The DisFort's Chit Chat Cafe

[tiggerdad]

Ok so fixed my beams in the basement. They were cracked and gave off too much deflection in the living room. They needed to be sistered up. View attachment 651265View attachment 651266View attachment 651267View attachment 651268 So instead of waiting for help, trugged through it. Its done , but im not 30 anymore. I am sore. Not used to working over my head all day. Next up wiring for lights and outlets, then to rebuild the train layout. Stay tuned. You have no choice , I'm posting it anyway!

Old school metal work light...I like it

 

[tiggerdad]

Ed is likely drooling looking at the train stuff.

 

[jbrostek]

My vent on the craziness of what dealers will try to sell you. Sit down, get some tea.

So rolling into 2020 and after our wedding. My wife and I went to the RV show in Chantilly, VA for the 3rd year anniversary of meeting there. Our first date was at the RV show in 2018 when I was still recovering from my foot surgery. I had no idea at the time that I was about to meet such an amazing and loving person. In 2020, we included the girls and said let's see what was out there. We had already done a bunch of camping trips in the old RV and knew while it did ok, it was not the most optimal sleeping arrangement for the girls heading into their teen years.

This lead us to falling in love with the GD Solitude 380FL. The front living with two pull out beds, and the bath and a half looked so promising for what we wanted. I think at this point only some of the newer RKs to compete. Anyway, we looked at several brands/setups and the solitude was the nicest for the price. We then went and made the deal....and this leads up to my venting.

General RV had a good price, good financing options, but man are they super high pressure post sales. Trying to sell lots of products from ceramic coating (we bought and would do it again), to extended warranty, and even a tire system call Tyron tire band. Now Tyron is a run flat safety band for non run flat tires is my interpretation. The product sounds great for big RV steer tires, though after 10 years of RVing an dealing with blowouts, I have never had a trailer blow out cause loss of control of the truck/trailer combination. When penning the deal I declined that product at the RV show. However, several days later I asked to add slide topper awnings and the modified paperwork added these Tyron products and the 2200 dollars in cost to the deal. After many calls going unanswered I finally got the manager and said in no way shape or form do we want this product installed. They took it off the deal and I assumed that was that.

Now the RV came with G rated tires of the Westlake branding. Straight from China and likely inferior to everything else out there produced by other brands. However, after talking to several people they said they consistently got about 3 years out of the tires. So we fast forward to 2022, the westlakes are 3 years old and I was planning to replace them. A bonus is my friend Ken has decided to trade in his Momentum 351 for a Momentum 397ths. This trade in moves him up to 17.5 rims with H rated tires, and he just happens to have 1 year old Saliun G rated tires on the soon to be traded rig. We come up with a plan to swap tires and trade in the RV with my old westlakes on his rig. Not a big deal other then swapping some tires from rim to rim.....so so I thought.

So I get to the shop with some of the rims/tires to swap. I go to remove the first tire off my RV and something is wrong, the bead broke off the rim but I cannot position it to be removed from the rim. Some inspection and we see this steel ring like this one:




So I head back home and go through all the stuff that came with the RV. I find a fabric pouch with the Tyron brand on it and instructions. It is a emergency band removal kit and I think great, now I get to figure out how to remove these things permanently from my rims. I setup the kit and and go to work on the first tire, except the issue is that the sidewall of this commercial G rated tire will not compress enough for this tool. After 90 minutes of fighting with it, I finally got to the bolt to undo it the band and we let the band fall in the tire. Then I start to remove the tire and get all the guts of the tire band out of the tire. So one down and 3 to go, well I look at the state of the emergency removal tool and it was severely bent and warped. I attempted another wheel and it was too much for the kit and we could not even get the band exposed. This turned into a 1 hour conversation with Tyron-USA owner that there are no tire shops in the area that service this, and the nearest is my dealership.

So thanks to the dealer adding a not popularly supported product to my wheels. I spent 3 days trying to remove them and now waiting on a replacement emergency kit and have an appointment with a local commercial tire shop. We are hoping to remove the remaining tire bands and I plan to never ever allow them to be reinstalled. I don't care how good of a product it is, when there is no support from the industry, you create a custom unsupportable rim. I am so thankful that I did not learn this on the side of the road with a flat.

So even when the company doesn't charge you for something, you can still end up paying in the end. Thanks for the rant.

 

[Part-Time Paradise]

My vent on the craziness of what dealers will try to sell you. Sit down, get some tea.

So rolling into 2020 and after our wedding. My wife and I went to the RV show in Chantilly, VA for the 3rd year anniversary of meeting there. Our first date was at the RV show in 2018 when I was still recovering from my foot surgery. I had no idea at the time that I was about to meet such an amazing and loving person. In 2020, we included the girls and said let's see what was out there. We had already done a bunch of camping trips in the old RV and knew while it did ok, it was not the most optimal sleeping arrangement for the girls heading into their teen years.

