FINALLY behind us!

Damn that was an expensive stop!

My last blog had us still at Canyon Lake and being towed to Cummins in San Antonio, Texas. While the RV was in the shop we stayed at our son’s house about 45 minutes away.

It took five days before I got the dreadful call from Cummins to inform me that we had leaking fuel injectors which were causing the problem. Four of the six were leaking significantly, one was slightly leaking, and the other was marginal. Therefore, the only logical choice was to replace all six of them.

We drove over one afternoon to pick up some needed items from the RV since our stay with our son would be longer than we thought. Good thing we did as we discovered that the technician had somehow broken our lighted exterior door assist handle. Of course, they agreed to pay for it but the part is (sigh) on back order.

About four days later Cummins called to say it would be ready the next afternoon. I told them I’d just pick it up the following morning in case there were any unexpected issues. Sure, enough I was later informed that they found a possible oil leak during the test drive and would have to clean it up then do another test drive.

Had we planned to pick it up that afternoon it wouldn’t have been ready until San Antonio’s primetime for rush hour. Thankfully the next call we received explained they cleaned the underneath of the engine block and could find no oil leak. The conclusion was it was most likely residual oil from the repair. Residual oil is not uncommon in this type of repair.

We picked it up the next morning only to discover yet another snafu. For some reason the tow truck driver had removed our tow hitch and when he put it back on he installed it backwards. We only discovered this because the tow hitch had obviously been dragged down the road and damaged the steel ends that attach to the car.

With the help of a Cummins service guy, we put the hitch on correctly and determined it was safe to tow the car even with the damaged ends. I will replace them before we go anywhere else. Finally, we hooked up the car and happily left San Antonio. The RV was running great, and we drove three hours over to our old hometown of College Station.

Sharon and I sure hope all of this is now behind us and we can look forward to our future travels…

NOTE: Todays pictures are from our stay in San Antonio while our RV was being repaired.