Fancier isn't always better
I know I'm going to get a lot of flak for writing this post, but I'm going to go ahead and say it anyway because it's true. Fancier and more sophisticated isn't always better than simple and cheap. ...
Forum Discussion
We got a newer RV and it came with elec awning. I certainly wasn't going to pay to remove it and buy a manual. I have a Carefree of Colorado. Push a button, all electric, bla bla bla. Did not like it all. Sometimes wouldn't fold in right. Wife would watch awning as we went down the road telling me if awning was still there or not. And the slope of awning when it was deployed wouldn't even block the sun, well except at noon.
About 3 months ago I woke up to neighbor talking with an awning guy, getting an estimate for theirs. Awning guy doing the estimate told them "how good" new ones were. Awning guy leaves. Neighbor asks us what type of awning we had and if we liked it. We had same type of awning that the guy was telling them how good they were. I showed the neighbor all the problems we had. Awning guy calls neighbor couple days later, following up on his sales call. Neighbor says NO WAY. Neighbor tells him about all the problems we have. Awning guy says he will be around to take a look at ours because something is definitely not right. Next afternoon, awning guy shows up and looks at ours. In about 10 min he made a couple of adjustments and it has worked perfect since. The awning guy turns out has 16 years experience with awnings and goes on to explain that with most OEMS, the guys that install awnings do a lousy job. Mostly they don't adjust them right, and to make matters worse, it takes more time to adjust than actually installing sometimes. Right or wrong many OEM installers do a 1/2 way done job and let the RV dealer mess with problems most of the time. This keeps production schedule up at manufacture. Awning guy has several RV dealers that call him when ever they get a delivery to make final adjustments. And other RV dealers end up calling him after they mess it up.
Totally happy with ours now. I even have a sun screen that rolls up with awning attached. Awning arms now roll up flush and now. If you're going to be in Yuma or El Centro area shoot me a PM if you want contact info of awning guy. After fixing ours the awning guy did mention that, this was the first time he ever fixed an awning in order to sell one:)
About 3 months ago I woke up to neighbor talking with an awning guy, getting an estimate for theirs. Awning guy doing the estimate told them "how good" new ones were. Awning guy leaves. Neighbor asks us what type of awning we had and if we liked it. We had same type of awning that the guy was telling them how good they were. I showed the neighbor all the problems we had. Awning guy calls neighbor couple days later, following up on his sales call. Neighbor says NO WAY. Neighbor tells him about all the problems we have. Awning guy says he will be around to take a look at ours because something is definitely not right. Next afternoon, awning guy shows up and looks at ours. In about 10 min he made a couple of adjustments and it has worked perfect since. The awning guy turns out has 16 years experience with awnings and goes on to explain that with most OEMS, the guys that install awnings do a lousy job. Mostly they don't adjust them right, and to make matters worse, it takes more time to adjust than actually installing sometimes. Right or wrong many OEM installers do a 1/2 way done job and let the RV dealer mess with problems most of the time. This keeps production schedule up at manufacture. Awning guy has several RV dealers that call him when ever they get a delivery to make final adjustments. And other RV dealers end up calling him after they mess it up.
Totally happy with ours now. I even have a sun screen that rolls up with awning attached. Awning arms now roll up flush and now. If you're going to be in Yuma or El Centro area shoot me a PM if you want contact info of awning guy. After fixing ours the awning guy did mention that, this was the first time he ever fixed an awning in order to sell one:)
