RV ALASKA - #%&*! - Or How We Spent National Go RVing Day

We came to La Grande, Oregon, to have our trailer brakes and bearings replaced by an RV repair shop in town, run by a couple of guys with long histories in the RV industry.  Just routine maintenance – or so we thought.  After all, this travel trailer has over 40,000 miles on it.  While we were in La Grande, we were trying to resolve the “check trailer wiring” and “service trailer brake system” messages we were getting on the new truck.  Luckily, the GMC dealer in Baker City squeezed us in to take a look.  They said it was the plug where the trailer connects to the truck, but they didn’t have one in stock.  They were kind enough to call around for us, and found a shop along our route in Spokane, Washington, that had the plug and said they would be able to fit us in on Saturday morning at 11:00 a.m.  With a four-hour drive and at least one gas stop ahead of us, we left La Grande a little after 6:00 a.m. on Saturday.  Until that day, the alerts we had been getting were intermittent, and the trailer brakes always came back on.  Not so on Saturday.  We had no trouble at all during the entire drive to Spokane, and we believed that replacing the trailer brakes had fixed a problem we didn’t realize we had.  But when we were about a mile from the dealership, our trailer brakes went out completely – and didn’t come back.

You may recall that my last post ended with Alan and me still waiting in the service area of the GMC dealership in Spokane.  We cannot say enough good things about the service team at GMC of Riverfront Park!  Our service advisor (Jon) and service technician (Holden) were in almost constant contact discussing potential reasons for the failure and the possibility of getting a parts order submitted in time to ensure the delivery of any needed parts by Monday.  (Monday?!  We’re supposed to be in Canada on Monday!)  The truck was still throwing error codes – one related to the trailer brake switch and one related to the trailer brake module.  Holden was pretty sure it was the trailer causing the problem, not the truck.  We were insisting that we just had new trailer brakes put on three days ago, so it must be the truck, not the trailer.

Then, Alan and Holden crawled under the trailer, and Alan said, “Whoa!”  Both wires for one of the new brakes were pinched between two pieces of metal where the brake backer plate is bolted onto the axle.  This was, most likely, causing some kind of short in the system.  Alan and Holden agreed that a problem like this one would definitely prompt the truck to shut down the trailer’s braking system.  What to do?  We had no trailer brakes at all.  It’s one thing to travel a mile through town using the truck’s braking system to stop the trailer.  But to travel four hours without any trailer brakes all the way back to the RV repair shop in La Grande?  Not gonna happen.  Our safety was paramount, some type of repair was needed and I was starting to envision our week in Banff National Park in Canada circling the drain.  Angst with a capital A was running rampant.

Then Alan, forever my hero, came up with a plan.  If he cut and taped the bad brake wires, the truck’s trailer brake system should no longer recognize the problem with that brake.  Three brakes are better than none, right?  And he felt confident that we could travel safely back to La Grande.

After Alan cut the wires, Holden plugged his code reader into the truck again, and, as he had expected, the trailer brake module error code he had been getting had been transferred into history - meaning that the truck was no longer sensing a problem with the braking system.  Hurray!  Apparently, the plug was never actually an issue.  The overabundance of sealant had concerned the service technician in Baker City, but Holden said the amount of sealant in the plug that was needed to keep it watertight seemed to be about normal.

With assurances from Jon that they did order the trailer brake switch anyway and the part should arrive on Monday, we set up a plan to return to La Grande on Saturday evening and be at the RV repair shop first thing Monday morning to have the damaged brake wires replaced.  The shop was closed over the weekend, but Alan left a voicemail message and I sent along a photo he had taken of the pinched wires.  (I never really thought something like that would be the Pic of the Day, but there you have it.)  We immediately heard from the shop owner who promised us that they’d fix the problem first thing on Monday morning and get us back on the road as early as possible.

We arrived back in La Grande at nearly 9:30 p.m. on Saturday night with no reservations.  We ended up spending Saturday and Sunday nights in the parking lot at the ORV factory.  With the place closed down for the weekend, we didn’t think they’d mind.  Kind of ironic that the day of this misadventure was National Go RVing Day, don’t you think?

Early Monday morning, the guys at the repair shop fixed the brake wires and sent us on our way with their most sincere apologies.  I called Austin, the service manager at GMC of Riverfront Park in Spokane to let him know the repair was done and we would be back in Spokane by that afternoon.  (He had been off on Saturday and both Jon and Holden were off on Monday, so this was our first contact with Austin.)

