We finished our last post in January and while it seemed like an ending, it was not. We still have decisions to make about our RV ownership. But there’s one decision that we did make, and that is to hold off on doing any additional repairs and just get out there and enjoy having an RV!

After leaving the RV show in Florida we didn’t know what to do. We were excited to see all of the new offerings, but to be honest nothing really spoke to us enough to trade up. If there was an RV that had the matching “advertised” capabilities as the Roadtrek, then we certainly would have made a move.

As I may have mentioned in earlier posts, I work full time and a small RV has given me the freedom to venture away from home for 2 to 3 days at a time and remain completely self contained. Our 2 longest adventures so far have been to the Roadtrek factory in Canada, and the RV show in Florida, both about a week or so away from home.

Hiding under the palms on our trip to Florida

Yes, we’ve experienced many, many bumps in the road, but don’t let this discourage you from considering a Class B RV, or any RV for that matter. I’ve learned over time that problems will arise, and sometimes will take several attempts to get fixed. I don’t know if this is just the way it is, but repairs that you would think should take a couple of days usually take a couple of weeks, sometimes more.

Since the main systems seem to be working on our RV, we’ve finally had the confidence to hit the road and enjoy the sights, and for a change not have to focus on getting problems repaired. At the same time we’re taking notes on how we use our RV, and if we do make a change we want to pick the RV that best suits our needs.

I am glad we made the decision to purchase a van on the Sprinter chassis. I am still a little nervous about finding diesel in the less travelled areas, but we’re averaging about 18 mpg so a tank of fuel goes a long way. The van is also very easy to drive, and easy to park too. I have no problem parallel parking or fitting into a standard parking space. We are still much longer than a standard car or truck, so if we park in a shopping center I prefer backing into an end space so the back end is against a curb. I do wish that the stock navigation system was better (the screen flickers when going over bumps – bravo Mercedes), and the backup camera has a very narrow field of view, but these are minor annoyances that we can live with.

Stopped for the evening at Camp Walmart

The CS Adventurous has a bench sofa in the back that converts to a bed. The cushions just don’t give us enough support, so we’ve added a foam topper to the bed and it now works great. Once we set the bed up on the first night out, it’s just too much work to disassemble it in the morning. It’s a bit of an ordeal to put the topper away – we roll it up, bag it, and use a portable vacuum to compress the bag into a zippered fabric cover we made just for this purpose. The comfort it adds to the bed is worth it though. And luckily we have three seats in the front which convert to a nice dining area, so keeping the bed set up works for us.

Would you like fries with that? Our co-pilot Penny says absolutely!

I’ve taken my punches at Roadtrek for their quality control issues, but I will give them credit for designing a nice looking van, and the floor plan works pretty well for us. Speaking of quality control issues…

We had just about had enough with dealing with our Roadtrek, and the RV Show in Tampa, Florida was a good opportunity to see what else and who else was out there. We had already been following all the major Class B RV manufacturers and what they were building, and all the problems we had dealt with were making it tough to not at least consider alternatives. And there were plenty to see at the RV Show.

Because the Alde system wasn’t completely fixed, the warmer Florida temperatures were a good excuse to head south. We got to meet Plant Guy, tour a huge selection of RVs, and meet the representatives from a few of the other manufacturers who were showing their latest and greatest.

If I’m honest, Plant Guy was my favorite part of the show. He even gladly takes selfies with you!