This lead us to falling in love with the GD Solitude 380FL. The front living with two pull out beds, and the bath and a half looked so promising for what we wanted. I think at this point only some of the newer RKs to compete. Anyway, we looked at several brands/setups and the solitude was the nicest for the price. We then went and made the deal....and this leads up to my venting.

General RV had a good price, good financing options, but man are they super high pressure post sales. Trying to sell lots of products from ceramic coating (we bought and would do it again), to extended warranty, and even a tire system call Tyron tire band. Now Tyron is a run flat safety band for non run flat tires is my interpretation. The product sounds great for big RV steer tires, though after 10 years of RVing an dealing with blowouts, I have never had a trailer blow out cause loss of control of the truck/trailer combination. When penning the deal I declined that product at the RV show. However, several days later I asked to add slide topper awnings and the modified paperwork added these Tyron products and the 2200 dollars in cost to the deal. After many calls going unanswered I finally got the manager and said in no way shape or form do we want this product installed. They took it off the deal and I assumed that was that.

Now the RV came with G rated tires of the Westlake branding. Straight from China and likely inferior to everything else out there produced by other brands. However, after talking to several people they said they consistently got about 3 years out of the tires. So we fast forward to 2022, the westlakes are 3 years old and I was planning to replace them. A bonus is my friend Ken has decided to trade in his Momentum 351 for a Momentum 397ths. This trade in moves him up to 17.5 rims with H rated tires, and he just happens to have 1 year old Saliun G rated tires on the soon to be traded rig. We come up with a plan to swap tires and trade in the RV with my old westlakes on his rig. Not a big deal other then swapping some tires from rim to rim.....so so I thought.

So I get to the shop with some of the rims/tires to swap. I go to remove the first tire off my RV and something is wrong, the bead broke off the rim but I cannot position it to be removed from the rim. Some inspection and we see this steel ring like this one:

View attachment 651778


So I head back home and go through all the stuff that came with the RV. I find a fabric pouch with the Tyron brand on it and instructions. It is a emergency band removal kit and I think great, now I get to figure out how to remove these things permanently from my rims. I setup the kit and and go to work on the first tire, except the issue is that the sidewall of this commercial G rated tire will not compress enough for this tool. After 90 minutes of fighting with it, I finally got to the bolt to undo it the band and we let the band fall in the tire. Then I start to remove the tire and get all the guts of the tire band out of the tire. So one down and 3 to go, well I look at the state of the emergency removal tool and it was severely bent and warped. I attempted another wheel and it was too much for the kit and we could not even get the band exposed. This turned into a 1 hour conversation with Tyron-USA owner that there are no tire shops in the area that service this, and the nearest is my dealership.

So thanks to the dealer adding a not popularly supported product to my wheels. I spent 3 days trying to remove them and now waiting on a replacement emergency kit and have an appointment with a local commercial tire shop. We are hoping to remove the remaining tire bands and I plan to never ever allow them to be reinstalled. I don't care how good of a product it is, when there is no support from the industry, you create a custom unsupportable rim. I am so thankful that I did not learn this on the side of the road with a flat.

So even when the company doesn't charge you for something, you can still end up paying in the end. Thanks for the rant.

So tired of the upsell. Glad you got it sorted, kind of.

 

[Teamubr]

Tyron bands are a big point of discussion on the diesel pusher forums. The fear mongers swear you will die in an explosive crash when (not if) you blow a tire on your coach. Most others have said the bands are far more trouble than they are worth.

j

 

[tiggerdad]

So tired of the upsell. Glad you got it sorted, kind of.

This is so true. I hate dealers now, I really do. My original go to dealer who treated us well on our first TT failed me in too many to mention ways on my latest RV.

 

[jbrostek]

Tyron bands are a big point of discussion on the diesel pusher forums. The fear mongers swear you will die in an explosive crash when (not if) you blow a tire on your coach. Most others have said the bands are far more trouble than they are worth.

I could not imaging this removal kit being able to compress a tire enough to get a 22.5 bead past the band to unbolt it. Talking to the largest commercial/large RV tire company in the area only one mobile tech heard of it and he said it took him an hour to cut the tire and the bolt to remove the band. We suspect we will need to do that on my rims now too. The tire swap did not happen, I am just buying 4 new tires and they are going to help me get these bands off.

I miss Stoltzfus, for the few annoying things they did on the old rig where mostly delays. I was never upsold useless items and the buying experience was great, their service department never tried to charge me for any warranty items they could not reproduce the issue on. I would likely talk to them again for our next rig unless they change ownership and go the way of General RV.

 

[Teamubr]

General doesn't have a great reputation on the forums.

As for the Tyron bands, they seem to be a solution looking for a problem. If front tire blow outs and the tires coming off the rim were so common and lethal, I would think there would be a bead lock rim like we run on the dirt track cars.

j

 

[jbrostek]

In 2019 a friend had a great experience with the Ashland dealership. I was hopeful in 2020, and our experience was they were hours late from appointment time. Super high pressure to buy overmarked up items I could care less about, and things I could care about and TOLD them it better be done, where not. Well that same friend traded up to a GD 397THS this weekend and it was a complete disaster.

