Electrical Crisis Tests Tiffin's Response

In Red Bay, Alabama...


On our first day after arriving in Red Bay, we had a DC electrical failure on Phannie, the result of a previous issue that was among the reasons for our maintenance visit to Red Bay. One of the items on our discrepancy list that we handed to Tiffin was the possible replacement of the inverter remote panel that reveals the health of the electrical system and provides control of the inverter from the cockpit. This thing had been giving some crazy signals before departure from Fort Worth, commensurate with which was a constant indication of a low house battery level.  What we didn’t realize was that the fried remote was not allowing the inverter to charge the house batteries using shore power. When we were en route to Red Bay, the engine alternator and genset charged the batteries, but after shutting down the engine and genset at Red Bay, the house batteries slowly discharged until all the DC items--including the refrigerator--died.  

As soon as I realized what had happened, I jumped in Mae and drove the short distance to Tiffin’s service center.  After telling the service manager of my plight, he grabbed his two-way radio and dispatched a mechanic to Phannie’s parking spot. Although I immediately got back in the car and drove there myself, the mechanic, much to my amazement, had already arrived ahead of me!  After a bit of troubleshooting, he replaced the inverter control panel and announced that the battery charging solenoid was also bad and would have to be replaced once we got into a service bay. 

To say that i was impressed with Tiffin’s instantaneous and effective response to my plight would be an understatement.  With a hundred or so coaches waiting in line for service, they didn’t hesitate to pull a mechanic away to take care of our little crisis.  We felt so fortunate that this problem occurred within a few blocks of the service center, and Tiffin’s response couldn’t have been any better.