MCD Shade - Temporary Fix

[Rossi6998]

I have a 2013 Sunstar 26HE with MCD American Solo manual shades. My wife pulled on one of the shades, heard a "pop", and the shade unraveled toward the floor. The shade would no longer retract.

Thinking the tension spring broke inside the shade mechanism, I called MCD shade and spoke with "Bill". Bill had me take the shade apart. To my surprise the spring was intact. He then had me focus on a small black wheel that has a couple tabs on it. These tabs were suppose to be approximately 1/16" in height, but I could barely feel them with my finger. These tabs are suppose to keep tension on the spring. Bill told me movement from the motorhome, along with the tension of the spring, can cause this black piece to unwind. When the black piece unwinds, the force will cause the black tabs to shave off inside the shade mechanism and no longer hold tension on the spring.

After ordering the replacement parts, Bill told me a temporary fix was to take a soldering iron and burn several indents on the black piece. These indents will raise the plastic enough to hold the black piece in place and keep tension on the spring. Although skeptical, I tried this and it did work. The shade is in place while the replacement parts are being shipped to me.

Just something to think about should you run into the same problem.

John

[JohnRR]

Thank you for the tid bit of information, I hope I never need it.

[AFChap]

It is disappointing that they are still using easily-breakable plastic parts. The earlier edition shades have a black plastic part the breaks completely in two with the same symptoms. I had a couple shades repaired over the years, but when another one broke last year MCD said they are no longer repairable as the provider went out of business ...they offered a small discount on a new replacement. MCD got a new provider, but sounds like a similar weakness in the new version.

[Rossi6998]

I too am a little disappointed with the quality of the parts. I love the shades, but the design needs a re-design with more metal parts instead of plastic. When I called their customer service, one of the first questions they asked was when were the shades installed. Once they realized it was a newer shade, they knew replacement parts would be available.

[warriorwithd]

We recently sold home, moved into our 14 VISTA 31KE, (love it, PLENTY to do to make it "our's"….. but I digress: The long (60") dinette shade let go as described in previous posts and I took the thing apart, thinking the spring itself had broken.. or at least that was my observation, probably incorrect. My dear wife "hated" the shades so the alternative was a visit to LOWES to get a LEVELOR pleated version, perfect color match (much better than the white MCD's) and VOILA! wife delighted. I did have to remove the MCD mounting clips. With some gusto, threw the whole assembly into the dumpster. Knowing that the MCD was "impressive" in construction compared to the LEVELOR, but happiness quotient beats product quality. AND the pleated MATCHING window treatment DOES look much nicer. FOR NOW. Humans; hard to figure them out. MIGHT not chuck future MCD failures so quickly.