Hey All,

            We'll take our TT(trade in) to the dealer tomorrow(Thursday) afternoon, finish the paperwork, do a walk thru on our new 36XTRM5, then spend the night on the dealers lot where we can check things out (our PDI) all evening and next morning till they open. I'm hoping the list will be short and we can head to our house(25 miles away), load the coach, then run up the mountain (30 miles) to our CG Friday for the weekend shakedown cruise! 

            We're excited to say the least to get this coach! Thanks for all the info this forum has given. We'll start our fulltiming Nov. 1, 2010 or earlier if we can shorten the lease we're in.

Regards, Howard

           

Congratulations on your new purchase.

Good idea to take it on that shake-down trip and find any "bugs" that might pop up.

Good luck, maybe we'll meet up with you on the road some day.

Jim

Congrats, sounds like an exciting time, G

Howard, Let us Know how everything is when you return from the dealer? Trust in God! Are you joining us fulltimers on the road to freedom? HAPPY TRAILS! Pieere!

Congrats! Congrats!

WHOOHOO! Good for you!

So how was it?

Well, in short, no it didn't go well. We finished the paperwork and did a walk thru for systems & such, when we closed the bedroom slides, both were out of adjustment. The top on the bed side was 3/4" out and the closet side was 1-1/2" out! Tried several times and the dealership owner said he'd have someone there in the morning to adjust them. Should only take 1/2 hour or so to fix. Ok, sounds good, we'll stay the night and get the fixes done Friday morning and be on our way by noon. Water tank was full, coach hooked up to power and we could get a couple channels on the TV, so we spent a nice first night checking out the inside of the coach, relaxing with a bottle of wine and a good nights sleep. We were 50' from the 4 lane main drag thru town and it was very quiet inside the coach, I'm sure thanks to the dualpane windows and build on the unit. Friday morning we went out for breakfast around 8am. The tech showed around 10am and started on the slides and I installed the capture plate for the SuperGlide and we finished our punch list, which was small. A light bulb in the kitchen, adjustment on the slider awning, but the TV remotes were no where to be found. Of course the PDI by the dealership that we saw Thursday evening was filled out very neatly and everything checked off as perfect..?? The owner ran down and got a couple remotes, which the bedroom TV worked, but the Sony system remote(a universal) would not function with the DVD/Sound system. The tech spent an hour on the closet slide and couldn't get it working properly. Called Carriage but said they were closed on Friday, so made a call to the master tech in Irvine, we were at their Indio dealership, to see if he had any ideas to finish the adjustment. In the mean time, our tech replaced the light bulb, programed the TV remotes as best he could, then got a call and started back on the slide. When all was said and done around 2:30pm, the conclusion was the motor and gears needed to be replace and would have to take the coach back to the Irvine shop for repairs! We were not happy, to say the least!! After some discussion with the owner about what we thought of their PDI, the coach is suppose to be ready this Saturday. They first said the new motor would take a week to get to them, when I reminded him they have these new things called airplanes that could get the part to him in 1 day, and that the manufacturer was in Los Angeles anyway and should have the parts he needs to fix the slides!! All this was after I had mentioned the story of the other Carri-Lite that the Harvey's had delivered to Texas that didn't have any brakes hooked up, and how it got there and thru that dealers PDI without anyone knowing!!! Well, we'll see if they come thru for Saturday. Love the coach, but am extremely disappointed with our dealer at this point.. We had both taken a vacation day to pick it up Friday for a long weekend in the mountains. Regards, Howard

Ok All,

We picked up the 36XTRM5 today and everything was working!! Man this thing pulls nice! The Chevy handled it like a champ!! I drove big rigs back in the 70's, but have only towed a ball hitch since the late 80's 'till now. Semi-trailers (5ver's)are so nice to pull!! Took it to the house and loaded some stuff in, then drove up the hill to storage. We'll go boondocking next weekend at the Sand Drags in Lake Elsinore with some friends. Hopefully these pix will show up..

Regards, Howard

Howard, Beautiful rig, best of luck with it. Is your truck a 4X4? If it is they should flip the axles on the trailer to raise the rear, it looks like it's riding a little high in front. Enjoy,

Nice looking rig! I am jealous.

Luvglass wrote:

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Howard,

Beautiful rig, best of luck with it. Is your truck a 4X4? If it is they should flip the axles on the trailer to raise the rear, it looks like it's riding a little high in front.

Enjoy,

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Thanks Fred,

          The truck is 2WD. I'll raise the pin box to level the coach out. They had no one to do it at the dealer.

Regards, Howard

 

That is really a nice looking rig!

Oh, good luck and happy travels. I remember those exciting first few days and I'm glad things all worked out for you both.