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Old 08-29-2019, 08:34 PM   #1
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And I thought I had problems!

Ok, this is going to be a little bit of a long thread just to warn you!

We went camping with my son and his wife and her folks up in New Hampshire this past week and had a great time. We have an older 1998 Georgia Boy motor home that as been updated. My son has a 29ft travel trailer and her folks have a 2017 Coachman Mirada.

So we are out camping and the in-laws complained that they had to run the generator to open the door steps. (They thought this was normal) In addition they had a problem with the drop down bunk. They had purchased it from General RV and had brought it back several times as the bunk did not come down correctly. Now in fairness they did not complain about the DC power issue as they thought it was normal to have to run the generator to power the steps and the slide outs.

After looking at it I determined that someone at the factory had wired the two 6 volt batteries in series with negative being connected to negative so that they ended up with the charger attempting to charge batteries that were hooked up totally wrong! Now we are in the back woods of New Hampshire so we went to a local auto parts store and purchased two marine 12v batteries and put them in parallel. After that everything worked correctly! I was amazed that the 12V inverter/converteer had not blown up!

So after we replaced the batteries with two 12V units (the local auto store did not have two 6V batteries) we were able to get the unit functioning like it was supposed to!

Now on to the bunk! They had brought the unit in several times on the bunk issue and the local "repair dealer" said all they had to do was take the panel loose and push the reset button!

I simply downloaded the installation manual for the bunk and found that what they had to do was set the stops for the bunk and NOT push the reset button (holding the reset button for more than 3 seconds clears the stops!).

After following the proper programming session the bunk now operates correctly.

What I am amazed at is the lack of "knowledge" that the dealer had when it came to helping a client with a unit that was sold to them. Now in fairness they did not tell them about the battery issue as they thought that was normal but the bunk issue was something else.

Bottom line is I was able to get them going and now the motor home works as it should!

One last thing I found was that they were having problems with only one of the three burners igniting so all I had to do was bend the wire away from the steel base on the igniters to make them all work.

They shouldn't have had to go through this but I have to admit it was fun trouble shooting the issue!
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Old 08-29-2019, 08:49 PM   #2
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Good on you for being a good friend. But at some point, owners have to have some responsibility to educate themselves about owning something like an RV that they travel in and have their family sleep in. What other dangerous situations might they have?
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Old 08-29-2019, 09:30 PM   #3
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Good on you for being a good friend. But at some point, owners have to have some responsibility to educate themselves about owning something like an RV that they travel in and have their family sleep in. What other dangerous situations might they have?

Why take all of the fun and adventure out of RV'ing.... If they have a problem that is what they have the internet for.


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Old 08-29-2019, 09:54 PM   #4
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...So we are out camping and the in-laws complained that they had to run the generator to open the door steps...They had purchased it from General RV...What I am amazed at is the lack of "knowledge" that the dealer had when it came to helping a client with a unit that was sold to them...:

You aren’t going to find any “knowledge” at General RV. They did such a great job “repairing” (I use the term very loosely) my HWH jack system that I almost had a fire! When the HWH Factory tech saw what they did, he was amazed that I had not had a fire in the hydraulic bay.

Never again.
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Old 08-29-2019, 09:55 PM   #5
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It's always uplifting to solve someone's problems for them. Great job and thanks for sharing!
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Old 08-29-2019, 10:07 PM   #6
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After looking at it I determined that someone at the factory had wired the two 6 volt batteries in series with negative being connected to negative so that they ended up with the charger attempting to charge batteries that were hooked up totally wrong!
Negative to negative is parallel, not series; but still grossly incorrect for 6 volt batteries.
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Old 08-29-2019, 10:15 PM   #7
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Great story
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Old 08-30-2019, 12:34 AM   #8
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It is stories like this that make me not mind owning an orphaned brand of coach.
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Old 08-30-2019, 04:51 AM   #9
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Negative to negative is parallel, not series; but still grossly incorrect for 6 volt batteries.
No, this had the positive side of the 12v bus connected to one of the positive lugs on battery number 1, then the negative of battery number 1 was connected in series to the negative of battery number 2, finally the positive of battery number 2 was connected to the negative bus! Wired about as wrong as you get!
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Old 08-30-2019, 05:57 AM   #10
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I tell people all the time that I love RVing because it involves two of my passions, wanderlust and fixin things. Every day it seems presents me with a new little puzzle to solve. Good for you that you got to help your in-laws with their coach. My guess is you will be hearing from them regularly from now on.
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Old 08-30-2019, 06:07 AM   #11
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Wow, it took me a minute to even picture that being done!
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Old 08-30-2019, 08:33 AM   #12
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Wow, it took me a minute to even picture that being done!
Yeh, me too! I should have taken a picture of it!
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Old 08-30-2019, 08:39 AM   #13
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Good on you for being a good friend. But at some point, owners have to have some responsibility to educate themselves about owning something like an RV that they travel in and have their family sleep in. What other dangerous situations might they have?
To some extent I agree but not everyone has the capability to understand how some things are supposed to work. I would suspect a home owner might not know about a miss-wired outlet in their electrical wiring unless it was pointed out by someone, for example, neutral and hot leads reversed as you would expect the wiring to be right based upon code and best practices. In this case the dealer did them no favor in training them on the basics.
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Old 08-30-2019, 09:14 AM   #14
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my advise is to ALWAYS find and download a service manual for all your systems. include appliance manuals as well. there is a manual for almost everything.
if you know nothing about repairs, and want to learn, service manuals are the first step.
after reading the manual, you need to do the diagnostic procedures outlined in the manual. most of the time, you can find the fix for your problem yourself.
if not, at least you can talk to someone with some insight to the repair.
this forum is also a great place for information. but unless you are willing, and capable of doing the repair, then learn enough about the problem to understand the workings of the systems.
the secret is knowing what you are, or are not, capable of doing.
and are willing to to admit it.
if you are not, call a mobile tech, or a repair center you feel you can trust, and take it there.
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