Prepping for the Trip.

Prior to the trip Kevin had begun assembling a list of preventative, broke or fix maintenance items that were to be take care of before hitting the road.

His past experiences with local RV repair shops armed him with the need to book a service reservation early. There is a clear need for competent repair shops that focus on customer service as well as vehicle service. They all could also use project management skills.

The planed departure date for the Smitanic Southern Sojourn was Mid November with November 20 the being to last possible departure date. With this understanding Kevin booked the RV service date for Oct 4^th. He assembled a document that detailed the items that needed servicing along with some diagnostics information that could help explain the operational failures he was observing. Armed with the document Kevin and Theresa headed to the RV service center with Kevin in the RV and Theresa in the car. They knew the RV would be left behind for a few days with the repair shop.

Upon arrival the two were meet at the service desk by no less than five employees behind the counter top. None of which asked if they could help. Instead they were far more interested in clowning around, chatting about the past weekend or just staring at a computer screen. Eventually the ice was broken and acknowledgement of their existence was made. Kevin was directed to the service manager. “Fantastic” he thought “I get to go to the top dog immediately”. Kevin handed the manager the well organized document in anticipation of its quick review and follow-on discussion to clear up any items that were not communicated on the document in terms the manager could interpret. The manager stared at the paper Kevin had handed to him, he then laid it aside, picked up a clipboard, slid a form into it, and announced, “So what is it we can do for you”. “I documented it all in that document” Kevin whimpered with the realization that this repair shop is likely going to be just like the other one in the area that Kevin had tried for years to make successful in understanding the repair needs and in performing a reasonably competent completion of tasks. “So lets walk out to the RV and you can tell me all that is needed” responded the service manager. With that he quickly walked away from behind the counter and out a side door leaving the prepared repair document under a pile of other hand written repair slips. Kevin did not move as he struggled with what just happened, what was about to happen, and how to make this work.

Eventually Kevin joined the service manager at the RV. The service manager was walking around the RV noting on a pad of paper every little scratch, or ding that was the RV had. “Good”, Kevin thought, “This will be reviewed upon delivery of the RV back to us to ensure no new scratches or dings would appear while in their possession”. Oddly enough this form was never reviewed or shared again with the owners and was never updated or recreated during the next two visits they were forced to make due to failures by the repair shop to complete the requested repairs, or for making what they were repairing worse.

During the weeks that the RV was in the shop Kevin made multiple phone calls to check status and to ensure that they had confirmed and then provided the proper work to address a recall on the units refrigerator. Each call ended with the same response. “Oh yeah, I was going to check into that for you, I will do it right after this call”. This recall work was not completed but they did confirm that the refrigerator was one of the ones that the recall was for. “Yeah you will need to get this fixed because we already had one RV go up in Flames due to the refrigerator over heating” was the advice provided by the service technician. “If I leave it another day can you take care of that” was Kevin's immediate response. “Nope, we had a lot of these and don't have the parts, It will take at least two weeks to get the part, but you better get it taken care of soon” the service tech said with a friendly smile.

The last trip back to the repair shop was the night before departure on Nov 19^th. Kevin and Theresa discovered while they were loading up the RV for the trip that the rear passenger slide out did not appear to open all the way and made Halloween noises (a metal on metal grinding and screeching sound ). During the first visit on Oct 4^th and on the documented service request Kevin had made sure that the service manager noted that all 4 slide-outs were to be serviced. This should include full operational inspections, lubrication, and alignment if needed. Upon arrival late that night of Nov 19^th to the repair shop the service tech looked at the problem being described and said “ I don't know how that escaped me”. “Might be that the slide out is off its track” announced the service tech. “Is this something you guys can take care of” pleaded Kevin. “Na, these look like a scissor style slide-out, I have not worked on those, don't know if we even have parts” was the response. “can I even use the slide out” Kevin inquired. “Well if it was me I think I would go a head and use it, Those Hydraulics are pretty powerful and should be able to open and close even if it is binding up a bit” was the experts opinion.

Kevin collected himself as best he could and with a faint false smile thanked the service manager and technician for checking it out this late in the day. The Service manager proudly announced that he was not going to charge for this last visit and assessment. Kevin stared with disbelieve that there would even be a consideration of charging for something the shop had clearly failed to perform, along with several other items on the list, in the first place.

Kevin and Theresa are being convinced more and more that the only way to get proper customer service and competent repairs accomplished is to make a pilgrimage back to the manufacture of the RV. Many folks take yearly pilgrimages to have their list of repairs addressed by the manufacturer.