Shakedown Trips
Brand New RV
When making a major purchase from a great manufacturer, one expects nothing but perfection. Our shiny new things, don’t you know, are made by angels in pristine factories, untouched by human hands. For sure, its packaging may be a little rough from wear, a tear here or a dent there., but its contents should be nothing short of glorious. A dream come true in a box! The thing we can’t live without, so we expect. After all, it’s our hard earned money that’s at stake. Our favorite companies would never dare sale us a lemon!
OK, maybe it’s a tiny bit different when buying a car. They are, afterall, a complex machine containing countless parts and hundreds of subsystems,. Some problem of some kind can always slip-in in spite of skilled labor, small armies of robots, and exhaustive quality checks up and down the assembly line. Perhaps an errant drop of glue here or a tiny scratch there. No worries — discover the problem, demand the dealer fix it, and voila, our perfect vehicle is here!
But much to Lois’s and my chagrin, we learned from the authoritative voice of YouTube that such is not the case when buying RVs. They are marvelous inventions that rival the complexity of cars, if not a bit more so. Meticulously assembled by experienced builders, there is always a faint hope one could purchase a divinely perfect motorhome. But even at the best manufacturers, they aren’t able to match the car industry in terms of automation and quality control. Bottom line: When you buy new, there will be problems.
So how do you mitigate this issue? Buy from a great company, and so we did when we purchased from 65 year old Winnebago. They are not alone in having years of experience building high quality motorhomes. Winnebago just so happened to build the make and model we fell in love with.
Shake, Rattle and Roll
We believe Winnebago does their best to make quality RVs. And before each one gets shipped to the dealer, they are no doubt thoroughly tested and inspected. But did you know this? There is no vehicle carrier big enough to haul a half dozen motorhomes on its back thousands of miles down the road to the dealer. This thought never occurred to me before. So how do they get delivered? Here is how. They are hand driven thousands of miles cross-country to their destination, one-by-one.
But get this — as that RV is rolling down the road to its point of sale, it gets — for the first time in its young life — the full shake, rattle and roll treatment! Screws pop-out, a light fixture or two falls down, wires pull loose, and worse. So then what? Upon arrival, dealers repair the obvious and prep each RV ready for the showroom, but this initial set of fixes is only skin deep. There are no doubt hidden problems. But the good dealers (not all of them 😱) have a plan — defer the deep inspection and fixes until after the sale, but before handing over the RV to the buyer.
So all of the above was certainly true for Lois and I. We purchased our RV (AKA Harold) in Eugene, OR, then promptly returned home. Three weeks later, we rented a full-size car, loaded it chock-a-block full of RV basics, drove back to Eugene, spent a half-day going over the systems with the dealer’s technician, and dropped off the rental car. Only then were we finally ready to drive Harold home.
Time for Our Own Shakedown Trips — Eugene to Shasta to Home
It’s a 500 mile journey home from Eugene, so taking the advice of many, we limited ourselves to a half day trip, destination Mt. Shasta. Even though Harold is a relatively short motorhome compared to many, sitting behind the steering wheel for the first time it sure seemed humungous to me. 30’ long and 3 times taller than our mid-size SUV, it grabs ones attention. It was time to go; no choice but to hit the road. Slowly but surely, as those first few hours ticked by, I began to ease into the driver seat.
Our first night in Harold was at the Railroad Park Resort, a very scenic campground that has a huge group of railroad cars converted into cabins and a shop/restaurant. We, of course, parked in an adjoining campground. Unfortunately, we had no time for the fun stuff. It was time instead to figure out our motorhome. How easy it is to forget the details of what we just learned from the RV technician the day before. With reams of Winnebago manuals in front of us, we slowly got the RV setup for the night. Good news and bad — no Winnebago issues were found, but our campsite had a duff electrical connection. No worries, we used our built-in generator.
The next day we had a completely uneventful trip home. That said, filling-up Harold with gas was, in the beginning, a very anxious event. We certainly did not want to decapitate the poor thing as we pulled-in under the gas station overhang. Fortunately, we quickly learned “no big deal”. Despite our RV’s 13’ height, we have several feet of clearance at modern gas pumps.
Phew… Arriving home, the first shakedown trip was complete, and we lived to tell the story.
Our next test actually was a non-trip. As we shifted stuff from house to motorhome, there came a point where we had to bite the bullet and cut-over to living in the big rig. And so, on October 9th, we officially moved in. Lois and I still had a huge learning curve ahead of us. Apart from a puny electrical connection to an outlet in the garage — not even close to being enough to run our dual RV air-conditioners in the searing Sacramento heat — we practically lived without vital connections. We ran our RV’s generator a lot! As for the water tank, it was filled by hose only after we occasionally moved the RV close enough to reach our house’s hose bib. And as for the dirty deed of emptying the nasty tanks, we made trips to a nearby dump station every third day or so. We made it work, and our confidence grew day-by-day.
Branching Out to Lake Folsom and Lake Tahoe
Thank goodness, the day finally came when the house was ready for sale. We could finally do some proper trips. Our first stop at Folsom Lake was barely 5 miles away where we had the luxury of full hook-ups: electricity, water, sewage… or so we thought. Dang! Only our second campground, but once again we had a bad electrical pedestal... or maybe it was the RV instead? I consulted the camp host, made several calls to Winnebago, and dove head first into the problem. Check, test, and consult, I began to narrow down the source of the problem. Argh! But after hours of triage, the puzzle remained. Meanwhile, using our built-in generator once again saved the day. Besides, the days were finally cooling down, thank goodness. Then half way through our stay at Folsom Lake, we had to break camp and move to a different site (we weren’t able to book a 4 night reservation without doing so). Much to our surprise, this inconvenience turned out to be a great thing because when we moved our motorhome to the second location and plugged-in, 50 amps of clean power rushed into our rig. For the first time, we had an electrical connection at a campground. Lois and I rejoiced!
The fourth and final shakedown trip was to Lake Tahoe for 6 nights. Now we’re talking! Fall was in full glory with winter nipping at its heals. I’ll spare you the details in this already-too-long blog, but shakedown-wise, Harold performed perfectly. What was this trip’s big accomplishments? Winter did set in for a bit with snow and below freezing temperatures. Even so, we slept warm and cozy at night with no frozen pipes, hooray! And the other merit badge earned was driving that big sucker up and down steep, winding US50. Mission accomplished! Once again, we survived yet another new experience. And just like that, our shakedown trips were complete.
That’s it for now. Next week we’re off to the Northern California Mendocino coast for 8 nights. Stay tuned…
