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Location Date California 1435359600 Arizona 1435100400 New Mexico 1435014000 Texas 1434927600 Oklahoma 1434841200 Tennessee 1434754800 North Carolina 1434495600 Virginia 1434322800 Maryland 1432854000 Pennsylvania 1431730800 Indiana 1431644400 Iowa 1431558000 Nebraska 1431471600 Wyoming 1431385200 Utah 1431298800 Nevada 1431212400 Arkansas 1370386800 Georgia (Usa) 
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Location Date Fri, 24 May 2013
1369350000 Thu, 23 May 2013 1369263600 Wed, 22 May 2013 1369177200
For those of you who followed us on our Fall Color trek, you might remember that I really, really wanted automatic levelers. Never got them on that trip, and I was forever moving the rig back and forth to get it just right. Aside from getting dizzy walking inside a lopsided RV, the refrigerator needs to be very close to level to work properly. So, after two months of frustration, we finally broke down (read: Barbara finally got tired of my whining) and bought levelers. We got them installed last February, and I was ecstatic.
They've worked well all through this trip. Just pull into the site, and press a button. Not one problem. Perfect. Wonderful.
Well….
We got the RV ready to go this morning, making sure everything was shipshape and seaworthy. I disconnected the water, sewer, and electric; Barbara brought in the slide-out and raised the leveling jacks. We made sure the roof vents were closed, all the inside doors were closed and latched, stove was off, dog was with us. Another day on an RV camping adventure.
The adventure was just beginning.
I started pulling the RV out of the site, and I got about 20 feet (seriously, the back end of the RV hadn’t cleared the site, yet) when I heard two loud CLUNKs, about a second or so apart. I immediately stopped (I figured that was what a wise turtle would do) and got out and looked. What I saw brought a tear to my eye. My beautiful, new, perfect, still-better-be-under-warranty right-rear leveling jack was broken and dangling and hitting the ground. The two clunks were when the jack fell, hit the ground, bounced up, and hit the ground again. I climbed underneath and found that the bracket that holds the step motor that raises and lowers the jack had broken. No way to fix it. It has to be replaced.
Well, to make a long story even longer, we tried to find a place in Atlanta that might be able to get another jack and replace it, but the RV park didn’t have a vacancy over the weekend (it’s Memorial Day Weekend—pretty much no vacancy all over). They could let us stay tonight, but we would need to leave tomorrow. We called Camping World in Nashville and spoke to Cody Smith in the Service Department, who told me they could help us. I made an appointment for 8:30 am Monday to have them evaluate the damage and get the right part ordered. In the meantime, I bought some metal straps at a hardware store and strapped the jack up to the chassis. We’ll stay the night in Atlanta, then, tomorrow, off to Nashville.
Hope the straps don’t break.
- comments
Rich Your jack nightmare is vaguely reminiscent of the digital pressure gauge story, with a similar outcome. Convenience is expensive. When I purchased our tent trailer, I had the option of motorized roof raisers, but opted to save $400 and go with hand crank. Big mistake. Hand cranking with a bum shoulder is sadistic and it takes forever. Then there is all the bother to level the trailer (no auto here) attach the water and power, extend and brace the beds, lower the stove and sink, get the door in place, and then vegetate for two hours to recuperate. Then there is all the pack up process that includes getting the tent back in place (it has to be precise). We tried this for one road trip. Going through all this each day was daunting, and resulted in a shortened road trip. Now I am only willing to go somewhere, set up once, and a week later button up and go home. As a result, the RV only sees a couple of trips each year. What I would give for that automatic stuff.