Another Dealer

One of the things we wondered about before we started fulltiming was what kind of service we would find at various dealers across the country. Since buying our new moose we've had a chance to visit four Winnie dealers for service. They have, in our opinion, ranged from OK to excellent.

We spent today at Affinity RV in Prescott, AZ, the fourth stop on our National Winnebago Dealers Tour.

They were OK.

The details of our service experience aren't really important. The moose is fine and everybody involved will, God willing, live to see another day.

The lesson of the day is the importance of being an aware and assertive, yet gracious, RV service customer.

When scheduling a service appointment we make it clear that we are fulltimers and this rig they'll be working on is our home. We ask for accommodations the night before. Some places have them, so don't. But, being on premise for a bright and early service appointment is so much nicer than having to break camp before breakfast and drive to an unknown dealer in an unfamiliar location.

We get to know the service writer by name, and introduce ourselves. With everyone on the same page that this is our home and what specific issues are to be addressed in this appointment, we can all get an idea of how quickly things can get done and we can get back on the road. We agree on a time to check in for a progress report before 11AM.

After things are set up at the dealer, we pack up ourselves and our cats and head to breakfast, followed by errands or mindless wandering. By 11AM we are back at the dealer. And, we make ourselves at home. We ask for the service writer. We get answers to our questions. We ask when things will be wrapped up. We stay in touch. When things are done, we make sure everything checks out OK and we're back on the road.

At this last stop, we had a couple of different things going on that involved two different service people who apparently don't know how to speak to each other. So, we stayed very involved. After breakfast we bought groceries and took them back to the moose, which was parked in exactly the same place we'd left it. (That's almost never a good sign.) We stuck around, asked questions and got in the way enough that we finally got one person to work on the first issue, our squealing water heater. He did his work and the squealing continued. As service person #2 arrived to work on issue #2, we assumed (That's almost never a good thing.) that service person #1 was working on a resolution. Issue #2, an engine software upgrade, took an extremely long time to get 99.99% completed. We decided to deal with that last .01% at our next service stop.

With Issue #2 essentially taken care of, we went back to Issue #1. Turns out our tech simply went on his merry way, with no intention of resolving our issue. We had him paged and he arrived at the moose. When we questioned him about our still squealing water heater, what was his response?

"That's perfectly normal."

Say what?

After living in a motorhome for nearly 10 months, we may not know much. But, we do know what normal sounds like. (Or, in this case, doesn't sound like.) Despite our opposing opinion, this tech decided he was basically done with us. So, we went looking for our service writer.

He was at lunch.

We explained our problem to the woman at the service desk. To her credit, she listened. She asked for a more senior tech and got one. In a matter of minutes, this skilled technician did the repair and the not-at-all-normal squealing stopped.

As we hooked up the Jeep and hit the road for a quick afternoon drive to our next spot, we thought about how important it is to stay involved in the service of our home. Had we just dropped the moose off for the day, we would have driven off with a still squealing water heater.

Of course, in the big scheme of things this was a teeny tiny frustration. But, if you've ever heard a squealing water heater, you know it's not a sound you want to live with long. Besides being annoying, it means that - sooner or later - you're going to run out of hot water.

As we chalk up one more experience with a dealer, here's hoping that's the last one in awhile. With eight months left on our factory warranty, and a trip to the factory and our original dealer planned before that expires, we hope we are "good to go" for long time.

At the very least, we're oh so happy to have quiet hot water.