I've been waiting for this tale to play itself out before posting this.
I'm pleased that as of last Friday, all is well
So here we go:
We've had a growing list of things to take care of on our Pace Arrow. I've done most of the maintenance myself, but no longer have the room OR the time to do that, so my wife convinced me to take the coach over to a certain nationwide chain with our "gig" list...so we did.
1) My sliding double doors into the bedroom weren't closing properly. At the end of travel, they would bind.
2) A few years ago, while in Newfoundland, I broke a tooth on one of the 3 gear assemblies that open/close our 22' slide. DW mistakenly overlooked the vacuum cleaner head which was between the slide trim and the bedroom wall, which stopped the rear of the slide from fully opening, and broke a tooth on the gear.
I had already replaced the gear when we returned from the trip, but the slide was not quite lined up properly. From other users here, I learned that Power Gear has a "module" they plug in which allows for the proper adjustment. I called and discovered that out of the three "nationwide chain" locations, only the one in North Tampa had the tool, so that's where we went.
We met with our assigned "Service Adviser", and went over the list.
We got a call a few days later, asking us to come over, as there were some "issues". Oh boy.
We go back and meet with the senior service manager, who takes us out to the coach and explains the "problems" to us.
For the double sliding doors, he explains that the problem is a mis-aligned "Jack Stud" inside the bathroom wall, and that the bathroom wall will have to be "opened up" in order to fix the problem.
As for the slide adjustment, he explains that the problem is that because the slide didn't close completely on the rearmost edge, the roof of the slide is "collapsing" in the center, which is pulling the two sides of the slide IN towards the center. Picture a box, on its side, and pushing down on the top edge...this would pull in the two "ends" of the box.
What he's describing to us is quite impossible, given that the MIDDLE of the slide is supported by two wall panels on either side of the ref, that go floor to ceiling, so no way for it to "collapse". In addition to that little bit of physics, I stand up in the driver's seat where you can sight down the entire top of the slide. It's perfectly straight and even. I tell the service manager this, and he says "Yeah, it looks that way, doesn't it?"...with a bit of a sneer that even my DW picks up on.
He goes on to explain that there are 3 other Fleetwoods in his shop at that exact moment, all with the same problem, and that to fix it, you have to REMOVE THE ENTIRE SLIDE, repair the slide, and then reinstall the slide.
Total estimate for everything?
$16,000-$18,000.
We leave, WITH THE COACH. It's about an hour before I can open my mouth and speak rationally.
We take the coach back to storage. The next day, I grab my toolbox, go to the coach, and start on the doors. Turns out that one of the screws that holds the sliding door track to the ceiling has back out about a half turn, so the roller mechanism is hitting the screw head. Removed the offending screw, applied 2 toothpicks to the hole, reinserted the screw to the proper depth, and voila, the doors now close smoothly and completely, no bind what so ever.
Now I climb under the coach with every intention of working on the slide adjustment in a "manual" fashion, as has been discussed here on another thread, and I discover that the new gear now has a broken tooth on it too...which tells me that while trying to adjust my slide, they broke the gear. The slide has been in and out easily a hundred times since I replaced the gear, and as far as I know, the gear was fine when it arrived at their shop.
So...there's a local, family-owned dealer/service center much closer to me. I went off to talk with them, met with their service mgr, explained the history and what I believed was the proper approach, and he agreed.
1 week later, my gear has been replaced, the slide has been adjusted, and they installed the rear shocks that I had purchased from a memeber here.
Total cost of everything?
$1200.
Seriously. $1200.
The scenario that the "national chain" service mgr was describing was absolutely physically impossible. I truly feel sorry for the other 3 coaches that had "...the same exact problem" and were paying that much money to have them fixed.
Lesson learned...they'll never touch another piece of equipment that I own, period.