Thursday, April 15, 2010

Another day at the Red Bay Garage!

I'm sitting in the customer service lounge of the big long building with all the service doors.  I hadn't given much hope for getting into the paint shop, and didn't have a service appointment set up, so we just hung out this morning.

After lunch, I wandered over to see if we would be invited in for some work today, and as I was gone, the Cummins repair fellow arrived.  Thank goodness for cell phones, as Loyce was after me to return.


I didn't even know that we had a recall on our Cummins chassis, but when we arrived last week our neighbor was having work done to his rig, a recall, and his was just like ours!  Uh,,, does that recall include us too?  He took down our VIN and said he would be back with us.

Today was when he was back with us to do the recall.  Really it wasn't anything except he needed to connect his laptop to our Engine Control Module.  But as he explained, they have had problems with the ECM shutting down and refusing to start again.  Especially at fuel stops.  Requires changing the ECM out completely after being towed to a repair facility.  He referred to us as a ticking time bomb.  Nice!


The recall was mailed last spring, and went to the owner of record, which would have been our dealer.  But after a few moments of program inquiry, he came up with a revision number of 15 in the ECM software, which meant that the recall had not been performed.

His computer worked on the ECM for about 15 minutes before it declared that we were up to date with revision 32.  He sat in the drivers seat and started the engine, while working on the dash controls.  Declaring us complete, I signed the repair ticket.  We never left the site!

Then back over to the repair facility, I found out that we would be invited over for paint work much later in the day!  So at about 2:30, I received a cell phone call to be at door 20 in five minutes.  Ya gotta be picked up and ready to fold the slides in a moments notice around here.

But then I messed up the paint  with my own driving skills, so I have to be willing to wait for the service it takes to get it fixed.  The rock chips that were in the front were there when the dealer delivered it since he had used it at shows before we got it.

They work overtime in the paint shop, and put it at least ten hour days, so that would mean that we would be out of here about 5 PM or later.

(Later on)



Well we were out at 5, but with instructions to return at 7 AM.  So another early to bed night is in order, as 6 AM comes right early, but you will not oversleep, because the big diesel engines will be coming to life before 7 just in case you might forget!

Retired Rod

3 comments:

  1. Craziest vacation i've ever read about! You have more patience than I have, that's for sure.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well one way to look at it for a couple of early morning reveille's you will at least have you coach up to date. Then you can get back to life as normal. Sam & Donna....

    ReplyDelete
  3. It doesn't sound much like a fun place to be, but glad you are getting all the work done.

    ReplyDelete

Anonymous comments had to be eliminated.... For the most part this has removed unwanted responses.. If you can't post your comments, please email me and we will make other arrangements...