Rackin-Schmackin. Do you know it? For us, I think its origin may have been childhood cartoons. Whenever a situation called for foul language, our favorite characters would instead mutter barely distinguishable sounds. They sounded something like "rackin' frackin' schmackin'." At least, that's how we remember it.
These days, we use the term rackin-schmackin when things aren't going so well. It sounds so much better than being real potty mouths. It's never anything serious. Heck, if anything is real serious, I'll cuss like a sailor. But, most of the time, rackin-schmackin just seems to fill the bill.
So, what was rackin-schmackin about this day? Well, it seems that our Cummins engine likes to "run hot", as they say (rackin-schmackin). It's been testing our patience a bit. We had it checked out in Prescott, AZ and Forest City, IA and were assured it was normal. But, after another "high coolant temp" warning on the way here, we're not so sure. Our next stop is Freightliner in Gaffney, SC, so we'll have it all checked out at the source. But, today as we were lounging around our very relaxing campsite, we decided to check our coolant level.
Normally, checking the coolant on an '09 Winnebago Tour is a piece of cake. You simply unlatch the engine hood in the back, lift it up and take a look. We did all that and everything checked out just fine. But, when we went to close the hood, all hell came loose. The metal vent separated from the fiberglass exterior. The metal piece fell to the ground, scratching some paint on the way.
Say it with me now. Rackin-Schmackin!
Yep. There's nothing quite like the feeling you get when pieces of your still new, not-exactly-cheap motorhome literally fall apart in your hands.
Rackin-Schmackin, indeed!
We called Winnebago, which was precious little help. We did learn that it's OK to travel without the metal vent. It'll eventually need to be put back together. And, we'll take care of that in Forest City next month. For now, we'll stow the offending piece and hope the fiberglass cover fares OK for the next 2,000 miles or so.
Rackin-Schmackin!
We love our Winnebago. Really, we do. But, times like this make us scratch our heads and wonder if they are still staffing their Quality Control Department up there in Forest City. Turns out this big, heavy metal piece was glued to the fiberglass. Glued! And, for some reason, the glue chose this day to fail. Go figure. We are thankful it happened here and now and not one day when we were rolling down the road.
Add to that some other minor things we have going on. Three ceiling panels are buckling. (Apparently yet another glue problem!) We have a slide lock that has apparently stopped working. Thankfully, it's in the "unlock" position. Our front awning has decided that tilting at something that resembles a 45-degree angle front to back is a good thing. Combine that with this pesky overheating issue and we're a couple of fulltimers who are more than a bit miffed at our motorhome.
Thankfully, it's all minor stuff, really. It's all part of the process of working the kinks out of a brand new piece of complicated machinery. Our fingers are crossed that after we spend some time in Gaffney and Forest City, it'll all be better. For awhile, at least.
Meanwhile, we have just one thing to say.
Rackin-Schmackin!
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4 comments:
Been there...done that! Our Cummins doesn't "run hot" but we hear the dreaded engine "ding" and the words check engine show up on the monitor from time to time. Our coolant level always has to be at the tippy top of the level mark or we hear far too many "dings". Also, our vent thing came unglued also! Completely fell off when Bruce was checking something in the engine. We had our reglued, or whatever, at a service center in WA. Ours was probably about 1 yr. to 18 months old at the time. So far the new glue has held.
We had our engine serviced for 40,000 miles last June in Eugene. Would you believe the VERY NEXT day as we were driving to the RV park the "ding" sounded and said check engine. 'Rackin-schmackin' what the hell? Turned out to be nothing (can't even remember really) but sooooooo irritating is putting it mildly.
I'm sure everything will be fine in the end. If I sent you our complete list of things we've had to have fixed in 3-years, I'd be here for a few days. :)
Be brave, my friends.
cheers to your racking shmacking day!..could be worse..you could have to go to work??!!..not fun I know, when your home is coming unglued!..hope you get it all fixed soon!!
This engine cover falling off is nothing new to Winnebago. Our friends, Don and Gloria Martin, have had the same problem with their 2003 Journey. Don finally bought some different type hinges and bolted the thing back together. He's a perfectionist, so when he finished you'd never know that he had changed the configuration. Anyhow, good luck getting the rest of the bugs out before the warranty expires. In the meantime, I agree - rackin frackin schmackin seems to be in order.
Welcome to the Winnie lack of quality control club. On our first trip, I had to tie the Generator cover on with rope to get back to the dealer and have had it redone twice since then. There are sooo many more things I will no bore you with.
I did read on a blog lately about a computer software upgrade to the Cummings engine for this issue??
Good luck.
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