Monday, May 12: We’re in Florence, Montana, at Christian’s house.
Christian’s beautiful family:
Ashley, Izzy, Christian
Let’s face it, folks; when you own an RV, you’re gonna have to deal with the inevitable RV Repair. The bit of wisdom I have acquired in life in general can also be easily applied to RV’s: Things will go wrong. And there is only so much you can do to prevent future breakdowns. This is probably because when you’re on the road, that road is fraught with all kinds of hazards, obstacles, and pitfalls that you could never anticipate, or at least I could never anticipate. Face the facts: Things do go wrong. So how do you protect yourself from the high cost of repair. Easy. Just get The Great United States Extended Warranty Policy that covers just about everything you could possibly imagine that could ever break down and then cost an insane amount of money to repair. The policy was a good move on Jackie’s part. I’m the kind of person who never accepts the offer of an extended warranty. It always seemed like a waste of money. As long as you bought quality goods, the 90-day warranty was good enough for me.
I knew repairing the slide out and leveling jacks could potentially be very costly. I imagined thousands of dollars, though in reality probably hundreds. Christian helped me locate Bretz RV and Marine in Missoula. We called the place and talked to someone who said that if I was willing to leave it, they could find the time to at least diagnose the problem. But after I drove the rig to the place, the curt guy behind the service counter just said that they were too busy and didn’t have the time, even though we explained to him we had already talked to someone. Unfortunately, with everybody trying to get their rigs ready for the summer season, they were just too busy to help us any sooner than three weeks out.
The counter guy did give us a couple of names and phone numbers to try. Gull Boats & RV was at the top of the list. This time the counter guy was very nice, and after hearing my pathetic stranded-in-Missoula story, he was also very sympathetic. He could do the diagnostics if I left it overnight and he would call me as soon as they identified the problem. Next day the “tech” guy called and told me he couldn’t diagnose the problem because he didn’t have any of the “specialized” tools and equipment necessary. Oh, okay. Christian was a bit frustrated for me by the whole thing, so on the spur of the moment, he crawled under Coach House and within five minutes spotted a hydraulic line rupture in one of the control hoses. Ah, a hydraulic issue not a mechanical one. But wait a minute, how is it that Christian spotted the obvious problem in five minutes, yet the Gull “tech” guy couldn’t? Oh, I get it. They didn’t even look under the rig, so rather than just tell me they didn’t have the time, they made up some lame-ass excuse about not having any special tools.
Christian removed the ruptured hose and fitting and we took it to KLS Hydraulics in Missoula. They built a hose to replace the old one and installed it for eighty bucks! It took a gallon and a half of ATF, automatic transmission fluid. Once the reservoir was filled, the system self-bled while actuating leveling jacks and slide out. Everything worked perfectly.
We stuck around for another day to refit Coach House and relax with Christian’s family before we left. Had lunch in downtown Missoula, walked around town a bit, and watched the kayakers at Brennan’s Wave in Caras Park situated on the beautiful Clark Fork River which runs right through the middle of downtown Missoula.
Caras Park
Caras Park
Next stop a campground somewhere east of Bozeman.
Call and Response 