Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Ending Our Saga with Problem #3 & Saving the Worst Repair for Last

Nov. 10-15.  My, oh my!  My little home on wheels was torn apart.  The anxiety kicked in and I was just so worried that the external repair would make the RV look so ugly!  But I need not have worried so.    The issue with the front left side hitch area was the sliding up and down of the cover molding strip.   When the RV was hooked to the truck, everything looked normal.  But when unhitched, the molding slid to the point of breaking off the screw heads underneath and scratching the fiberglass.

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As stated in the post about the floor, as soon as the estimator saw the problem, he immediately said it may be a claim issue.  We took pictures and called our insurance company for a claim number and to get an adjuster to come and look at the RV.  Even from the beginning, the insurance adjuster started talking about “normal wear and tear” even before he had any pictures.  Fortunately, he was able to come out a day or two later for another customer and look at our RV as well instead of the a week’s wait originally indicated.   It was several days before we heard back from him and the news was bad.  Our claim was denied.  (So was the other customer’s claim.)   The adjuster said that because there was no visible damage to the truck, he was going to stick with the “normal wear and tear” story.  Gee, thanks!  We spent thousands of dollars in premiums, and they readily take the money!  But when you need THEIR help, they are not there for you!

We gave RV Renovators the go ahead because we had no choice.  The problem was serious and had to be fixed.  The front cap was pulled off and it was found that a weld had broken.  Watching that cap come off sure gave me a sinking feeling.  Our RV may be getting old but She is still “home”. 

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Somehow we think we twisted the RV sideways, but have no idea when or how we could have done that kind of damage.  We knew the plastic under cover of the hitch area was cracked on one side, so we figured the truck did indeed hit the undercover at some point.  More pictures were sent to the insurance company, including previous pictures of the cracked undercover, hoping that clearly seeing more evidence of the problem would change their minds on our claim.   No go!!  That was rather sickening.  So we will change insurance companies as soon as possible!

It only got much worse!  After looking at the first weld problem, the technicians said we really should cut out a square further back on the side wall to make sure there were no other problems.  Oh, my gosh! They want to cut my fiberglass wall?!?  That is when the anxiety went up another several notches!!  I was ASSURED everything would be fine and the final fiberglass repair would not even be noticed.   All I could see was an ugly line on the outside of my RV!  Good call though.  Sure enough, there was ANOTHER weld break!   We were really disheartened.

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Hey, at least we learned how our RV was made!!  Guys worked on the repair all week long, adding more structure, nailing, and welding.  Even an iron bar was added around the curve on the end for extra support.  I have to say that the attention to detail in fixing this problem was outstanding!  That frame wasn’t ever going to move again!!

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So now it was time to close everything up and repair the fiberglass.  Of course, I was out there every step of the way with my camera!  The young man who specialized in fiberglass did an AMAZING job!! I can’t say enough about what a fantastic job he did.  We were so relieved and I think the repairman could tell from my huge sigh and our wide smiles, that we were well pleased.  

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I even photographed the guys putting the front cap back on!  I was scared but at the same time my curiosity, and photo taking, in watching the process got the better of me!!!  Oh! Please don’t drop it!!

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Whew! Thank goodness all the repairs were over with!  I think that was one of the most stressful times I have ever had!   We finally got to leave the lot after 3 weeks!  There were a few things I would have done differently, but that is me and too much of my perfectionism showing!  I wanted the RV, by some miracle, to look brand new!  We still didn’t receive some roller shade parts by the end of the week, so they will be forwarded to us in Tucson and Doug will take care of the rest.  We are pleased with the work that was done.  For serious repairs, RV Renovators would be the place to go.  They are very expensive, but you get what you pay for.  They have the skill to make any repair.  As an example, the repair to the front cap was $3,000. 

So we stayed one more night on “security duty” and left Mesa on Saturday morning poorer and the wallet much lighter than when we arrived.  We were more than ready to leave the place!  After 3 weeks, I wonder if the guys missed us on Monday when they saw that we were gone!

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