Aborted Plans, East Coast of Maine

We got up the Saturday after Labor Day weekend intending to head south along the Maine coast. John checked the tire pressure, as he does every time we move, and found that we had a flat tire. A call to Coach Net (our motor home emergency roadside service) and they sent out a truck to change the tire. It was a bit complicated but it was done at no cost to us.

We were then on our way, but with a change of plans. It seems that there are very few places that work on/repair RV & truck tires in this part of the country. After calling around, we headed for Sullivan Tire in Hooksett New Hampshire. It turns out we wanted to be heading this way anyway. So we limped along slowly, since we didn’t have any spare now. Saturday night we were in Scarborough Maine in a very nice RV park called Wild Duck. It was in a marshy area with you guessed it, a large flock of Mallards.

Sunday we traveled to Circle 9 campground, one of those close to Sullivan tire.

About this time, the plot thickens. On Sunday night our water pump (fresh water in the RV) failed. So on Monday I called the Lazy Daze factory and was rerouted to Shurflo, the pump manufacturer. After a few questions, the rep said they would send a new pump since it was still under warranty and also pay for its installation. We found an RV shop (Bill’s RV) 2 miles from our campground and told Shurflo to UPS it there for installation on Wednesday. They said ok, and it was done.

We then went to Sullivan tire to have them inspect the flat tire to see if it could be repaired. The flat was caused by a granite chip, used for gravel. It was knife shaped, about 1.5 inches across and driven up between the treads, shredding the steel belts. You could see the “knife” sticking into the tire from the inside! So it could not be repaired. We needed a new tire. Since this is a dual tire application, we decided to get two new tires for a matched pair. They had the tires at a nearby warehouse and could have them there by mid day Tuesday. So they installed the two new tires on Tuesday.

On Wednesday we pulled up our jacks and headed to Bill’s RV for the new water pump and also a much needed oil change. Walt (of Bill’s RV) had just finished the oil change when the UPS truck showed up with the water pump, actually two since Bill needed one for another job. Great timing!

Walt installed the pump in just 10 minutes and we fired it up to see how it worked. And guess what, it didn’t!!! A quick call to Shurflo confirmed the following:

-our two pumps were from a new run of pumps, 125 of which went to Lazy Daze.

-They were all shipped out on Monday.

-On Tuesday, Lazy Daze called Shurflo to say the pumps they received didn’t work. Ours were on the UPS plane at that point.

So now what to do? Shurflo apologized and volunteered to send a “fixed” pump on the next plane. We needed to hit the road on Wednesday afternoon and couldn’t wait. Fortunately Bills RV had a smaller Shurflo pump in stock and Shurflo authorized them to install it at no cost to us and to send a good pump to us at a future place of our chosing. Then we could have it installed by some other RV place. Shurflo agreed to pick up the cost of this. So Walt quickly installed the smaller pump and it did work. Great.

We made it onto the road by 3PM and made it to our next stop.

What next?