Epic Rookie RVer Fails !!!!

[D2Reid]

I have done pretty well with the sewer hose. The extra gate valve at the external connection has been great. Except in freezing conditions. I have a very minor leak, the gate valve stops it, but there is about a quart of accumulation in 3 or 4 days of travel. When we arrived at our first ski destination I discovered what a poopsicle is.

Then there was Amarillo, TX, News Year Eve 2014. Ever hear of a Blue Norther. Temperature dropped to 0 with 25-30 mph winds. I didn't pick up the sewer hose. It had a kink in it, there was a section that froze solid. When I went to disconnect it the hose just fell apart in my hands. Then things got worse. My tank heaters had quit working. The tanks froze. I didn't know it. We drove on up to Pueblo, CO. Went to hook up, nada. No water no movement in the tanks. My RV battery had drained down to practically nothing, that means my electric/hydraulic brakes where not working. All the dealers I called within a couple of hundred miles were booked up for a month. We were talking about heading south to thaw things out. Then Camping World in Denver called back and said they could take us. We dropped the RV off on Friday, they let it thaw out in the shop over the weekend. Lucky no pipes burst, no leaks. $1500 and a 5 day hotel stay we had new tanks heaters and were on our way.

I have added mechanical indoor/outdoor thermometers to the under belly. They reside in the storage bay and run through the floor so the sensors are near the tanks. I monitor their temperature when we are in freezing weather to make sure my tank heaters are working.

[WhittleBurner]

Our first RV was an Aliner, after about a year of ownership we stumbled on the organization of the very first Aliner rally back in the late 90s. We had NEVER camped outside of a state or national forest setting before and this was at a private CG in PA. We arrive about 1 AM, quietly get in our spot and go to bed. maybe a couple hours later we hear a big , no make that huge! KAPOW!! I'm thinking oh crap, the water heater is getting ready to explode under my head. I jump out of bed to land in about 3 or 4 inches of water . So someone needs to get that water turned off fast, Gary says he needs to get his pants on first. I'm thinking we don't have time for that and I ran to the water spigot buck naked to turn it off. It's 3 am so figured it was relatively safe no one would see me. We spent the next couple hours cleaning up all the water. The kitchen sink (yep we had a tiny kitchen in the A) The next morning we learned all about water pressure regulators and what they do , never heard of one before then. To this day that little Aliner still has the water line around the whole interior (Our son is now the owner so we get to visit our first RV now and then)
After that we went back to camping in the forest for the next 12 years with the exception of 1 more pop up rally.

The moral of the story is if you're going to sleep nekkid use a water pressure regulator. Some days I really miss taking that little trailer back into the woods.

[el Rojo]

We have RV'ed for almost 30 years, and yes we've had a few bumps and such BUT...the three that I remember the most all involved the sewer hose. Nuff said!

Red

Well I think I should add that I never took a bath (it will OK to shake my hand at the next rally). LOL. But before our Grand Design days we always had motorhomes. The sewer connections are in a compartment unlike being below the trailer like the 5th wheels. Boy does it make a mess in a compartment.

[GENESIS]

Man-oh-man.....I'm glad I'm not the only one that (inadvertently) does bonehead stuff. BUT......I'm kinda scared now because some of what has been described here hasn't happened to me.....YET.

Also, I'm wondering if a theory in the dirt bike world applies to RV ownership? The theory goes like this: You know that your brand new YamaHondaSuzKawi CRDRWM 450 is gonna get banged up sooner or later riding in the woods. So, to alleviate yourself of the mental anguish, it's better to get the bump/scrapes over with as soon as possible so you can move on. One method is to take the bike out of the truck, set it on it's side stand in the driveway, and then kick the dang thing over. BOOM. Done. Carry on. LOL

I know the theory holds for new cars I've had. Once they get their first door ding (and that's within a month after you buy it no matter how far you park it away from others), no more dings for several years.

Is it that way for RV's? If so, I need to go out there and just get it over with. LMAO.......

Tom

[D2Reid]

Elevation related explosions.

You know when you fly in an airplane and they hand out a bag of chips or peanuts and the bags is all blown up like a balloon. So you eat the snack and get thirsty so you drink half a bottle of water and when you land the bottle is all shriveled up and partially collapsed. Same thing can happen in an RV.

We started in Florida, about as sea level as you can get, 19'. We found ourselves going over Berthoud Pass in Colorado, 11,000'. Some really weird stuff was happening.

First off I couldn't seem to get the air pressure in the tires to stay balanced. Every day I would adjust it before we started and by the end of the day the pressure was either above normal or below
normal.

Then we cooked hotdogs, I like mustard on my hotdog. Cooked em up got the buns all toasty grabbed the mustard bottle turned it upside down and opened the little pour spout. Holy cow I got mustard everywhere.

