Breakdown Information

[Badeye]

Moderators Note: This thread is intending to report a problem and its resolution. If you are seeking help or information to help you resolve a problem you would best be served by initiating a thread on the class A forum proper

After some conversation with Diesel-Lover and others on this forum I thought I would try to start a thread concerning breakdowns on the road. We try to prevent this by good maintenance and driving reasonably but it can still happen. As I observed in a previous post, on a roughly 350 mile northbound drive on I-75 I saw 4 class A MH broken down. All were southbound.

If we should have a breakdown and would post the following information on this thread it could be a resource and reminder for others.

RV particulars:
Driveline (Engine, Transmission):
Miles:
Year:
Break Down Description: (You can add any description of the problem here that you think would help others in understanding the situation and problem.)
Symptoms:
Effect:
Cause:
Outcome:

This is the type of information that is recorded in the aircraft industry and other maintenance activities to track failure trends. It will take a while before we see a lot of value in this. If it continues for a time and sufficient data is available, I will analyze the data and put it into a form that I can send by email to any interested parties. I would suspect that an initial report could be done in about three months or when we have about 100 to 150 cases.

What do you think?

[Oldman]

RV particulars: American T
Driveline (Engine, Transmission): ISC 8.3 cummins, 6 sp Allison
Miles: 50k
Year: 99
Break Down Description: Shut off for 4 hours and when started ran bad and black smoke. I was close to home so got it back in driveway.
Symptoms: Runs very bad and lots of black smoke.

I scanned it with 2 different units both say "Injection control valve bad. I replaced the valve 408.00 but still runs same. I check
all the pins on the computer and looks good. Did a continuity test to most sensors, changed both fuel filters. I don't want to take it
to Cummins, but may have to. I hate to say it, but it's the worst engine I have ever owned. Im afraid to leave home with it.

Anyone got help?

[brian62]

Getting us back on topic 3 breakdowns to report, both on the same rig: 1998 Southwind Storm 34S 7.4L Vortec Chevrolet (before the workhorse) 16,500 GVWR 1st. breakdown 46,000miles Dec. 24 2005(yeah I know great day to have problems) After traveling 450 miles the day before got up in the morning to leave turned key and nothing..not even a click tried emergency start switch and still nothing. tried jump starting and still nothing gave up and call AAA. When tow showed up truck was way too small to tow rig, tow driver tried jumping us also still nothing, tow driver asked if i could put jacks down and he would crawl under and have a quick look, ended up being a wire loose on the starter tightened it up and away we went no further trouble. 2nd breakdown 47,000miles Oct. 26 2006 About 150 miles from home (less than 20 miles to campground) Auto Park light would come on and go off but the brake did not apply (having heard of the the woes of the system i had already done some research on it) got to campgrounds got under the coach and found the pressure maintance switch was leaking (aka RGS(rotton green switch)) was not able to get one, finished our weekend and limped home stopping to check Auto Park fluid and the brake itself(to be sure it was not hot) did this every 30 to 60 miles. got home ordered switch replaced it and all was well untill...... 3rd breakdown 51,000miles Jan.13 2007 After traveling 300 miles the day before got up to leave,started coach put in drive could hear AutoPark disengage (pump running) break disengaged pump shut off but light did not go off, got under coach found nothing leaking system was operating normally so we drove to the nearest chevy dealer(they were no help) so we continued on, checked it every so often for leak\overheating\pump running after about 390 miles i discovered another pressure switch was leaking (not the green one this one was\is gray) switch was not availabe in the area, just so we could get home (we were on our way from florida to ohio problem 1st started in south georiga buy the time it started leaking we were in tennesse) workhorse in tennesse keeps the green switches in stock but not the grey ones, so i bought one of the green ones (the green and gray switches are exactly the same except for the plug and the function) and put it in place of the gray one just to plug the hole so we could get home. got home ordered proper switch and all is working normally again..... My point of posting these is this...just because we have a motorhome don't mean we have money falling from the sky on us..none of these repairs\fixes was more than $60.00 per occurance in parts and some time and research on my part (thanks again Rodger) if i did not have the knowledge\ability to do these repairs myself the last 2 repairs alone would have cost over $1000.00 each with loss of use of MH hotels rental cars ect. if you have a chevy\workhorse with a yellow knob to apply the parking brake you have some form of the Auto Park system..you may want to get to know the system..i'm sure glad i did..saved me and AAA a bunch of $$$...and i think i have looked at all 54 pages lol Brian 98 Southwind Storm 34S (no toad)

[billy1]

Summary, Many are asking for summaries. Here's mine. Regarding Deisel only.
1. Breakdowns more common with rigs less than 5 to 7 years old

2. Most often filters, electrical, and grounding wires

3. Rigs 10+ yrs old; fewer posts by far, mostly aging electrical
parts or wires

Best prevention seems to me to inspect carefully during annual service ALL OF THE ENGINE COMPONETS & WIRES. Those posts indicating no on the road breakdowns are suggesting they do this religiously.

