We were heading out for a 4 day trip last Wednesday night when I heard a terrible scraping noise come from the rear of the coach less than a mile from the campground. I climbed out of the coach and found that the rear u-bolt holding the rear axle to the leaf springs was broken on the drivers side. The bolt was so long that I could not remove it without jacking the unit up. I got the broken piece out and then parked the unit till the next day when I hoped to get the unit repaired to hopefully salvage the weekend.
My unit is a 2013 Coachmen Mirada 35DL bought in April 2013. In looking through the warranty manual for the chassis I found that Ford supplies free roadside assistance for 5 years. Since all the shops were closed for the day I decided to call roadside assistance for help. The person I spoke to was very helpful and promised that they would get me in for service at the closest repair facility as early as they could the next day. I hung up thinking that my weekend was going to be shot.
When we got up the next day I started calling around myself. The only dealer I found that would work on the unit said I could bring it in on the 18th and they would look at it. I also found a transmission shop that would look at it, but I would have to pay for it and they would not commit to having it repaired on Thursday. At this point I am getting pretty bummed out.
About 9:00am I got a call from Ford saying that they were able to get me in to Ganley Ford at 9:30am and that they would do all they could do to get me back on the road. I had the unit to them by 9:30 and the fleet service manager Kevin said they would look at it ASAP and do all they could to get me back on the road that day even though he knew he did not have the right parts. I left thinking that there was no way I was going to be back on the road that day.
I got a call from Kevin at 1:00pm saying my unit was ready to go. I went to pick it up and Kevin told me that they had replaced both of the u-bolts on that side if the axle. I asked why it had broken, but Kevin had no explanation other than it was a bad u-bolt. Kevin gave me the old bolts and I have attached pictures of them. We hooked up the Jeep right in the lot and were on the road about 2:30, a day late, but grateful that I received such good support from Ford and from their dealer, Ganley Ford.
In looking at the u-bolt it had been broken for some time. The unit has been sitting in a campground on a level seasonal site since the beginning of May. Before that I had the unit in Florida over the holidays and one outing in April. My advice: Crawl under your coach and take a look at your u-bolts.