Five Year Update

March 2015 – 85,000 miles
   It's hard to believe that we’ve had this motorhome for five years because we still think of it as our new motorhome! :-D And actually it does look new. Every year we spend a week or two in the winter carefully going over the entire structure, looking for any little problems and fixing them before they become big problems. After a good wash we put two coats of Nu Finish on the truck body and the motorhome siding, scrub the black plastic and go over it with Back to Black, touch up any chips and check the caulking. The interior gets a thorough cleaning with little improvements as needed. The cabinets were finished with a wipe on polyurethane which makes touch ups easy but because it was applied very thinly touch ups are needed frequently in heavy use spots. 
  We’re very pleased with the condition of the motorhome body and the truck but we have had a few problems.  About a year ago a work trailer sideswiped us while we were sleeping in a Flying J parking lot. Very little damage was done but a storage door was ruined, the black trim strip was badly scuffed, the corner trim was mangled and the gutter was smashed. All of these could be fixed but we didn’t notice that the impact had also popped the siding loose. It was already loose because Ken had used the wrong glue, now it is loose enough to be very obvious. If we had noticed it sooner perhaps we could have found a way to slip some glue in before Tony replaced the corner trim. It’s not going anywhere but it does look bad.

   After four years of flawless performance we had to get a couple of expensive repairs made to the truck last summer. The bolts on both manifolds had broken and were replaced and a worn cam was replaced. At the same time our Dometic refrigerator failed. Rather than replace the entire unit we had an upgraded cooling coil manufactured by an Amish company installed. It seems to be cooling much better than the original one.  That’s it – not bad for five years and 85,000 miles – fingers crossed. Fortunately everything that we had to fix because Ken’s poor workmanship is still fine – the roof does not leak, the wiring is problem free and the cabover is tight and does not squeak (most of the time).
  Now that we’ve lived with and used everything for five years would we change anything or do anything differently? Yes but just a few things. I don’t think that it was available in 2009 but now we’d use Azdel Composite Panels as a substrate rather than plywood. We’d buy a bathroom sink from a building supply company rather than one manufactured on the street in Mexico. I can’t keep it looking good for more than a day without a new coating of mineral oil.  We don’t think much about how really simple our motorhome is but recently we saw the problems friends were having with all of the conveniences that we decided to leave off – slideouts, levelers, air conditioners, push button dump valves, etc.  We’re really happy with our low tech little motorhome!