We were interested in seeing the technologies being offered by the competition and this was a perfect chance to see them all in one spot. Some of the other Class B manufacturers are using the Lithium-Ion battery technology, while others have no intention of using technology that hasn’t been tried and tested, which to us sounds like a perfectly reasonable idea. We’ve learned that the best sounding technology is useless if it doesn’t actually work. That being said, no other manufacturer claims to offer what drew us to Roadtrek originally – which was a generator-free coach. We like the idea that you can run your microwave for a few minutes to just reheat food (we don’t do much actual cooking when traveling but have had many a pizza on the road) without needing to run a generator. Because we travel with a dog, we liked the promise that we could run our air conditioning for a few hours, strictly on batteries, without leaving the van with a noisy generator running, and having the van automatically start to recharge the batteries when low using their VoltStart system. The reheating food we’ve been successful with; the air conditioning running off the batteries we still haven’t been able to really test because of the time and aggravation getting the VoltStart system working. Looking back, we realize that it’s been almost 2 years since we started our RVing, and we haven’t really had a chance to just enjoy a fully functioning van to even truly evaluate whether this is the model for us.

At this point, we’re at a crossroads. Do we stick with our Roadtrek, which has been an…eventful experience, and continue trying to tie up loose malfunctioning ends, or do we decide to compromise certain features with another manufacturer who may not necessarily promise the moon, but who can certainly deliver stars?

What we did learn from visiting the RV Show was that there are people out there reading this blog (you know who you are, and hi, it was great to meet you!) and it’s encouraging to hear that we aren’t just shouting into a hole, and that if we decide to move on from Roadtrek, there are other manufacturers ready to make our RV travels a pleasure again (or for the first time, as the case may be).

Sunbathing under palm trees

Here is the new layout of our Alde system, as modified during our trip to the factory.

When filled with glycol, it works great. Figuring out what to put in and how is another story.

We learned the hard way that not all propylene glycol is the same. Despite tracking down pure propylene glycol at the Tractor Supply Co. store and spending the time to mix it with distilled water and refill our now-empty Alde system, when we got home from our Canada trip we learned that that is probably not the right thing to put in the system. We say ‘probably’ because no one – not Roadtrek, not Alde themselves – can give us the answer as to what needs to be put in. Roadtrek told us clear propylene glycol and water, while Alde said they don’t know what the US systems are currently using.  Doing further research on our own, the general web consensus was that it was important to have inhibitors in your glycol mix to protect the aluminum parts – which is not found in the clear, pure propylene glycol we had found which is apparently fed to cattle as a kind of medicine whom I believe do not in fact contain any aluminum parts. Deciding to empty the system, and seeing the now yellowing glycol fluid coming out only confirmed that it was probably not the right fix. We were able to find the right (?) stuff which at least has inhibitors in it at a local auto supply store, and a full day’s work to drain, empty, and bleed the system was rewarded with heat again. Of course, the floor stopped getting warm when the system first drained dry while making our way home from Canada, but a helpful post on Facebook suggested that it was possible to pinch the heating loop right before the floor splits off while the pump is running to force the flow through the floor and hopefully dislodge any pesky air bubbles hanging around in there. Alde would normally recommend their proprietary bleeder kit to accomplish this, but unless you’re a dealer you wouldn’t have access to one, and experience showed us that even dealers may not have the kit without requesting it from Alde. We pinched, bled, pinched again, and bled again, and finally the floor was heating once again.

This is where we pinched the loop to get the floor bled. Who needs an expensive proprietary bleeder kit when you have clamps?

As a side note to any fellow Alde users – get an extra bottle of glycol from your dealer if you can. The previously used pink-colored glycol we had started with originally is easy to find, but the clear glycol (whatever it actually was) we had gotten from Roadtrek is nearly impossible to find at brick and mortar stores. And while the pure stuff for cattle is accessible, if your Alde system isn’t mooing, it’s probably not the best solution.

At this point, the glycol leak that had plagued us after leaving Roadtrek had stopped. We had done a few things that may have solved the problem. The first was to follow the advice of the Alde tech we had spoken to on our trip home, which was to smack the flow assembly. We did this much harder now that we were safely at home and no one was around to hear it complain. We also adjusted the position of that flow assembly and it’s bleeder valve because it was installed at a slant which didn’t match what we were seeing while doing research on the web. If there was a float mechanism that made it work, maybe the slant was interfering with it’s floating performance. There was a broken plastic clip on the side of the boiler which looked like it once had held the flow assembly in place, so some strategically placed zip-ties corrected the slant of the assembly so it is now sitting level and hopefully floating without a problem. One problem down.