I would like to see other summaries also.

[Jim]

1/2 Canadian wrote:
Hey, Guys. Please keep in mind the original format of this thread. It is not for carrying on discussions; do that in the Class A general forum, or a Technical forum. And look at the original post by Badeye for the correct method of posting in the Breakdowns thread

Edited for brevity.

I have to agree with 1/2 Canadian on this one. My impression of this thread from the start was that it should be a pure collection of RV failures and solutions...impartial, non-judgmental, concise. So the OP does not have to wade through a lot of 'noise' in order to create a practical and useful spreadsheet of RV failures (that caused a vehicle to stop on the road), which I thought was the original intent.

There isn't any reason a poster can't start another thread if s/he wants to cuss out a certain dealer or repair shop while they post the pertinent facts here. I'd be happy with the posters laying it all out, warts and all. But not in this thread.

I hope the moderator comes by and deletes all these useless posts to help clean this thread up.

JMO.

[1_2_Canadian]

Hey, Guys. Please keep in mind the original format of this thread. It is not for carrying on discussions; do that in the Class A general forum, or a Technical forum. And look at the original post by Badeye for the correct method of posting in the Breakdowns thread:

12/10/03 05:42am Link | Quote | Print | Notify Moderator

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
After some conversation with Diesel-Lover and others on this forum I thought I would try to start a thread concerning breakdowns on the road. We try to prevent this by good maintenance and driving reasonably but it can still happen. As I observed in a previous post, on a roughly 350 mile northbound drive on I-75 I saw 4 class A MH broken down. All were southbound.

If we should have a breakdown and would post the following information on this thread it could be a resource and reminder for others.

RV particulars:
Driveline (Engine, Transmission):
Miles:
Year:
Break Down Description: (You can add any description of the problem here that you think would help others in understanding the situation and problem.)
Symptoms:
Effect:
Cause:
Outcome:

This is the type of information that is recorded in the aircraft industry and other maintenance activities to track failure trends. It will take a while before we see a lot of value in this. If it continues for a time and sufficient data is available, I will analyze the data and put it into a form that I can send by email to any interested parties. I would suspect that an initial report could be done in about three months or when we have about 100 to 150 cases.

[outsider1924]

lazybear wrote:
It did not overheat the first time. I checked on it today and they advised that the head has grooves in it, and that is the reason the second gasket blew. They took a new head out of a crate and it has groves in it too. They are sending it back to Cat to have it milled. I may get it back someday. Bad service from CAT for sure. Very disappointed in the company. Lazybear

I still dont understand... How did it blow a head gasket the first time ?

[lazybear]

It did not overheat the first time. I checked on it today and they advised that the head has grooves in it, and that is the reason the second gasket blew. They took a new head out of a crate and it has groves in it too. They are sending it back to Cat to have it milled. I may get it back someday. Bad service from CAT for sure. Very disappointed in the company. Lazybear

[ygohome]

Sorry~ Please do not make the mistake we made on our first long trip in 1991 with a Fleetwood Pace Arrow manufactured in June, 1990.
Talk with patience to the manufacturer & insist on a replacement.
After thinking all the problems had been addressed by Fleetwood Factory in Decatur, Indiana, we NEVER had a trip without problems. Had good service in Indiana where they did find many things wrong by original oversight. INSPECTIONS??? Hadn't even completed reinforcing the floors or allowing for the electric step to open out fully. (Minor, compared to following troubles, have print-outs as proof).
Do not have the time to even discuss problems found under the hood over the years. Some record, and in time, very expensive. Can not even sell "As Is". Waited, sentimental reasons and also mistakenly thinking each time we had a better rig.
Please, do some research in connection with the dealer attitude, relate there also. Hopefully this will help.
Still a wonderful way to travel & see the U.S.. Good luck!

[outsider1924]

outsider1924 wrote:
I picked my RV back up from the dealer tonight... They claimed they had fixed the problem by replacing the fuel filter. It ran great for about the first 15 miles, but then began to slowly lose power. By the time I made it to my house (50 miles away) it was dying everytime I let off the accelerator. Also, while cruising on the highway, you can feel the power surge about every 15 seconds. The motor will slow waaay down to about 1400rpm's and then it will jump up to about 2200rpms for about 15 seconds, then slow back down... and over and over. I thought maybe I was low on fuel, so I stopped and put 20 gallons of diesel in and the problem presisted... The dealer is very unhelpful, does anyone have any ideas ?

Texas Kenworth in Dallas took care of the problem for me. The vent on the fuel tank was clogged. Runs like a dream now.

