RV care and upkeep
Got an older RV? Manuals are a treasure
By Russ and Tina DeMaris
Feb 24, 2010, 12:44

photo: R&T DeMaris

If a brand new rig is way out of your financial reach, you may settle for a “pre-loved” (as some charitably put it) rig. At the price, you could be settling for some “project” work, just as we did when we bought a well-worn truck camper. One thing that immediately surfaced: That nice awning on the side of the rig had somewhere met up with an immovable object, and the awning was in need of a couple of parts. Where to turn?

For anyone with an RV, unless you’re new and all under warranty, this is an issue you’ve already faced, or will soon enough. And the older the rig, the greater the likelihood that you’ll have to roll up your sleeves, get down, and get clever in tracking down those o-so-necessary RV parts.

Forearmed With Documentation

When your RV first rolled of the assembly line and made its way to the dealer, somewhere was a lovely packet full of freshly minted owner’s manuals. There’s gold in them thar manuals! Don’t ever toss them out, even if you know everything there is to know about your stuff, the next guy who buys your rig may not. And if you plan on ever doing any repair work yourself, take it a step farther: Add to your documentation files, and do it now, while the rig is still new.

“But I’ve got all the owner’s manuals for everything here!” Sure, but there’s a lot more to be had that you may need someday. Our new “baby” had just about every manual conceived--with the small exception of the manual for the awning. That was fairly easily remedied--we “Googled” the awning manufacturer’s name in, and sure enough, we quickly had a web site where we could actually download the awning “owner’s manual” right over the Internet. As helpful as the owner’s manual was, we were still flummoxed--we needed parts, but which ones?

Here’s where a little advance work can help you. If you have the resources to buy a new rig, that means the repair documentation and parts lists are pretty likely still in print. Get on the horn, or hit the Internet, and quickly contact each appliance and accessory manufacturer. Tell them you’d really like to get copies of any repair and diagnostics manuals, wiring diagrams, and parts lists that are available. Nearly all manufacturers will oblige you, many will even provide the information for free. Even if you need to purchase the information, you may wind up thanking yourself over and over that you had the foresight to buy it.

Why is this so critical? In the case of the “mad awning parts caper” it became hard to even track down the correct parts list. Several phone calls, hours of “music on hold,” and no less than three e-mailings from the manufacturer finally provided the correct parts list. Another 40 minutes on the phone got the parts we needed on their way to us. Had we the original manual, we’d have been miles ahead. If we had the parts list and exploded diagram, we could have reduced the frustration and “air time” use by an exponential factor.

Happily, the manufacturer we needed was still in business, and added to the joy, they still had the requisite parts. But if your rig is an orphan, meaning the company that produced it is either out of business, or no longer makes it, the woes can become compounded. Orphan RV parts are a specialty unto themselves. In the past, we’ve dealt with plenty of phone calls, ‘over hill and over dale’ with myriads of obscure, dusty shops. How often we’ve heard that croaking voice on the other end of the line say, “Welllll, if only ya had the part number, I might be able to find the durn thing . . .”

When we come back in our next posting, we'll talk more about dealing with "technical support."



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