Searching for an RV, sense of impending doom...

We are off to find our next home. Should be a very exciting time… Right?

Well, we are total noobs here and I guess it shows. We first fell in love with a Gulf Stream and even purchased it.

The dealer told us there were some final projects that needed to be completed and it would be a few weeks. We were told about mid February. Well, this was our first clue to the character of this small dealer. Come mid March we still had not heard anything and we started to do our own homework. The dealer had outsourced the labor, so we went straight to the mechanic shop (thought we’d cut out the middle man). The news was quite alarming. Apparently the coach had some aftermarket suspension parts that have failed and the manufacturer was out of business. The coach was not drivable and was going to take months to repair with salvage parts.

He then offered to put us in a Winnebago Adventurer instead! Obviously he had us over a barrel here so we agreed to entertain the Winnebago. We made a different trip all the way back to Charleston SC - about 2 hours- and got our first impressions of what we now call “The Winniebeast”.

She was rough! But we thought the bones were strong and the dealer assured us this was a good solid coach and he was going to make all the cosmetic repairs, after all, this is what their whole business was centered on.

Okay, this story is getting long, so I will speed it up. After months of (what we later learned were) lies and deceit he delivered the coach to us. Most of the “renovations” were completed.

I say “renovations” in quotes because it was so laughable! However, again, we were kinda stuck here and I knew I could redo all of his shortcomings.

But..

The next day, the engine blew up. Yep, it blew up! We had planned an 8 hour trip to Florida and 10 minutes into the trip the thing is billowing white smoke, the smoke alarm and carbon monoxide alarm are sounding and we nearly got stranded.

He apologized, offered to come get it and take it to the mechanic to sort out what was wrong and he gave us 1000.00 for our inconvenience.

While away on our trip, sitting next to a pool I got a call from the mechanic, what I already knew, the engine was dead and would need to be replaced… .

More about the engine in the next post!