Category: Uncategorized (Page 5 of 5)

I drove home on November 13th with my new RV, still excited and wanting to move on from the 30+ days I had to wait to get it fixed.

It was chilly that night, and finally time to move in to the RV. We were stocked up on snacks, pillows, bedding…all the necessary accoutrements. It seemed like a good time to test that fancy radiant heating system I had heard so much about. We turned on the system.

The Alde radiant heating system and accompanying 3010 digital control panel are not difficult to operate. Turn on the system, set your desired temperature and fuel choice (all propane, propane and electric, or all electric), and wait for warm and toasty conditions.

Alde Control Panel

The first part, turning it on, was a breeze. Having the RV plugged in to shore power, and figuring ‘why waste propane when we have electricity’, we set the target temperature to 74º (it was 50º outside) and waited. It didn’t get warm at all, so consulting the manual (always a good first step) we discovered our Alde system was suffering from a distinct lack of 120V power. Finally, again after scouring the manual and the internet for suggestions, we decided to look at the boiler itself and found in the compartment where it was stored that the electrical plug for the boiler was…unplugged. This closed compartment also housed the new battery system parts that had been installed with the equalizer so someone in service must have unplugged the boiler and neglected to reconnect it (and forgotten to clean out all the metal shavings left in that compartment from I assume the equalizer install). We turned on propane along with the electricity, hoping that would improve the heating performance, but after letting the system run all day we only reached an interior temperature of 68º according to the thermostat on the Alde system. A handheld thermometer showed an actual temperature inside of only 58º. Something was clearly wrong.

While waiting for the heat that never arrived, we figured we should test as much as we can in the coach because the batteries and now the heat had been such problems. Our panel that displays water, propane, and electricity levels, told us the fresh water tank was empty, so to be sure we were starting with a really fresh tank of water, we opened the drain valve expecting a little trickle of water before we filled the tank. That trickle lasted throughout a lunch break – the tank had apparently been full or close to it from the dealership, but we didn’t know that because the tank sensor was always reading empty. We closed the valve, filled the tank (to overflowing), and still the tank sensor read empty.

Batteries? A problem.

Heat? A problem.

Tank sensor? A problem.

Back to the dealership! Yay!

I patiently waited for word from the dealer on the repair. Patient I had to be because I didn’t hear anything. I called the dealer and spoke to the service department the week of November 9th, 2015 to inquire about my RV. I was told that Roadtrek had authorized the request for the equalizer on October 28th and it would take some time to manufacture it because they’re custom made for the vehicle. That would be 8 days to authorize a part to repair a brand new vehicle that was clearly not working properly, in case you’re keeping score. At that point there was no ETA – I simply had to wait.

I would point out here that we had record high temperatures this fall here in the Northeast, none of which I could enjoy in my brand new RV. I’m sure the leaves changed colors magnificently, but I didn’t see them.

Another irritating factor was that my mother had a scheduled heart surgery November 2nd in Philadelphia. I had intended to boondock in my new RV during the surgery because I live an hour from the hospital, wanted to of course be there for her, and stay in the van because, well, I could. Or at least that was the plan. But they say ‘Man plans and God laughs’ or something along those lines, and he was clearly chuckling at me at this point. Thankfully the heart surgery went well, which is really the most important thing. But I continued waiting for news on the van, getting irritated that I had paid for a new RV and been unable to use it for a month at this point.

During this wait, Roadtrek introduced a $5,000 incentive for purchases made in November (which was later extended to purchases made in December). I contacted Roadtrek directly, and because it had been a month since purchase and the vehicle was still unusable, I requested that they honor the $5,000 incentive. What did it matter that I had purchased it in October if it had been sitting on the lot at the dealership since October anyway? The Regional Sales Manager at Roadtrek said no, they can’t honor it, and they would continue with the repairs. Maybe that letter to Roadtrek at least got the repairs moving a bit faster, because on November 12th I received a call from the dealer to say the RV was ready for pickup, and on November 13th, I drove up to get it.

After an exciting morning purchasing and picking up our new RV, we arrived home. The batteries? Yeah, still dead. Despite driving home and charging them with the engine generator, once we arrived home and turned off the engine, the battery light on the disconnect switch dimmed and went out. So we dutifully plugged it in to power and went to bed for the night. Unrelated to this, but that night we emailed our salesman to thank him again for his help, to say that, yes, he was right, the ride was smooth, and that we would be mailing him the remote controls for the TV and DVD player that we had forgotten to leave in our Ranger which we had traded in. I could have saved that $6 postage had I known that I would be back to the dealer soon.

The next morning, we went out to the van to check on the batteries and found them again, dead. Charging all night had not yielded any power. We called our salesman to verify that the charging procedure we were following was correct – not complicated, just really make sure you turn on the battery disconnect switch to allow power to flow to the batteries. He verified we were doing everything correctly, but despite that, we still could not get the batteries to charge using either the engine generator or plugging it in to shore power. I attempted to call Roadtrek directly, to double check that I was doing everything correctly. I had to leave a message which to this day, has never been returned.

