Gordon Groff
Well-known member
On Friday, we took our brand new Tiffin 35QBA from the dealer's lot in West Chester, PA up to our daughter's house in Williamsport PA for the weekend as a shakedown cruise. It drove well - not nearly as good as a air-ride chassis diesel pusher, but pretty good, nonetheless. Good enough for the $$ IMO. We spent the night in it and LOVE it! The grandkids went nuts. It was a lot of fun. Put together a punch list of some minor things and returned it to the dealer.
Had a significant, self-inflicted issue, though. The full length SAD story is below - copied from a letter I wrote to the dealer. Yes, I am an IDIOT!!
Enjoy!:
I feel terrible over the trouble I caused Saturday by my self-inflicted problems. Ken went over and above trying to help me over the phone. Even Abe tried to help over the phone on his own time. Once again, kudos to those individuals for their customer-oriented professionalism and warm friendliness.
The rest is my long, sad story of shooting myself in the foot and then watching a slow-motion train wreck:
We had a very interesting trip up to Williamsport this weekend! I learned a lot. The hard way! Thankfully, no permanent damage was done, other than to my self-confidence.
When I tried to demonstrate how the front seats rotate, the driver?s seat kept hanging up, apparently on the steering wheel. Kept trying, then the lights dimmed briefly and the electric seat would no longer work. Gave up on rotating it. I figured a fuse blew somewhere. Spent a LONG time trying to figure out which fuse powers that seat. Still don?t know. Pulled fuses out one at a time to check the elements ? before I spoke with Abe and started checking them with continuity on their top posts. Did not find any bad fuses. Almost gave up on the seat repair, but finally got under it to trace the wire. Bingo ? found a kink in the red power wire under the seat! It had been hung up on the back end of the frame rail and got pinched when we tried to rotate the seat. Bending it and pushing it together restored seat function. I cut it at the pinch, wire-nutted it, and got it working again! Felt real proud of myself.
Pulled the slides in and piled our families into the coach to take them to a museum. Went to hit the jack retract, and the HWH panel was DEAD. Totally. Engine on and engine off. Could not retract the jacks. Sent the family back inside. Started checking EVERY fuse again, and again. And again. No bad ones. Could not find any documentation on HWH or where it got it?s power feed. Started to panic. Called everyone I could think of?.. No local RV dealers had any service Saturday. AAA and Coach Net were no help. Abe tried to coach me over the phone. I knew there had to be some manual hydraulic release somewhere, but there were no t-handle valves anywhere. Got on the internet for HWH and could not find this exact system, but found one that had a manifold that looked like ours and it had a ?? nut on a threaded stem sticking out the back of each solenoid valve bodies that is the release. A ?? nut driver worked well and we got all 4 jacks retracted.
Yay! I can at least drive the unit back to the dealer for repair now! Or, can I? Wait! There?s More?.
I had to extend the driver side front slide to get to the HWH hydraulics. Went to retract the slides again and NOTHING! Now THEY had quit working! All of them.
Figured it was a BAD idea to go down the highway with the slides out??
Once again ?checked all breakers, fuses, etc. Started trying to figure out how to manually retract them. Gave up. Still don?t know how.
Threw my hands up and figured we were stranded for a few days until someone who knows something can rescue us?.
Did you even have an ?A ha!? moment after a series of seemingly unrelated frantic failures? Well, I thought about the sequence of events and considered the possibility that I had put a fuse back in the wrong slot while trying to trace the driver seat power issue. Yep. What an IDIOT! I had put a fuse into a ?spare? slot instead of where it had come out of. Moved the fuse. Everything started working correctly again. Never did make the museum trip.
This was our first day away from home in our new Tiffin. Leaned a few things:
1. When something seems suddenly all wrong and makes no sense, it?s probably operator error.
2. I know now how to manually retract the latest versions HWH levelers.
3. Just so everyone knows, the plastic vent cap on the hydraulic reservoir has a ?? nut drive molded in its top so they kept the ?no tools retractable? feature. IF you know it?s molded into the cap and IF you know what to turn to release it.
4. The slides are interlocked somehow with the HWH system so that they worked fine even when HWH had no power, but later, when the jacks were manually retracted, they quit working. There must be some interlock that confirms they are in the last position that the HWH had power and when I manually lowered them, it locked out the slides. I still don?t really understand how an interlock can change state with no power, but they would not move no matter what I tried until I restored the fuse to the HWH and extended the jacks.
I?m disappointed that there was no HWH or slide information in the HUGE satchel of mfg lit that came with the unit. I had pounds of paper and spare parts for all the TV?s, vacuum, fridge, microwave, etc, but nothing on these major systems. Thank goodness the ?Ford Owner?s Guide to Motorhome Class A Chassis? booklet had a fusing layout that showed #38 to be ?Body Builder Run Feed?. Why couldn?t Tiffin have a listing of what devices go to these fuses? Example: ?#38 ? HWH levelers? There is NO cross reference I?ve found that shows what?s connected to the fuses on the Ford fuse block under dash up front. That?s my only real complaint. That and the lack of ANY mfg literature for the HWH or the slides. Big omissions, IMO.
The GOOD news is that we did not go to the expense of getting a tech up to Williamsport to find that the IDIOT OWNER had misplaced a fuse!