When we arrived at the dealership in Spokane, Austin saw us pull up, and immediately came out to review the situation with us.  Since we hadn’t received any alerts since we left La Grande the second time, we were all thinking that the entire problem had been the trailer.  We figured that a code reader would now show no current issues, having moved everything else to history indicating that all problems had been solved.  And that’s exactly what happened.  Austin asked Joe, one of his service technicians, to come out to the street with his code reader and laptop so that we wouldn’t even have to detach the truck to bring it in the garage.  When Joe checked the error codes, they had, indeed, been moved to history and the truck indicated no problems with the trailer brake system.  We didn’t even need the trailer brake switch.  In other words, the culprit was the trailer, not the truck; the truck had responded appropriately to problems it had detected in the trailer’s braking system.  The new truck is working just fine and dandy, and the trailer brake issues are now resolved!  YAY!

Austin assured us we were good to go, and promised to email our completed paperwork after Jon and Holden had a chance to input their final notes to document the service visit.  This service team treated us incredibly well, and took good care of these two travelers far from home.  We’d definitely recommend them to anyone in need in the Spokane area.  Professional, helpful, friendly, diligent – really, we can’t say enough good things about them.  A big heartfelt, “Thank you, one and all!” to the service team at GMC of Riverfront in Spokane, Washington!

After we left the dealership, Alan and I stopped for an early supper in Spokane, then continued on to the Bonner County Fairgrounds in Sandpoint, Idaho - our last campsite in the States before crossing into Canada.  The RV Park at the Fairgrounds hadn’t been on our itinerary originally, but we had lost a weekend at beautiful Garfield Bay due to the issue with the trailer brakes, and nothing was available there for that Monday night.  The Fairgrounds would be a good Plan B – or so we thought until we actually tried to go to sleep.

Date(s) – June 8th – June 10^th

Total Miles Traveled to Date – 5,078

Wildlife to Date – Several small herds of pronghorn antelope (including two mamas with three newborn fawns between them), 6 bald eagles (including 2 fledglings), 3 great blue herons, dozens of American white pelicans, at least a half dozen families of adult geese with goslings, a number of ducks and 5 adorable ducklings.

Highlight(s) – From our big back window, we watched two mama pronghorn antelope with their newborns in the field across the road from us while we were “camped” in the ORV parking lot – as in, still wet behind the ears newborn.  They were absolutely precious – and this is why we always keep binoculars in the book basket by our recliners.  The biggest highlight, however, was the fact that both the truck and the trailer were declared good to go – and so were we.  We called Parks Canada to let them know that we’d be arriving one day late for our reservations at the Tunnel Mountain Trailer Court Campground, crossing our fingers that the message got to the right person and we didn’t lose the reservation we had worked so hard to get.

Lowlight(s) – Having to make the four-hour drive back to La Grande, Oregon, from Spokane, Washington, to have the trailer brakes fixed.  Again.

Campground(s) – A round of applause for the Bonner County Fairgrounds – they were there for us when we needed a place to overnight in northern Idaho, and at a very reasonable price of $28.50 for water and electric.  (Yes, there’s a dump station available, but we didn’t use it.  We didn’t use the water or electric, either, but we were grateful for the nice little park that provided a safe place to stay.)  That being said, I can’t bring myself to recommend this RV Park, even though it’s one of the only fairgrounds I’m aware of with an actual RV Park and not just a large dirt or gravel parking lot for RVs.  First of all, although we managed with our 32’ travel trailer, the park isn’t really what I’d call big rig friendly.  But that’s not the real issue.  Did you notice that I said “a safe place to stay” and not “a safe and quiet” place to stay?  There are quite a few rail lines in Sandpoint, and I think there were trains running on every one of them.  Y’all know I have a soft spot in my heart for trains, right?  Well, the thing is, I like to see trains, not hear them when I’m trying to sleep.  Oh, and let’s not forget the planes that start flying out from the small airport very early in the morning.  We’d return to the Bonner County Fairgrounds if we absolutely needed a campsite in that area of northern Idaho for some reason, but you’d probably have to drag us there kicking and screaming.     

Laugh(s) of the Day – Thinking, thinking, coming up empty . . . Wait!  We did have a good laugh when our service tech, Holden, found out we were going to Alaska.  He was so excited for us that we promised to adopt him and take him along – and that seemed just fine by him.  A good-natured young man with a great sense of humor – just the kind of guy who’d fit in perfectly with our family.

Pic(s) of the Day

Uh-oh!

Yup, that'll do it!

SO much quieter at Outdoors RV than at the Bonner County Fairgrounds!

 

Special Message(s) – Tracy, I know I promised to share the good, the bad and the ugly, but here’s hoping that’s as ugly as it gets!

Up Next – We made it to Canada!  And the scenery is unimaginably magnificent, so sit tight!