If it walks like a pipe holder and quacks like a pipe holder, it’s a pipe holder…or at least it was supposed to be.

The other pending issue had also arisen on our trip back from Canada, which was the Alde system momentarily losing power and rebooting while in use. While using the system on the way home (at least during the brief period it wasn’t leaking), we had heard a soft click from the boiler and the control panel went dark for a second before coming back on, flashing error messages and random temperature numbers, and seemingly rebooting itself. It did this twice over the course of the trip. Now that we were home, we thought we could narrow down whether the system was simply losing 12 volt power for a second; this seemed unlikely because no other 12 volt fixtures had flashed or shown any signs of losing power. We turned on the Alde, waited for it to get heating, and then turned off the 12 volt power at the battery disconnect switch for the coach, turning it back on a few seconds later. The control panel went dark as expected, but when the power came back on, the restarting procedure wasn’t the same as the strange rebooting it had been doing on it’s own – there was no error message and temperature flashing as we had seen on the road. So we don’t know what’s going on with the intermittent rebooting, but we’re going to guess that’s not normal behavior.

We have had contact with Roadtrek and they have authorized a replacement of the Alde boiler if we get it to the dealer for service. This requires yet another trip to the dealer for a repair that could take days or even weeks as we have seen, and we were planning to visit the big RV Show in Tampa, Florida which was coming up in January, so with the system seemingly working well enough, we decided to wait to visit the dealer for service. Besides, if the RV Show presented an opportunity to replace our current van with one that was more reliable, we didn’t want to waste the chance to see what else was out there, especially with everything we had dealt with so far with our Roadtrek(s).

It was off to Florida (with the hose and cord which Roadtrek had neglected to put back into our van when they serviced it the month before and which they had only just returned after repeated phone calls and emails a month after notifying them of such, and of course, an extra bottle of glycol).

We loaded up and headed north to Roadtrek headquarters in Kitchener, Ontario. We arrived in the morning and were greeted by the immensely charming woman working the front desk who connected us with the service man who’d be working on our van and our tour guide who kindly offered to take us through the factory while they began working. We reviewed all the issues we had – taking a look at the Alde system (including our own diagram that we had worked up showing the proposed layout), replacing the board that goes between the seats in the back to create the bed that was always a bit small, and a few other minor annoyances – and we were given a walkthrough of the assembly building which was really a fascinating look at how much work goes into each van’s construction, and just how much of the whole process is truly handcrafted.

A homecoming for our Roadtrek. Get comfortable, you’ll be here awhile, and then you’ll be back again later.

Once our walkthrough concluded (sorry, no spy shots), they were kind enough to offer a rental vehicle so we could see the area and get back to our hotel that night while they kept the van to work on our list and re-plumb the heating system to production specifications. It’s a nice area to check out, and if you decide to visit, rest assured there are things to do in the Kitchener area while you wait.

We returned the next morning to pick up our van, confident that finally things were all taken care of and we were ready to be on our way. And everything was fixed! Finally, all the annoyances and trips to the dealer were going to be a thing of the past. And we lived happily ever after. The End.

Then we saw the puddle.

If we listened carefully, we could almost hear this butterfly telling us the van was still broken. Unfortunately, we couldn’t quite hear him over the sound of the birds and waterfall.

On the way out of town, we decided to visit a butterfly conservatory in the area before getting on the road and making our way west through Canada and eventually south back to the US. After a leisurely stroll through, we returned to our van and beheld a puddle that had formed under the vehicle in front of the rear driver’s side wheel, right under the Alde boiler. A drip was dripping from a small black tube right over the puddle, which looked to be coming from the point where the heating piping exited the boiler inside, and the tank of glycol, which runs through the heating system to radiate heat, was slowly emptying . Of course, these things will always happen around 4:30 pm when people have gone home. A quick call to Roadtrek, and we were told to bring it back in the morning to have it looked at. To their credit, they offered to pay for the additional night at the hotel because we had to head back and check back in to stay the night. Luckily we hadn’t gone too far out yet.

