Breakdowns and Repairs - Year 1

Over the past 11 months of full-time living in our Toyota Tacoma and Four Wheel Camper Fleet we have experienced smooth sailing and bumpy seas. Here is a breakdown of the most critical repair issues we had to deal with.  

Freeze - Broken Pipes

Last October we decided to take a risk and head north to Badlands National Park in South Dakota and Yellowstone and Grand Tetons National Parks in Wyoming hoping to catch some late warm weather. Little did we know that we were heading into a cold spell where we would experience temperatures as low as 19 below zero.  

As the temperatures plunged, we kept our furnace on 50° and cabinet doors open but despite that our shower plumbing and fixtures located under one of the rear dinette seats froze causing a surprising flood when we turned the water on the next day.

Shower fitting before freezing and breaking

Broken plastic fitting

For us, the fix was replacing these broken plastic fittings with metal ones. Thank you Ace Hardware in Gardiner, Montana for the loaner electric screwdriver.

Replacement metal fittings

Later, Andy had a chance to chat with the sales manager at the manufacturer and asked him why they used plastic fittings and he said it was probably just a cost reason.

Furnace Woes- Dometic

Weather continued cold and in mid-November our furnace stopped working.  Since our camper was more than 12 months old, and the Four Wheel warranty had expired, our recourse was to go back to the manufacturer, Dometic who provided a two year applicance warranty. Since the closest authorized repair facility was more than 200 miles away, we elected to pay someone in St. George, Utah to look at it. 

Who knew lint could break a furnace

Turns out it was a common problem, fuzz interfering with the sail switch.  Unfortunately, two weeks later the furnace quit again. Andy bought a new sail switch (the next most common problem) and installed it, but it did not help. We then took it to an authorized repair shop who declared it was working fine and we went into the high country of Bryce Canyon National Park.  It of course failed to turn on and back to the shop we went.  Now we were faced with a choice, either wait for several days for Dometic to authorize replacement of the (the next most common problems) circuit board and a limit switch, or pay for it ourselves and hope we get reimbursed.  After paying $300, off we went up into the country north of the Grand Canyon.

 Four blue wires heading into the sail switch and the new circuit board.  

Now after replacing the sale switch, the limit switch and the circuit board , the furnace was still not working reliably. It worked on warm nights and not on cold nights (go figure). We went to a different authorized repair shop near Las Vegas who agreed that the furnace should be replaced.  Now begins our odyssey in dealing with Dometic.

After numerous phone calls between the repair shop and Dometic, they refused to replace it.  When Andy directly called the company, their customer service person agreed to have it replaced.  A week later, we received a phone call from the repair shop saying that the customer service rep who authorized the replacement had been fired and the company was not allowing us to get a new furnace.  What fools these mortals be. Andy called them back and convinced them to change their minds and they once again promised to ship us a new furnance..  Meanwhile, we are living full-time in a camper in December with temperatures going below freezing most nights.  We had to purchase a portable propane furnace to keep us and our pipes from freezing.

We puttered around the Las Vegas area for several weeks waiting for the furnace and hearing nothing then elected to continue our odyssey.  We eventually traveled to southern Texas, New Mexico, southern Arizona and ultimately Baja Mexico over the next four months.  After spending $400 out of pocket, we had given up receiving a new furnace from Dometic.  We drove the truck to the East Coast in anticipation of shipping the truck to Europe.  A month before our ship date we finally received a call from the repair shop in Arizona saying that the new furnace was in, a wait of only five months!  Of course, they or another authorized repair shop would have to install it and could not simply ship it to us.  So we had two choices, either drive back 2,500 miles to Arizona and have them install it, or find a closer repair shop.  This other shop would have to agree to have it shipped to them, install it, and ship the old furnace back to Dometic, all for one hour worth of labor reimbursement!  Understandably no east coast shop we contacted wanted to help, espcially in the timeframe of within two weeks as by then our shipping date was locked in.

Based on our experience, we would never recommend a Dometic furnance to anyone. We have since been advised that by removing the duct work that connects the furnace to the port we could get the furnace to operate. This is currently working but we are not confident in its future reliability.

Fanastic Fan - Dometic

Since we were planning on traveling in warm climates, we had ordered our camper with two Fanastic fans.  Unfortunately, both failed over the course of the summer.  After investigating, Andy found that both of their lift arm gears had stripped.  