We keep a little bottle of dish soap handy, refill it from a big bottle we keep under the sink, lots cheaper than buying lots of little bottles. Went to refill the little bottle, the big bottle was laying in it's side, the top was open. The best I can figure is the bottle fell over, then the pressure build up from the altitude change forced the push down lid to pop open. We are still finding dish detergent in really strange places. The big bottle now resides in it's own stand alone plastic basket.

Tom, I just bought a new Suzuki DR650 to put into my new 376TH garage. If I take a hammer to my Suzuki does that mean my 376TH will never get a ding? Inquiring minds want to know how your Dirt Bike Theory can be stretched.

Dallas

[TahoeTrekker]

OK... I'll cop to my two epic fails in less than 15 minutes. Oct 2015, our 303 was 6 months old....first Fifth Wheel for us. After a few short trips in the summer we head to see the kids in San Clemente, drop the wife off at our sons house and I go to Doheny State beach in Dana Point with the trailer. The beach sites are tight 90 degree turns to back in..... as usual people come out to help..a woman has decided to spot me.... my neighbors to the left bring out the lawn chairs to watch... so my spotter is telling me to keep coming as my turn gets tighter and.......POP.... there goes my back window on the Dodge, glass shatters and falls like a water fall..dogs start barking. I'm trying to keep calm as I get out and I notice everyone is fleeing the scene. Forgot to use my slider....no damage to the cab or trailer... but now I am really PO'd. Should have sat down and taken a deep breath but I jump in the truck, do the drive of shame around the campground with glass falling everywhere. Get back to the site...engage the slider and back it in first try... put the dogs in the trailer..... start my routine.....(as they say in law enforcement..nothing is routine), start to lower my front legs when Im interrupted by my spotter who wants to make "nice" with an angry man... we chat briefly and off she goes. I go back to my duties and release the trailer from the hitch.....can you guess whats next?
In slow motion I watch the trailer sliding back off the hitch....dam no blocks on the tires...... I panic when I then realize I never finished putting the front legs down.... I reach for the switch put too late the pin falls onto the top of my tailgate.....instant 9 or 10" dent.... looks like a smaller v wedge you see on the plastic tailgates you can buy for towing. Now Im fried at myself.........I get the trailer off the tailgate...tailgate actually still worked and so did the back up camera.... I get all set up...start sweeping up all the glass and suddenly my daughter in law pulls up with the wife..... my wife see's the look on my face and instantly says "what happen?" It would have been bad enough explaining the window..try explaining both these.... cost $450 for the glass the next day.....$1000 for a straightened tailgate and paint.... we now only stay at San Clemente State Beach when down there....it has pull through's .

[K&I337RLS]

TahoeTrekker, you are not alone. seen this happen more than once. So, when we went to a 5er I got the auto slider. Few years later I got the V-tailgate. Of course that didn't stop me from catching low tree branches(new 337RLS). Luckily no damage. The better half went up & held them off the roof while I slowly pulled away. Before that I went from our 69 GMC short bed to 2006 Dodge CC. Went to get our our 30' TT from storage & didn't figure in the extra length of the TV & clipped the rear corner on the corner of building. Lucky again, a little rubbing & all was good. The better half was pulling our first 5er thru southern Il. & hit a huge hole(man made hole & after the signs side end of road work)& flexed it so bad we lost a large portion of the fiberglass siding. Oh yeah, then there was the time we pulled into a fuel station in the mountains with a steep entrance, of course the rear sewer cap just rotated off while the dump valve handle was also catching & pulling open. You had to be there. Lucky again as it was just the "blue water" as we hadn't used it(we now use orange drop ins LoL).
Keith

[offtohavasu]

So here is my incredibly bad mistake from a couple of years ago. Came back from our trip from So Cal to South Dakota and back. Everything went well, except one of the screws that holds that little nob for the folding shade screen fell out. No problem, I have a plenty of screws. Go in to the garage, find the peanut butter jar that has, what I think, is the correct sized screw, pop in the new one and go on my way cleaning the inside of the trailer. Neighbor comes over asks how the trip was, yadda, yadda yadda. Then he asks, "Why is there a screw popping out the side of the trailer?" WHAT?!?! Son of a... Yeah, the screw I used was evidently a tad bit longer than the original. So lesson learned, trailer walls are thinner and pull another screw from somewhere else to verify the size.

[Steve7]

This thread really has some steam behind it. Sounds like an RV Anonymous meeting...love it! All in good company.

[D2Reid]

This one goes way back. Improper Roof Repair.

We had a 24 foot TT before we bought the 5th wheel. Caught a branch on the left rear corner of the roof and tore the rubber roof slightly. I had a tube of exterior silicone caulking at the house so just grabbed a ladder and caulked around the tear. Problem solved.

I found out later that petroleum based products eat holes in rubber roofs. Sure enough, my little patch job failed. Thankfully it was very small, otherwise it would have been disastrous.

Dallas