Actually, we arrived home on Monday, March 31st. During the four-day Sacramento RV Show we had to stay in a hotel and eat in restaurants while our motorhome remained in a repair shop in Yuma, Arizona.
Tuesday, April 1st I drove our toad to Yuma and picked up the motorhome. The mechanics said they could not find the reason for the low-power, high-boost, high-exhaust temperature symptoms. They checked the turbo, waste-gate, exhaust brake, air-intake and exhaust symptoms (that's all diesel engine talk) but could not find anything wrong. They also adjusted the valves (long overdue). Joe Annuzio and Jerry Ray went with me to test drive the motorhome. We took it up and down a 6% grade. Both Joe and Jerry thought the engine performed as it should. Maybe it was my paranoid attitude, but I still felt the engine was not quite what it should be. The next day I drove 300 miles to Huntington Beach towing the Saturn Vue. A few days later I drove 80 miles round-trip to have a new microwave/convection oven installed. Each time I drove, it seemed like the motorhome performed better than before. I'm hoping the problem was something minor that was unintentionally cured with all the attention the engine received. Or maybe it was some bad fuel (or maybe my attitude improved).
After arriving home I tried to locate a diesel mechanic to check out my engine. Cummins in Irvine, CA apparently limits itself to maintenance and/or minor adjustments. They referred me to Cummins in Montebello, CA, who said they would not work on my engine because it had a Banks turbo. Banks, in Azusa, CA, said they would be happy to work on
any Banks products on my motorhome but were not interested in checking out the rest of the engine. And then there are the truck repair shops that don't want to work on motorhomes. I'm still looking for someone to check out my entire engine. If you know of a competent, conscientious diesel mechanic within a 20-mile radius of Huntington Beach who is willing to work on a diesel pusher, please let me know (joe@rvknowhow.com).
Today's fuel prices in Huntington Beach are: Regular Gasoline, $3.83 per gallon.
Diesel, $4.49 per gallon. Our next scheduled RV trip is to Lewiston, Idaho where we will be teaching RV related classes at the Life on Wheels Conference from July 6 to July 11. The way fuel prices are climbing, by that time diesel will probably be at $5.00 per gallon. Doing the math tells me that, at 8 miles to the gallon and fuel at $5.00 per gallon, fuel will cost us $0.62 a mile to move our motorhome down the road. Last July diesel fuel cost us $2.98 a gallon or $0.37 per mile.
We are looking forward to being at home for a while.
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