Things Don’t Just Come in Threes

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

August has not been a good month for us.  We started our bad luck off when our hot water heater in the motorhome bit the dust.  Then, the installer of the new tank knocked the pipe off the sink drain.  Naturally, we didn’t discover it until we tried to figure out why we were getting water all over our floor.  Now our floor really needs to be replaced.  Next, our awning ripped.  Obviously any ripped awning needs to be replaced if you hope to use. 

Wait --- we aren’t done yet.  Once we left the coast and arrived inland, we decided to swap vehicles so headed south on the freeway with the our Wrangler.  About two miles north of our exit, the engine just stopped.  We thought it was a fuel pump.  In hindsight, we wish it was a fuel pump.  It wasn’t.  It was the timing belt.  We’ve yet to find out if it also took the valves and maybe more with it.  Next, we returned to our little home base only to discover that our refrigerator had died.  Have you been counting the dollars ($$$$)?  We certainly have.  As I said, it’s not been a good month for us and then to top it off, I worry about Syria.  I worry about Justin being there.

Some RVers have roadside assistance with Good Sam and others with Coach-Net.  The fine print is a little different with both of them.  We know we understood it when we read it but it didn’t mean much until it was time to use it.  We’ve had Coach-Net’s road service for about 4 years. We’ve used it a few times and had mixed feelings with it – some okay and some just okay.

When we were stuck on the side of the road we discovered what “unlimited towing” really means and what “towed to the nearest facility” means.  It definitely doesn’t mean unlimited towing.  It really means towed to the nearest service center they select. 

Coach-Net would tow us to the Jeep dealership. If I said that dealership was 10 miles from our breakdown location, I would be greatly exaggerating the distance but I’m giving Coach-Net the benefit here.  However, their chart indicated it was 36 miles!!  Heck, we could have been downtown Portland in less than 36 miles.  They would not tow us three miles down the road to a semi-truck lot and they would not tow us five miles to our son’s house.  Of course, they also would not tow us to our own mechanic either.  Do these roadside assistance places get kickbacks from the dealerships for each vehicle they have towed in?  Well, I asked the representative that question.  Obviously, she didn’t answer and just read back what the contract said …. to the nearest service facility.

At one time the representative indicated we were only allowed one tow a year.  That’s not the plan we paid for.  Another time she told us the maximum mileage we could be towed was 25 miles and anything beyond that was an additional fee.  That’s not the upgraded plan we paid for either.

Arrival time of the tow truck was also interesting.  We were first told the tow truck would take about 1 1/2 hours to arrive.  Then, we were told about 2 hours.  Next, we were told if we decided to go to the Jeep dealership, it would be there in 45 minutes. 

We were on the shoulder of the very busy I-5.  We weren’t interested in hanging around there any longer than necessary.  We called Michael and he just happened to be on his way back from Longview.  Thus, I had a ride to pick up our Liberty.  We decided to be our own tow truck!  Lee and Michael waited with the Wrangler while I took Terry to get the motorhome. We hooked up the Wrangler to the motorhome and took it to our own mechanic.

Next we unloaded the kayaks from the Wrangler.  They were loaded into the back of Liberty and taken to our home base … one kayak at time.  We had planned on moving the motorhome back into Lee and Sabrina’s driveway while we worked on it but we since we were just a couple miles from the homebase so that’s where it went for now.

We were able to pull this off because we could tow the Wrangler.  Had it been the motorhome that would not have been an option.  That evening we decided to add a back-up to Coach-Net. We added a Good Sam Roadside Assistance card to that pile of cards we are already carrying.  Next year when Coach-Net runs out we’ll probably upgrade the Good Sam and go with it.

‘Tis life on the road.

Consider me very stressed!   --  USS Gravely DDG 107