Batteries at only 3%

While looking around in the van, I also noticed that the solar controller was blinking. It’s a gray box in a cabinet with a few lights on it, and one of the lights had been blinking since our tour with our salesman. That seemed odd because upon inspection, it seemed that that light was a ‘Battery Overvoltage’ indicator, which made no sense because our batteries didn’t seem to be getting ANY voltage. While waiting for the vehicle to hopefully charge, I found the manual for the solar controller online. According to the manual, the settings on the controller were incorrect. The CS Adventurous eTrek package includes 8 AGM batteries, but the solar controller had been set to ‘Flooded Batteries’ which AGM batteries are not. The manual also ominously warned never to set the battery type incorrectly.

It was clear something was amiss – as nice as the Mercedes Benz van portion was, without power in the living quarters, it was useless as an RV. After 5 days of leaving the RV plugged in to power and praying for a sign of life in those batteries, I knew we were getting nowhere. On day 6, the service manager responded with an email offering to walk me through how to charge the vehicle. Not believing in miracles, (at least with this van) exactly one week after picking it up, I brought the RV back to the dealer for service on October 20th. The service technician saw immediately that the solar controller was programmed incorrectly, and the settings on the inverter which should have been handling charging my batteries was incorrect as well. I could have waited forever and those batteries were never going to charge. He adjusted those items, and did some quick tests on the batteries and determined that I was ‘missing a part’ and they would have to order a battery equalizer and install that once it arrived. This sounded familiar because I had previously read about another Roadtrek owner’s (LONG) problem with their eTrek system and an equalizer had been part of their solution.

I rented a car and headed home, figuring ‘how long could this take, a week?’

Yeah, no.

I arrived to the dealership on my scheduled purchase date on October 13th, 2015, and was met by my friendly salesman who was ready to give me a tour of the vehicle to explain the new features and how to use the various new systems.

The RV was opened up and ready for the tour, and it was plugged into power, which made sense as they were prepping it for me to pick it up. As the tour got underway, everything seemed fine, and we were excited by the prospects of all the new capabilities that our Ranger had lacked. In fact, the title picture in the header of this site is the panorama shot of our soon-to-be traded in Ranger and our come-see-me-I’ll-be-yours-soon new CS Adventurous.

Roadtrek parked at the dealership

But during our tour, there were issues with the power. Lights were flickering – the LEDs that lit the cabin area were flickering when the power sofa in the rear was reclined. Huh, that’s odd, I thought. The salesman’s explanation was simply that someone who had prepped the vehicle likely left something running which had drained the batteries. At the time, it sounded perfectly reasonable, though in hindsight, I’m not sure why there should have been power issues while it was plugged in to shore power. He told me that it would charge on my drive home (using that fancy engine generator) and I would need to plug it in at home to charge for possibly a few days as these batteries needed an extended charging time when they were deeply discharged. Again, that sounded reasonable. Hey, we’ve all left things running accidentally, right?

Figuring everything was OK, after the tour we all went in to the dealership to sign the papers and make it official.

If you get nothing else from this blog, PLEASE remember. When buying an RV especially, NEVER SIGN THE SALES PAPERWORK BEFORE CONFIRMING THAT THE RV IS WORKING!

I know that the buyer should always do his due diligence. But not being 100% familiar with the new battery system, it sounded completely reasonable that hey, they were just empty and by the time we got home and gave it some juice, we’d be A-OK.

WRONG.

We packed up and set off from the dealer with our brand new CS Adventurous. If ‘Someone’ had told us at that point, ‘hey, that’s a nice new RV you have…you know, you won’t be able to use it until at least next year’ we would have called them crazy and laughed. Unfortunately for us, ‘Someone’ never did try to warn us like that before we left to drive the 2 hours home.

Sometimes you get an itch. In my case, the itch was to trade in my Roadtrek Ranger RT Class B RV for a brand new Roadtrek CS Adventurous. I had only owned the Ranger for under a year, but as my first foray into the RV lifestyle, what a year it was.
I had never owned an RV so it was a learning experience to be sure. But motoring around from the cold winter through the hot summer, I took in more local flavor (and surrounding states’ flavor) than I had in many years. The decision to make RVing and boondocking in particular a more regular and frequent activity happened to coincide with the RV Show in Hershey Pennsylvania this summer. It was there, after touring more RVs than I could count, that I decided to pursue an upgrade.

Figuring the Roadtrek brand had been kind to me so far with my Roadtrek Ranger, I felt compelled to stay in the family, and was taken by the promise of what 8 batteries and a solar panel could do for me. As much as I loved the Ranger, as someone who traveled frequently with a Jack Russell Terrier as a companion, leaving the air conditioning on in the coach for the dog while we saw the sites that weren’t so dog-friendly required running the gas generator. As much as I loved it, I didn’t love the loud noise of a generator, and the promise of generator-free air conditioning in Roadtrek’s higher end models was alluring.

Following the RV show, I continued researching availability, and found a new 2015 CS Adventurous at a dealer nearby – well, nearby being almost 2 hours away, but there aren’t too many Roadtrek dealers. It had the options I was looking for, including the eTrek package which provided the aforementioned 8 batteries. It also came outfitted with the solar package which added a solar panel for trickle charging, an engine generator (really a 2nd alternator, but no more loud gas generator), and radiant heating which included heated floors! I corresponded back and forth with the salesman at the dealership, we settled on a price to include trading in my Ranger, and I made an appointment to come pick it up at the earliest date they could provide – October 13th. Little did I know what troubles were ahead.

Goodbye old friend…you are missed

I am publishing this blog to share my experience with Roadtrek when purchasing a new CS Adventurous. Read my story before you decide a Roadtrek is right for you.

Click here to go to the beginning…