Back home I went with the promise of a brighter future and a warm and toasty RV. We tested the heat when I returned – the outdoor temperature was in the high 30s, the Alde reported an indoor temperature of 51º, and after an hour of ‘heating’, the temperature rose 2º and the floors never got above lukewarm. The next morning I called my salesman at the dealership about the continuing issues with the heat, and also contacted Roadtrek. Roadtrek said they would talk to their engineering/service team and get back to me, and my salesman confirmed that 2º sounded wrong. Another 3 hours of testing the heat that night yielded a balmy 65º in the cabin. The next morning, the CO alarm is going off when I come out to check the van. It’s almost funny at this point. But not quite.
I exchanged emails with Roadtrek and the dealership service department, continued testing the heating, and finally after getting nowhere, I drove the RV BACK to the dealership on December 5th. I will remind you at this point that I do work during the week, and the dealership is 2 hours each way. And at this point in the story, I had just made my second car payment for a vehicle that had spent most of it’s life sitting in a service bay, not taking to the open roads in picturesque surroundings like Roadtrek would suggest you could do with one of these.
I didn’t see the RV again until New Year’s Eve. During this period, I spoke to the dealership who told me that they were replacing all 8 of the batteries in the vehicle. This is after I had been exhaustively testing the power system since the first time I had picked up the RV from service. There is a sticker in the vehicle that clearly states that the batteries in the vehicle are to be kept charged until delivery to the customer or they can be damaged. There is also a notice posted in the service department of the dealership which I was very familiar with at this point warning customers never to allow their batteries to completely discharge as they can be damaged. I would charge the RV by plugging in to shore power for days at a time and the inverter display would read 100% battery level. Once the plug was removed, the percentage would drop immediately, and the most I could ever charge the batteries was to a level of 87%. I had been told by the service department during my previous visit that the batteries were fine. During my correspondences with Roadtrek, I echoed these concerns about the batteries. I received a response:
I understand you have concerns regarding the AGM batteries not charging to a full 100%. In asking our supervisor of warranty and service, Chris, he has let me know that the batteries never have a full 100% reading, so the reading you are getting is within the normal range.
During all my troubles I happened upon a Facebook group of Roadtrek Owners and they assisted me with troubleshooting and verifying the battery performance. We had concluded that they were definitely not charging to capacity. It turns out, they were right. The service department told me that more batteries had tested bad than good, and in the work order it states that they in fact all tested bad. Another part (or 8) to order meant more time waiting.
As for the heating system, the service department had been in contact with Alde, who was kind enough to ground ship parts to them to try to troubleshoot the lazy heating performance – a pump and a bleeder kit. When I spoke to service, the technician said they had to bleed the system using Alde’s kit 3 separate times to extract all the air in the lines. So much for a ‘self-bleeding’ system, as they advertise the Alde to be.
On New Year’s Eve I drove up to hopefully finally possibly pick up the repaired RV. There was no way I was going to return home before testing, so I drove the RV across the street from the service to the sales lot at the dealership, parked, and turned on the heat. You can guess where this went. Five hours of heating using only propane as recommended by the manufacturer for maximum performance brought the temperature in the cabin from 67º to 70º (depending on who you asked as the Alde and the Dometic thermostat which is also installed in the cabin didn’t agree on the number) with an outdoor temperature in the 50s, so not in below-freezing weather by any means. Back across the street the RV went where I left it behind the service building. It’s spent more time there than at my house, so I’m sure it feels comfortable there.
Parked at the dealership, again
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