We went back to Roadtrek in the morning, and they replaced the flow assembly – a piece on the heating system piping includes an automatic bleeder valve that for some reason had failed, causing the leak. We said our thank yous (again) and our goodbyes (again), and set off once again. THIS time we were going to leave completely satisfied. Driving west we used the engine loop to heat the Alde system (which is really a great feature) and we and our feet were toasty warm. The rest of the trip was uneventful and finally all had been fixed.

Then we saw the puddle. Again.

I’m not an auto mechanic or RV expert, but I would say that leak is not a good thing.

The next day we noticed the small puddle in the same place under the van. Just a small puddle so we figured/hoped it was just a little normal relief leakage and nothing to worry about. We went to sleep that night hoping the slow leak would subside. Unfortunately, the next day, when we returned to the van after spending the day touristing (which by the way, if you make it to Michigan, you should check out the Henry Ford Museum – hopefully your vehicle won’t be slowly breaking down in the parking lot while you peruse the classic cars), the puddle had grown significantly and the glycol tank was once again emptying at an alarming rate. These things will happen at 4:30 pm on any given afternoon, and especially so at 4:30 pm on a Friday afternoon, when there’s no hope that the problem could be fixed until at least 2 days later. Roadtrek was closed, so we called Alde directly and a kind gentleman with a British accent told us that the part that was leaking really never fails, and to give it a whack because it works with a float mechanism and hopefully smacking it would release something inside that may have gotten stuck. Yes, seriously. We thanked him, smacked it, and watched as the glycol continued to leak out slowly for the rest of the evening.

We awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of air and water bubbling through the piping, a completely dry glycol tank, and temperatures inside the van in the low 50s (that would be Fahrenheit because we were now back on the US side of the border). Our Saturday morning and early afternoon was spent automotive store hopping in the Michigan area trying to locate the propylene glycol that they now used in the heating system. Fun fact – you won’t find it. At least not in the automotive stores. After repeated ‘no’s we returned to Google to find out where it could be found. Finally, someone on the internet mentioned it was used for livestock and sure enough, we found a bottle at a Tractor Supply Company store in the cattle supply area. We purchased distilled water and mixed it 60/40 with the propylene glycol as we had been instructed, and refilled the tank on the heating system. Luckily, we managed to get through another day and a half, long enough to get home and not freeze overnight, before we finally arrived home and the tank was once again dry.

All the way to Canada, two visits to Roadtrek HQ, and we still don’t have a fully functioning RV. It’s almost funny, really. But not quite.

Now I wait to hear from Roadtrek about what to do next.

UPDATE: I went out to the van tonight to plug it in to charge and my power cord and fresh water hose, both of which were in the back of the van for the trip to Roadtrek, are gone. Not only did they not fix what was wrong, they kept my cord and hose. Terrific.

The RV Show in Hershey Pennsylvania in September is enormous, and a great opportunity to see all the options available in RVs (those maybe you should have spent more time considering?) and apparently a great opportunity to finally see the people who were involved in producing the RV you already own. We visited this year armed with questions and concerns and determined to track down those who could help us out. We weren’t disappointed (completely).

