Whoever spoke those words must have been the proud owner of Country Coach product after 2009.
I have had an ongoing issue with the front air springs on our motorhome. In 2018, a faulty repair caused severe overinflation of the front left air spring on my 2005 CC Magna. This condition resulted in a 75mph blowout on the I-40 near Gallup, NM. The blowout nearly cost the lives of me and my family.
see the actual footage as it happend here https://youtu.be/4e2-Me-qC1s
The original "repair"
(better defined as a "sabotage") that led to the blowout was performed by a Phoenix shop rhyming with Gassey's. They "repaired" our motorcoach in 2018 and it has been out of commission since. We have absorbed costs/shop hours which have exceeded the 12k mark. We have paid the mortgage, taxes, insurance, and registration fees without having use of the motorcoach. Yesterday, however, I discovered the problem and solved the issue...it was infuriatingly simple.
I originally brought our coach to "Gassey's" in PHX for an AIR LEAK. "Gassey's worked on our motorhome for almost 3 months and charged me $6500.00. Their receipt states that they replaced HWH suspension components including the front manifold solenoids. After the blowout, "Gassy's" admitted via phone that one of thier technicians gerry-rigged and together an old, incorrect, ride-height leveling valve by cutting it and welding it...then he installed it on our coach.
I filed legal action against Gassey's and settled for an amount that covered most of my costs, however, the overinflation problem was still not solved.
In the last 2 years no fewer than 7 shops, 9 expert techs, and 1 engineering student attempted to diagnosed the ongoing problem. NOT ONE came to the correct conclusion. All of them failed because they did not refer to the HWH schematics or consider the symptoms of the overinflation of the left front air spring. From Denver, to Cheyenne, to Junction City, to Reno, no service tech took the time to refer to the manual or trace the pigtail connection male harnesses to their proper female harness connections on the solenoid valves. Not one technician followed the path of airflow through the air hoses or verified whether the correct solenoid was allowing air to the correct bag. Their troubleshooting was flawed because ALL of them relied on the solenoid LABELS...but the solenoid labels were wrong because Gassey's mis-labled the solenoid valves too..and installed them incorrectly.
It wasn't until yesterday, yes yesterday, that I finally discovered that "Gassey's" connected several front solenoid connections to the incorrect solenoid valves. The electrical connection for left front TRAVEL MODE solenoid was connected to the right side RAISE solenoid. After a process of elimination, I corrected the problem by connecting the solenoid valves to the corresponding solenoid wires.
Only after consulting coach owners on THIS FORUM was I able to put the pieces together. One IRV2 user recommended that I download the HWH coach-specific manual from HWH's website, another recommended that I physically trace the air hoses to the proper solenoids, yet another recommended that I test the solenoids and change the o-rings. ALL of the advice and nearly all of the recommendations I received from IRV2 users were helpful. In fact, IRV2 users were more helpful than ANY of the "professionals" who worked on the motorcoach.
Without IRV2, my motorcoach would still be out of commision. The operators and administrators of this website are providing an invaluable owner-to-owner connection between each of us in the RV community. I plan on frequenting this site more and more and will hopefully be able to help others - or at least give new coach owners confidence to trust their own troubleshooting abilities. I will be relying more on my own resourcefulness and my own troubleshooting methods. I will depend less on shops who overcharge, underperform, and on techs who claim to know everything but have no troubleshooting skills. We must realize that oftentimes the answers we seek are inside of us and we must rely more on others in the RV community instead of those RV shops who are experts only at charging for terrible service. Thank you to the dozens of IRV2 owners who helped me figure out this problem. Hope to see you out on the road soon!
Alex
Linear Mode
