Chattanooga TN
guys, I'm kind of overwhelmed by the support, thank you. Winnebago's customer service so far has been awful, other than the nice man who spent almost two hours on the phone with me as I looked for that clearly placed controller board. That of course wasn't where they said it should be.
Even if I had found it, it was toast based on the scorch marks I saw, and which the Service Mgr had captured on his smart phone. He was good...but he wasn't a magician. I'm sure he would like to be.
But he was one of the genuine good guys, and he called me on the road today and asked me if I had at least eaten a mud bug. I had to say no, not this trip. What a nice guy, and so was the owner who Mac bought his trailer from a long time ago. Just good people. S&S Apache, buy from them if you can.
Ok, I'm going to stop thinking about this malfunctioning motorhome and try to enjoy the next few days. And boys and girls, the show will go on, remembering that I think the weather forecast is seriously wet.
So, belatedly, for today, we have the fact that I am parked on a Civil War battlefield where men fought and died. Talk about ghosts. There is a monument to the 84th Indiana Regiment that I went down a lovely short path to find. All of the campground streets are named for Civil War officers, and of course the streets at the North end are named for Union commanders and the South end is for Confederate generals. Pretty neat idea actually.
At each campground they give you some form of paperwork. The little ones basically give you a sheet of photocopied paper with the bare minimum on it, while places like this have the professionally done glossy foldout with maps on both sides and the expected advertisers all around. Just like the placemats at the local diner....
And boy is there a lot going on in Chattanooga. No time to take pics on the road today, pretty challenging five hour ride in increasing winds from the system coming through. But I did see the sign for the Chattanooga Choo Choo.
Tomorrow I wind my way NorthEast , up 75 through Knoxville, and then the long hike on I-81 through the mountains. Until I get to another nice campground,called Rocky Top Campground, in Blountville TN just off I-81 in below the state line.
I gained an hour so I have the rest of the day to myself. And wouldn't you know, the kitchen slide almost didn't come back in at the last stop. It started to go cockeyed and I stopped, opened a drawer and got a hold of the framing, and pulled hard on an angle while luckily being able to reach the slide rocker switch, and it complained but came back in. Needless to say I'm only putting that slide out about half way now, because I don't have the counteracting weight on the other side of the living room slide with sofa not going out. Think seesaw. And of course the first thing anyone thinks, and should think, with a slide problem is overload. My living room slide has the sofa area and that's all. I store blankets, paper towels, and a total of about fifteen pounds of weight on that entire slide. Fifteen pounds, and it jams. So this is definitely not an overload issue.
I'm going to ask that we let the Winnebago issue hold until I get home. Frankly I'd rather not think about it. I will go back and reread all your suggestions and write a nice letter. But I will try to add some interesting final pics to this thread.
Now when I get home, I know there will be a nice Winnebago diesel pusher parked outside my home with the CEO there with the keys. Hold that thought.
groan, Jake fromWinnebago Customer Service called up and boy did I give him an earful. He admitted they dropped the ball. Well sometimes we go on break and sometimes we have to answer emails and blah blah blah. Tell that to the dealer service mgr Jake who your dept hung up on four times and see how well that flies. Well can you wait and see if I can get the parts? So I took all the time to go over the realities of the Lippert parts inventory system, and referred him to the dealer in Jackson MS who had all the parts numbers. Boy if he gets a hold of those parts, which he won't, and the dealer couldn't, if I were that dealer, boy I'd be ticked. I told him he was wasting his time and I was leaving at 7am tomorrow morning. Boy this is giving me a headache. And I have no confidence that any parts they source are not the same defective ones I had.
Let's look at pictures instead...