Making our way to the Roadtrek zone of the show, we found a helpful representative from the company whom we had communicated with previously about a few quick warranty items. He was very friendly, knowledgeable, and was familiar with our particular saga. We couldn’t confirm that they had a ‘file’ on our case or that there were posters up at their home office warning that we were trouble, but we probably wouldn’t be surprised. Speaking with him for only a few minutes, he was able to suggest a fix for our VoltStart system that the dealer had been unable to supply – look under the dash below the steering column, locate the VoltStart module, and most likely, you will see a label saying ‘Lithium’ instead of ‘AGM.’  Sure enough, later that evening, we popped open the dash cover and there was the module – the one for Lithium batteries and not the AGM batteries we have, which explained why the system was starting too soon. In literally a few seconds, we had diagnosed the problem that days at the dealer (who had said they had been communicating with Roadtrek directly when working on the fix) was unable to remedy. When we returned to the Roadtrek zone the next day, excited to share that yes, that was it, we were promised a replacement module would be mailed directly to us for an easy swap once they returned to home base in Canada after the show. Luckily, that’s what happened. One problem down!

Oddly enough, this lithium module isn’t working with our AGM batteries

During that first visit with Roadtrek, we were offered a tour of the factory if we made our way up to them in Kitchener, Ontario, which we eagerly accepted. We discussed the layout of our Alde heating system and our doubts about the design, and we were told that we did indeed have a unique set up, and if we were concerned, during that visit to the factory they could take a look at it and address our concerns.

Later in the day, we stumbled on the booth for Alde and were finally able to meet the Alde representative that had never returned our calls or emails (hey! he does exist!). He told us that our system design was unique, and he suggested that they had been in contact with Roadtrek during the whole ordeal and they had told Roadtrek that that was not the way to set it up – specifically, that it was put together in a way that they had not done before and therefore had no testing results to confirm that it was the most efficient design, or even the expected longevity of the pump because they typically did not design the systems to mix pipe diameters and use a single loop around the coach and through the floor. Needless to say, we made a final visit to the Roadtrek area and confirmed that we would be seeing them soon on their home turf to take that factory tour and get this thing fixed once and for all.

The fix for the VoltStart – check. Confirmation that our Alde system was questionably designed – confirmed. Too much chocolate from Hershey’s Chocolate World on the way out of town – of course.

We never got a definitive answer about the heating system, and because it was summertime, it moved to the back burner. The best we could do with the complete lack of contact from the US Alde office was to try contacting the UK branch by email to see if they could answer the question about system design. They got back to us within a day saying that it is not uncommon to mix pipe diameters in a loop, and that they would forward our question to the US office for further follow up. Not a definitive answer, but understandable since they didn’t look at the design of our system in particular, but maybe the US Alde office is just backed up and will get in touch. Four months later.

Because it was summertime, we made it out on the road for a few trips with our canine travel companion, and it was time to test the VoltStart system included in our Roadtrek. This, like so many other things, didn’t go well.

The VoltStart system that Roadtrek created is supposed to function as follows. It is a battery monitoring system with the capability to start your engine without the key when it senses the batteries have dropped below a certain charge threshold. It is designed to run the engine for 35 minutes, thus charging the batteries, and then stop the engine and continue to monitor the batteries until they fall below that threshold again, when it will start the engine again for another 35 minute charge cycle. This will repeat for 5 total cycles, at which time you need to start the engine with the key to reset the counter. The hypothetical use case would be air conditioning use in the summer on batteries. Based on the capabilities of the van, you can expect to run the air conditioning for a few hours on battery power before they deplete. Using the VoltStart system, you could run the air conditioning and leave the van – in our case and most likely in many people’s cases – with a pet inside to enjoy the cool air while you explore outside. The VoltStart system would be watching and recharging the batteries when needed so you wouldn’t need to worry about the batteries depleting for the day, give or take a few hours here and there because understandably, there are many variables involved.

That would be the way it should operate. What it instead would do, which we discovered on a day with temperatures in the 90s, is start the engine immediately upon activation, and run for 35 minutes as intended, and then it would restart the engine immediately for another 35 minutes, and it would repeat the cycle 5 times, all consecutively with no regard for power draw or battery status. And when it did start the engine, it was providing no charge to the batteries anyway. A swing and a miss.