First they screwed up and penned the deal on a VIN that was the WRONG MODEL!, it was a 397TH! Then attempted to high pressure them to accept it because the VIN was the one they supplied. It was akin to wanting a Ford F350 Platinum, but then showing up and finding out its a F350 Lariat and they still want you to take it but at first only offered to bump 500 of the price. In the end they negotiated a new deal, I wish I would have reminded them early on they have the power to walk away from the deal since it was Generals screw up.

I am off to the tire shop this morning with the new emergency removal kit in hops of saying goodbye to these tyron bands for good!!

 

[jbrostek]

No word yet from the tire shop on removing the bands and getting new tires one. I am expecting a call from them cursing me out and then telling me the work is done and come pay the piper.

In the meantime I been working on the running gear while the weather was nicer. Inspection wise the brakes, seals and bearings all looked great. I did an in hub repack of the inner bearing rather then removing the rear seal. And then repacked the outer bearings and pushed some grease to make sure it had some. Then packed pushed some more using the EZ-Lube before I put the dust caps one. I was happy to see that my repacking work and adding through EZ lube over the last two years looked great. I have never been one to obsess over it. I do think I need to hit the wet bolts a little more often because a few really fought me to take some grease.

I have 2 weeks till I work an event at the track. Then 2 weeks later we head down to central VA for the weekend.

 

[2goofycampers]

What sites are accurate for finding the value of an RV or a vehicle?

 

[tiggerdad]

What sites are accurate for finding the value of an RV or a vehicle?

Kelley Blue Book is usually pretty close.

I also like to do searches for year and model and see what average going price is on them also.

 

[mickeyfan0805]

Kelley Blue Book is usually pretty close.

I also like to do searches for year and model and see what average going price is on them also.

Where do you find KBB for RV's? I'm only ever able to find that for cars. NADA has an RV listing that gets pretty specific, but I'd love to have another source to compare, as list prices and NADA don't seem to line up at all in our case.

 

[Sjm9911]

Nada, I thought was prety accurate, and they ajusted prices after covid. You do have to know what are options, and what is standerd. So , if it has ac as standard, you dont click that box as an option. As always during covid , prices are high right now. So people may ask way more then what it is valued.

 

[Sjm9911]

As an example of price increases, here is the NADA for my camper. Its a 2012 kz spree, I bought it cheap, 3 years? Ago for 9200. The prices have gone up a ton for used. I think thats a pretty good baseline as i see other people buy worse stuff at about 15,000. I also didnt add in any options, i did when I bought it and the high end on NADA was like 12,000 back 3 years ago.

 

[Teamubr]

What sites are accurate for finding the value of an RV or a vehicle?

I have found NADA to be the best for used RVs. I have a link on my home computer that showed the dealer invoice cost and MSRP for new RVs. When I bought my old 5er six years ago, it was dead on. It is helpful to see what is a realistic price and still let the dealer make some profit. Since Covid, with supply and quality issues and high demand, I'm not sure what is "
normal" anymore.

I'll look for the link tonight and post it for the new RV pricing.

j

 

[ILove2Travel]

We have a reservation for The Fort from after Easter until mid May. We made this reservation back when we had a working RV. The RV is now being repaired and is unlikely to be ready in time for our trip. I’ve looked at renting a travel trailer from Kissimmee Orlando RV Rentals and am hoping someone here has knowledge/experience of this company. Any information or advice would be welcome. We’re going to be spending a lot of time in their product and I’d like to feel comfortable about the decision. Thank you.

 

[bama_ed]

We have a reservation for The Fort from after Easter until mid May. We made this reservation back when we had a working RV. The RV is now being repaired and is unlikely to be ready in time for our trip. I’ve looked at renting a travel trailer from Kissimmee Orlando RV Rentals and am hoping someone here has knowledge/experience of this company. Any information or advice would be welcome. We’re going to be spending a lot of time in their product and I’d like to feel comfortable about the decision. Thank you.

If you use the "Search Forums" link and enter the keywords "Kissimmee Orlando RV rental" and point it to look at our main DIS Camping forum, you'll get several hits. Might be a good place to start if you haven't done this yet.

Questions often come up on the main DIS Camping Board about renting trailers or rv's for FW and that's where you'll find the most info. Good luck!

Bama Ed

PS - also check a rental vendor's standing with their local Better Business Bureau. When things go bad with a vendor (and they have over the years), the BBB is one place people complain to so BBB is probably current on what a vendor's standing could be.

 

[Teamubr]

What sites are accurate for finding the value of an RV or a vehicle?

Denise,

Here is the web site I referenced earlier to show RV cost vs MSRP.

j

 

[tiggerdad]

Where do you find KBB for RV's? I'm only ever able to find that for cars. NADA has an RV listing that gets pretty specific, but I'd love to have another source to compare, as list prices and NADA don't seem to line up at all in our case.

I was referring to vehicle, not the RV.

You are correct, NADA is only one for RV that has any real history of being dependable