Fantistic Fan life arm, needed replacing within one year of use

Andy ordered replacement parts on Amazon. After researching this on the Internet, this is a very common problem with Fanastic Fan ever since it was acquired by … Dometic.

As you can imagine our opinion of Dometic is quite low.  Unfortunately they now are a dominant supplier in the RV industry.

SwitchPros & Solar panels

Our truck build was assembled by a major outfitting company in the Pacific Northwest.  After receiving it, we had many build problems including; rear suspension easily bottoming out, camper power/battery shutting off intermittently, turn signals and backup camera not always working, solar panels deflecting 1/2", front bumper lights always on, and the flatbed fuel filler not filling easily.  The truck was returned to the builder and most of these problems were eventually fixed by them.  However, we had to spent the next four months chasing down an electrical short caused by them directly connecting the camper battery, which is lithium (14 volts) to the conventional truck battery (13 volts).  This caused a battery drain from the higher voltage to the lower voltage, causing the camper battery to die within three days.  

We experienced a lot of growing pains but people keep telling us that the good news is that we learned a lot.

Things settled down and we were happily camping on the beach in Baja when we realized we had a power problem.  Our camper battery was not getting charged from the truck's alternator anymore and the solar panels seemed to be working at ½ capacity.  Looking at our SwitchPros 9100 we discovered one of the switch’s wires had been burned.  

Burned connector on the tip of Andy’s finger

Thinking that the SwitchPros had somehow failed, Andy sent an email with photos to them and immediately got a phone call back from Laura Muertter, the co-owner of SwitchPros!  She identified two major installation failings, one was that the SwitchPros ground wire wasn’t directly hooked to the camper battery and two, that an unknown wire (purple arrow in photo below) was drawing power from an unfused portion of the Switch-Pros.  

Wire wrongfully connected to Switchpros input

She recommended that we take the truck to Aiden James Customs of Santa Ana, CA.  A month later we took the truck into the shop and Wow!  There they found our original outfitter from the Pacific Northwest had installed an insufficient sized wire which caused the circuit to burn out

Burnt Switchpros connector

He said we were lucky the camper didn’t burn to the ground. They also found that when the original outfitter installed the camper on the flatbed they pinched a wire that had rubbed through to the bare wire; another fire hazard.  The unfused mystery wire had been hooked up by the installer of our Scheel Mann custom seats for the seat heaters, not the original outfitter.

Before Aiden James Customs fixed the issues

After Aiden James Customs: They even cleaned up the install using a SD Off-road mount tray!

We cannot recommend Aiden James Customs enough. Even though their shop was completely full of Tacomas and Fourunners they helped us out, did top quality work, and quickly got us back on the road at a very reasonable price.  We are also super impressed with the customer service at SwitchPros!

Solar Panels - Overland Solar

We elected to have two 160 watt semi-flexible solar panels made by Overland Solar of Boise, ID installed by our original outfitter.  Unfortunately over the course of ten months both of our panels failed.  After stopping by Overland Solar, it became apparent that it was an installation problem by our original outfitter, again.  

In the above photo the solar panel is not being supported beyond the aluminum brackets placed before the edge, causing the panel to flex up and down in the wind and ultimately failing.  Also the original outfitter drilled holes through the outer edges of the panel, instead of using the supplied grommet hole, which may cause water to ultimately seep into the panel, yet another outfitter installation failure.

Overland Solar prides themselves on building the best semi-flexible panels on the market and are used primarily on long distance sailboat cruises and are even designed to be walked on. They have never had a failure in the past 12 years. The panels are top-notch and their customer service is great. We highly recommend them, but like any semi-flexible panel they need to be supported along all of their edges. 

Tacoma & Four Wheel Camper

The one minor issue that we have had with the Tacoma was discovered by Aiden James Customs.  One of the known weak points in the Tacoma suspension is the rear leaf spring hangers. They are prone to bending and they discovered one of ours was bent, starting to rub on itself. 

Bent OEM rear suspension shackle

They installed Archive Garage Hammer Hangers and Shackles which as an added bonus helped firm up the ride without any harshness.  

After 11 months and 25,000 miles, our truck and camper have performed admirably. There have been the above failures but the basic truck and camper have been a great home on wheels for us.