This past month we’ve learned a bit more about full-time RVing and living on the road.
After we left Texas, we noticed some odd cupping and wear patterns on the trailer tires. Chuck has always been very conscientious in checking the air pressure in the tires on a regular basis, making sure to inflate them to the proper level. Because he’s been so diligent, we didn’t think the wear was from low pressure, rather it was an alignment issue. A month earlier, Chuck had even replaced his tire gauge with a newer one as he wasn’t sure the old was was working properly.
I should note that a year earlier we had noticed wear on the outer edge of the tires and did get an alignment on the trailer tires while in Salt Lake City, UT. We thought it odd that we’d need another alignment so soon, but decided with all the miles we do on the road, it was a good possibility.
On our arrival in Little Rock AK, we started phoning various alignment and RV shops, trying to find a business that did RV trailer alignments. This was not an easy task. There was one shop everyone recommended, but they were overbooked and would not have been able to assist us for a week. This was Thursday afternoon of a 3 day holiday weekend, so we knew it was not looking good. After 10 different phone calls, we were able to get a tractor trailer business to agree to look at the trailer first thing in the morning to give us a better feel of what to do.
The folks there were nice, but couldn’t do much other than look at the axles and tires. They didn’t give me much hope for our trip between Texas and New England, but Chuck was confident that we could make our trip. Besides, it was now Friday of the 3 day weekend and no one would be able to look at and work on the rig. I called ahead to Massachusetts and was directed to a business in the area we wanted to be that did alignments and booked an appointment for the day after our intended arrival.
We arrived at Spring Rebuilders in Worcester and were treated very kindly. They measured and checked things out. The tires were within an 1/8” so the alignment was ok. But they noticed some wear (egging) of the suspension bars on our axle suspension. They did not have the parts to repair and knew it would take them some time to get the parts and schedule us for that work. However, our technician urged us to contact another business over in Oxford, MA to get help.
We phoned RV’s R US and were told to come right over and they’d look to see what they could do. We pulled in and the owner and son interrupted the work they were doing to look at our situation. They then spent 30 odd minutes calling around to find parts for the repair / replacement we needed. They located the parts and were able to schedule us in for repair work 2 days later, bumping some lesser work back in the day or for next week to accommodate us and get us back on the road.
Here's a photo from MorRyd's website showing an older suspension/shackle and their new beefed up version. Want to make a guess at what we had and what we now have? Note, ours had not worn out as the piece in the photo shows, but was wearing and would have broken, possibly before we got to FL for the winter season.
So what is the learning curve lesson? While our trailer was built and marketed as full-time status (it’s an insurance thing), most folks who do live full-time do not put 15-20,000 miles a year on their rigs. As such, the parts that were wearing last the life of the RV. But because we spend a good 6 months moving about, the travel on the roads makes things wear out sooner.
So now we know, check this stuff more frequently than we thought. And we also found 2 very good business in Central Massachusetts we will want to use should we need RV service work in the future.
