We said goodbye to the Anderson family and headed to Nappanee, IN for the annual maintenance work on the coach. We try to get to Newmar once a year and have them check everything to insure that we don’t break down along the road. Besides the regular maintenance items, we have been having an issue with our generator starting and stopping randomly. We definitely needed to get that issue fixed as I have been chasing it for over a year!
We stayed at the Newmar campground which is across the street from the beautiful Service Center. As usual, we had Rory work on the Busse Bus. We have had Rory working on our coach every year since we started going there.
Rory got our regular items taken care of but the phantom generator issue wasn’t manifesting itself during most of the first day. Hard to fix something when you can’t see it.
Then it happened and he was able to see it and called over the expert technician on electrical issues. He started trying different things to track down where the issue was coming from. The original thought was that it was being caused by the wiring. After searching Rory found a bad Y-connector and we thought that that may be the issue.
A new one did not fix the issue. As we continued to look for the faulty item the hours started to add up. By this time it was close of business on Wednesday – 3/5 through our scheduled week.
One of the good things about being in Nappanee is to enjoy the Amish bakeries, such as Rise and Roll – considered “crack” donuts. I was able to pick up 1/2 dozen Tuesday morning. In talking to other owners in the waiting lounge we heard that a better donut truck would be stationed nearby on Wednesday. Brian Gerrits (a new Newmar friend) and I headed over and he bought a dozen. Here’s a picture of the sour dough getting ready to be fried:
Each batch of dough make 200 donuts. This was the sixth batch of the day and it was only 10am and they stay until noon. Ed figured out they bring in $8000 – $10,000 a day. They were yummy!
That evening we went out to dinner with Karl and Denise Reed (friends that we have met along our journey) and we headed to Ruhe 152 – the best restaurant in town. We had a wonderful time catching up with them and realized that they were on their way to the Hoots Rally in Hilton Head the following week. Great, we would get to see them again very soon!
We planned a night out with Janice Bradley on Thursday at the Country Heritage Winery in LaOtto, IN. It took us about an hour to drive over and it was worth it!
The wines were good and they also had homemade pizza that was decent! Afterwards we drove over to her son’s house (Justin & Ashley and their sons, Dillon and Connor) to see them. They recently moved from Nappanee to LaOtto and we had visited with them every time we were in town. Their new house was very nice. It was great seeing all of them!
The next morning while we were bringing in the kitchen slide one of the motors died. Tack on another $1,300 estimate! By this time with the generator, we thought that maybe the inverter was acting up so I agreed to replace it – $2,200 estimate. After replacing the inverter we were still having the issue. Unfortunately once an electrical product is opened and installed – you own it! By the end of Thursday we were no closer to resolving the issue. I authorized replacing the AGS, the AGS Remote, the EMS and the EMS Remote. Not knowing what the cost would be but hopeful that one of those items would fix the issue.
By close of business on Friday and after everything was replaced the generator was not having the issue. Not knowing for sure we decided to stay the weekend in case they needed to look at the coach come Monday. Katrina was able to drive back up to Chicago and stay with Ariana, Matt and Rylan.
It was great as she got some more Sassy time which included Kylo time too. Bear and I stayed with the coach watching for the issue to rear its ugly head!
It never did! Wahoo!
Katrina got back from Chicago Sunday night and we started to pack up getting ready to leave Monday morning. Rory finished up our paperwork and we got the bill. Ouch! Since we weren’t sure what caused the issue and what replacement component fixed it, we weren’t excited to see the bill. Katrina and I were able to negotiate a lesser amount by cutting 1/2 of the hours and basically getting the components at dealer costs. That saved us about $1,800.
The final bill was $6,056.49.
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