[outsider1924]

lazybear wrote:
I have broke down twice in the last 8 weeks. Both times, I blew a head gasket, and had some bad injectors. I have a 2005 Tiffin Phaeton with 7,041 miles on it, with 170 total hours on the Cat 350 engine.I bought the unit new 16 months ago. It is in the shop now awaiting word from a Cat Supervisor as to weather they will repair it again, or install a new engine. The 1st time they installed a new block and head. This time they say the head is bad. I am very disappointed in the treatment Cat supervision is treating me.
Thanks, Jack

Holy cow. Two blown head gaskets on a motor with 7k miles... Maybe it overheated the first time, warped it, and they didnt resurface the head correctly before they put it on the second time... Why did it overheat in the first place ?

[lazybear]

I have broke down twice in the last 8 weeks. Both times, I blew a head gasket, and had some bad injectors. I have a 2005 Tiffin Phaeton with 7,041 miles on it, with 170 total hours on the Cat 350 engine.I bought the unit new 16 months ago. It is in the shop now awaiting word from a Cat Supervisor as to weather they will repair it again, or install a new engine. The 1st time they installed a new block and head. This time they say the head is bad. I am very disappointed in the treatment Cat supervision is treating me.
Thanks, Jack

[ElieC]

Just returned from a 3 week trip down to quartzsite, and slab city. all went well till on the way home to Santa Cruz Ca. I pulled into a rest area on I10 and at the same time my throttle cable and my shifter cable both gave up the ghost. what are the odds of that happening?/? I called good sam and was told that they couldn't send anyone till the next day ( monday) They send out a mechanic who assessed the problem and charged me 90 bucks the that info. and tried to get me to pay for his trip back to his shop. after another call to good sam, they told them that they would be paying for that trip. then 5 hours later a tow truck shows up and after about 3 hours of getting ready we finally took off to Colton Truck where they hadn't recieved any call from Good sam that we were coming. By wed, they told me that Freightliner told them that they didn't make those cables anymore??? I had to have them made 550.00, by friday I was on the road again after a bill of 11oo.00, only to have the new throttle cable to sieze up just as I was getting close to home. This has not been one of my better trips.
94 Fleetwood Flair Diesel Pusher

[outsider1924]

I picked my RV back up from the dealer tonight... They claimed they had fixed the problem by replacing the fuel filter. It ran great for about the first 15 miles, but then began to slowly lose power. By the time I made it to my house (50 miles away) it was dying everytime I let off the accelerator. Also, while cruising on the highway, you can feel the power surge about every 15 seconds. The motor will slow waaay down to about 1400rpm's and then it will jump up to about 2200rpms for about 15 seconds, then slow back down... and over and over. I thought maybe I was low on fuel, so I stopped and put 20 gallons of diesel in and the problem presisted... The dealer is very unhelpful, does anyone have any ideas ?

[ke4648]

Yes my Clas B was well maintained. But....there are just too many things to go wrong. I had just had my gen worked on by a certified dealer in Sikeston Mo. $958.00 for new carb, exhaust and oil change and so on. One month later, same problem with the carb. And before that it was my fuel pump in my gas tank, kapput! Now we know what it cost to replace those also. And I could go on with a nice long list, but we all know that this list is almost on any MH you buy. Even the new ones have way too much trouble. You are right though when you say many do have less problems than others. But my maintenace was good, on time and always someone "certified" but that did not seem to help that much. Just too many things to break down on a MH and that is my whole point. I guess when you try to put so much and so many different things and systems in a moving object you have more break downs. But as I said, kudos to you that can keep on pouring good money after bad into these money eaters, lol. I still liked the travel in one, but have come to the conclusion it is not for me. But enjoy yours, it can be fun, and makes for some great vacations

[Patty98311]

Patty98311 wrote:
New owner

F/U Problem below repeated after short trip to Hot Springs, Ar. Was able to get Mid-South Cummins of Little Rock to look at it(seems no one in Ar will work on anything > 5yrs old, " its not worth our time") after 10 days of diagnostics and ording parts, transmission computer was replaced w/ all associated wiring harnesses that were burned and damaged cost $3900.

1994 36' Allegro Bay DP cummins 5.9(40k miles) w/ 6speed Allison Transmission

Purchased unit from private individual in MS drove home to Ar(300 miles) with no problems, two weeks later drove to Mo(250 miles) camping no problen during road trip. Set up and tried to move next morning jacks come up, engine started, transmission would not engage or light panel. Had just signed on for GSC(w/ERS) the day before they responded on site in about an hour with service truck, could not find problem called tow rig which was on site in about 2 hrs from original call. Will conectingtow rig to unit, unit was started to straighten wheels and everything started working. Tow was cancelled, cause has not been identified. Unit has operated normally since but have been afraid to use levelers as this is what the technician suspected was the problem but could not verify.