All is well. We LOVE the coach.
A BIG, heartfelt ?Thank You? to everyone at Stoltzfus and Tiffin for providing a unit that is ?over the top? in quality, features, and value.
Gordon Groff
Had a significant, self-inflicted issue, though. The full length SAD story is below - copied from a letter I wrote to the dealer. Yes, I am an IDIOT!!
Enjoy!:I feel terrible over the trouble I caused Saturday by my self-inflicted problems. Ken went over and above trying to help me over the phone. Even Abe tried to help over the phone on his own time. Once again, kudos to those individuals for their customer-oriented professionalism and warm friendliness.
The rest is my long, sad story of shooting myself in the foot and then watching a slow-motion train wreck:
We had a very interesting trip up to Williamsport this weekend! I learned a lot. The hard way! Thankfully, no permanent damage was done, other than to my self-confidence.
When I tried to demonstrate how the front seats rotate, the driver?s seat kept hanging up, apparently on the steering wheel. Kept trying, then the lights dimmed briefly and the electric seat would no longer work. Gave up on rotating it. I figured a fuse blew somewhere. Spent a LONG time trying to figure out which fuse powers that seat. Still don?t know. Pulled fuses out one at a time to check the elements ? before I spoke with Abe and started checking them with continuity on their top posts. Did not find any bad fuses. Almost gave up on the seat repair, but finally got under it to trace the wire. Bingo ? found a kink in the red power wire under the seat! It had been hung up on the back end of the frame rail and got pinched when we tried to rotate the seat. Bending it and pushing it together restored seat function. I cut it at the pinch, wire-nutted it, and got it working again! Felt real proud of myself.
Pulled the slides in and piled our families into the coach to take them to a museum. Went to hit the jack retract, and the HWH panel was DEAD. Totally. Engine on and engine off. Could not retract the jacks. Sent the family back inside. Started checking EVERY fuse again, and again. And again. No bad ones. Could not find any documentation on HWH or where it got it?s power feed. Started to panic. Called everyone I could think of?.. No local RV dealers had any service Saturday. AAA and Coach Net were no help. Abe tried to coach me over the phone. I knew there had to be some manual hydraulic release somewhere, but there were no t-handle valves anywhere. Got on the internet for HWH and could not find this exact system, but found one that had a manifold that looked like ours and it had a ?? nut on a threaded stem sticking out the back of each solenoid valve bodies that is the release. A ?? nut driver worked well and we got all 4 jacks retracted.
Yay! I can at least drive the unit back to the dealer for repair now! Or, can I? Wait! There?s More?.
I had to extend the driver side front slide to get to the HWH hydraulics. Went to retract the slides again and NOTHING! Now THEY had quit working! All of them.
Figured it was a BAD idea to go down the highway with the slides out??
Once again ?checked all breakers, fuses, etc. Started trying to figure out how to manually retract them. Gave up. Still don?t know how.
Threw my hands up and figured we were stranded for a few days until someone who knows something can rescue us?.
Did you even have an ?A ha!? moment after a series of seemingly unrelated frantic failures? Well, I thought about the sequence of events and considered the possibility that I had put a fuse back in the wrong slot while trying to trace the driver seat power issue. Yep. What an IDIOT! I had put a fuse into a ?spare? slot instead of where it had come out of. Moved the fuse. Everything started working correctly again. Never did make the museum trip.
This was our first day away from home in our new Tiffin. Leaned a few things:
1. When something seems suddenly all wrong and makes no sense, it?s probably operator error.
2. I know now how to manually retract the latest versions HWH levelers.
3. Just so everyone knows, the plastic vent cap on the hydraulic reservoir has a ?? nut drive molded in its top so they kept the ?no tools retractable? feature. IF you know it?s molded into the cap and IF you know what to turn to release it.
4. The slides are interlocked somehow with the HWH system so that they worked fine even when HWH had no power, but later, when the jacks were manually retracted, they quit working. There must be some interlock that confirms they are in the last position that the HWH had power and when I manually lowered them, it locked out the slides. I still don?t really understand how an interlock can change state with no power, but they would not move no matter what I tried until I restored the fuse to the HWH and extended the jacks.
I?m disappointed that there was no HWH or slide information in the HUGE satchel of mfg lit that came with the unit. I had pounds of paper and spare parts for all the TV?s, vacuum, fridge, microwave, etc, but nothing on these major systems. Thank goodness the ?Ford Owner?s Guide to Motorhome Class A Chassis? booklet had a fusing layout that showed #38 to be ?Body Builder Run Feed?. Why couldn?t Tiffin have a listing of what devices go to these fuses? Example: ?#38 ? HWH levelers? There is NO cross reference I?ve found that shows what?s connected to the fuses on the Ford fuse block under dash up front. That?s my only real complaint. That and the lack of ANY mfg literature for the HWH or the slides. Big omissions, IMO.
The GOOD news is that we did not go to the expense of getting a tech up to Williamsport to find that the IDIOT OWNER had misplaced a fuse!
All is well. We LOVE the coach.
A BIG, heartfelt ?Thank You? to everyone at Stoltzfus and Tiffin for providing a unit that is ?over the top? in quality, features, and value.
Gordon Groff