In addition to the VoltStart not working, there was also the matter of the solar panels. The van has 470 watts of solar charging capability, which we were told would be sufficient to keep the batteries topped up when it’s home and waiting for your next adventure. Having the van in the sunny driveway, with nothing running but the small refrigerator inside, (not even running the inverter so no 120V appliances) the batteries still showed a slow depletion in charge. How could a roof full of solar not keep a mini-fridge cool?

We waited to make an appointment with the dealer until the power step decided to stop working one day, and it was back in to the service department.

We wrote up our concerns in an email to the service department:

1. VoltStart is not working – it starts immediately, with and without power being used, and runs 5 consecutive cycles, with no regard for battery status. And it’s not charging the batteries even when it does start the engine.
2. The power step is broken.
3. The solar system doesn’t seem to be charging – running nothing but the refrigerator still yields a slow drop in charge, despite all those many watts of charge from the solar panels. Can you check the solar to see if it’s charging properly?

Two hours there, 2-1/2 weeks for parts and install, and we went to pick it up right before Labor Day weekend.

This would be a post with pictures of hiking trails and state parks, but alas, just more problems. The power step is fixed, at least. That was just a faulty motor. Because really, how could you expect a motor to last more than maybe 100 activations?

As for the VoltStart, the dealer had contacted Roadtrek whose solution was to install parts that were listed as missing from the factory and a wiring fix of some kind because the system was in fact, not charging the batteries when it was starting the engine. Incidentally, a few days before we picked up the van we received in the mail two manual addenda from Roadtrek (who is now Erwin Hymer) about the VoltStart system and battery management. The letter said it hoped it found us out enjoying our Roadtrek which was funny because…no. We parked it, followed the directions in the new manual provided, and it failed. While the system did not activate immediately like it did before, it was still turning on only about 10 minutes into using the air conditioning, starting from otherwise fully charged batteries. This is pointless – if it’s going to start the engine immediately, with no regard for battery charge, why not just leave it running with the key in it? At least you would have it running until you turned it off, instead of having it run anyway and turn off after five 35 minute cycles. Posting in the helpful Roadtrek owner Facebook group provided consensus that it must be programmed incorrectly. It’s turning on at an approximately 12.5 volt reading on the battery system which for the AGM batteries installed is too early to provide any meaningful use. I don’t know whether the fault lies with the dealer and their service department, Roadtrek, or a combination of both. When you tell a service department what the problem is, shouldn’t you expect that they will test and make sure the problem is fixed before completing the work and giving it back to you?

The other part of the service was to verify operation of the solar system. The dealer asked Roadtrek who helpfully responded that the solar system will not keep up with running the refrigerator on 120V (having the inverter on), so don’t do that, only run it on 12V. Problem solved. Case closed. Warranty payment submitted. This would be despite the fact that that was exactly what we were doing – running it only on 12V – and the charge was still dropping. I’ll try to call Roadtrek’s service department in the morning, but never once in the year since I’ve owned Roadtreks have they answered the phone or returned a call. Never once.

Coming up next week is the RV show in Hershey – maybe someone from Roadtrek (now Erwin Hymer) will be there to speak with.

So, ANOTHER service appointment completed without fixing the problems. The dealer’s work order shows a total for labor and parts of $1200 which was covered under warranty.

Maybe I should open a dealership.

VoltStart not keeping your air conditioning running? This nice lady suggested eating lots of ice cream to keep cool.

P.S. That manual that was sent with information on the use of the VoltStart system? The steps included aren’t even accurate. They say you should toggle on the system and start the engine immediately using the key fob, which will begin the cycle with an initial 35 minute run (leaving you with 4 cycles after that). This is not the case – toggling on the system and leaving it to start on its own works just as well and one would think better, in fact. Why waste a charge cycle and 35 minutes of diesel when the system is intended to activate only when the charge is low? When using the system starting with a fully charged battery bank, why waste that initial cycle?