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Not alone

Yahoo Message Number: 107
It's really great to have this forum, thanks for all your replys.
Regarding the Invertrix, I realize it has to be on to charge the batteries, my problem is that even though I'm plugged in and the invertrix is on, the batteries will be discharged sometimes. This has been going on since the day I picked it up at Lazy Days (January 9th).
Two shops have tried to find the problem (excellent shop in NJ, Risco RV in Atlantic Highlands and in Las Cruses, NM (Bogarts RV Service). As far as CC telling you to get the glass mat batteries, I am running on gel cel (450.00 each) and it doesn't make much difference. (They were only four months old when I traded in my Allure and had them moved over to the Intrigue.) The Invertrix was programmed for them.
The Hurricane loses anti-freeze, has had a fuel cell replaced and the compressor. It's not blowing fuses anymore but it eats the anti-freeze. If the anti-freeze goes below the sensor in the tank, it will cause the engine to try to shut down. This is exciting while driving.

We've had the Intrigue just over eleven weeks and have been in the shop five times and have an appointment to drive to Atlantic Highlands tomorrow to leave the coach for service again. Country Coach has been notified of each and every repair and I am keeping track of them. I did have a lemon with Holiday Rambler and never want to go through that again.

As much as I complain though, this is the most comfortable coach we have ever had. Our six week trip was a pleasure if you discount the numerous fix it stops.

One other helpful tidbit to put in the back of your mind, if your propane suddenly stops working check out the shut off valve in front of the regulator. We passed through a messy snow storm in WV and the next night had no stove, hot water or refrig on gas. Turns out some road chemicals got into the valve. The repair shop just disassembled it, cleaned it and everything worked.

Re: Not alone

Reply #1 –
Yahoo Message Number: 111
Hmmm....glad to have found this forum. We just returned from an unexpected detour to Bill Plemmons RV in Winston-Salem where we left our 3-week-old Intrigue because of a myriad of problems...most of which stem from probably the same Invertrix problem you're having (or had.) Our batteries are the standard issue ones (we wanted AGM but were told they didn't make them yet in this size..8-D) so I'm glad to hear that the AGM batteries are doing the same thing for you.

Our Invertrix was kept on all the time also during our first two trips and we noticed the batteries were running down quite rapidly.
This weekend took the cake though...on or off the Invertrix, they ran down from 98% to 52% in less than 30 minutes...you could just watch them. Hydronic heat gave us an alarm which we realized was probably due to not enough juice for the starter, so we turned that off and spent a very cold night with no heat on. My husband had to use the main engine to get the generator to start. We were on 50 amp shore power all weekend so that should have been slowly charging the batteries too...

Oh, well...also have a problem getting the VCR and Sat. system to link to the TV (bad switching I think). Also small things like the step cover doesn't work.

I agree, we love the Intrigue, but this is NOT the kind of experience we expected from a CC product. We have never RV'd but hope to go fulltime in June, so had sunk our hopes (and money) into this rig...needless to say, we are disheartened with your experiences with the hydronic heat (but we shall double check that system now)...in fact I'm printing all the threads out and sending them to our service person so he can double check all the hydronic heat stuff..."just in case"....

Thanks for making your experiences known here...it may help us all...
Jan McNeill
Charlotte, NC

Re: Not alone

Reply #2 –
Yahoo Message Number: 115
Hi Jan:

I really sympathize with your plight, as a brand new RV'r, you are probably as disappointed as you can get right now. We've been RVing for about 12 years now and camped quite a bit before and still love the experience. First of all, keep very careful record of all your experiences with the CC.
Send certified letters, return receipt requested to Dennis Wasserman at Country Coach with a copy to your service adviser for him to put in your file. This way, everything will be on record in case you need to go for legal action. Keep copies of your letters and attach the receipts to them. As much as I hate to do this, I have already sent them four certified letters because we have been in the repair shop six times since January 9th. If the same problems persist after this last shop activity I will avail myself of the services of any attorney. I had a Holiday Rambler that was the worst lemon in the world. We visited Camp 'CUMMINS' every trip we took and were behind a tow truck numerous times. We had hired an attorney to fight them with the lemon law (Monaco management who owned Holiday Rambler were the most uncooperative people in the world) but our dealer, Lazy Days, got us out of trouble by buying the lemon back and selling us our first Country Coach at their cost.
(I'm sure it was their cost plus) Anyway, our Allure was the best motor home we ever had and only had one problem requiring shop time in twenty six thousand miles.
At the Maine Country Coach pre-rally we fell in love with the Intrigue and it's new suspension, better generator, hurricane heat, yadda yadda yadda. We bought the coach and traded in the Allure.
Today, getting ready to drive to the repair shop (two hours each way) I unplugged the coach and checked the battery charge. 66%. It's been plugged in for two weeks solid. Country Coach is known as one of the best coach builders in the industry but I'm wondering how this problem can be happening. If it is the fault of the inverter it's time for them to step up to the plate and replace it with the Hart (sp?) which was basically trouble free and the industry standard. The hurricane heat is a matter of finding the leak and that will be repaired, while the other stuff you mentioned is probably going to be repaired this time. It's not unusual to have a few bugs in the systems when you first operate a motorhome. A letter from Mr. Fult (president) and Mr. Wasserman (Director Customer Service) mentioned that there are 35,000 parts under warranty in the Country Coach. I replied that I hoped we were not going to have to fix the 34,493 other parts that haven't broken yet.
Keep your hopes up, once this mess is remedied you will enjoy your RV as much as we all do.

John Panzenhagen

Re: Not alone

Reply #3 –
Yahoo Message Number: 120
John, thanks for the complete info. It does sound like much of your problem is the same as ours...get to our storage facility with 100% batteries, switch OFF batteries at source...5 days later, turn on, batteries at 99%, 30-45 minutes later when we are ready to be underway, down to 50-60%.

Yes, we're going to give them one shot, maybe two...but if not solved we want the Hart inverter which we understand is a workhorse put in.
We were prepared for problems, but electrical ones are not ones we wanted...we had an old Plymouth station wagon (prelemon law) that this is reminiscent of already...

I've written a memo to the fellows at CC in charge of service for the Intrigues just to alert them that several of us seem to be having this problem...all of us were built in Jan-Feb. (we rolled off Feb 14). Perhaps they'll begin to look into it..we'll see.

Take care...
Jan

ps, we'll be interested in finding out how you like the solar...are planning to look into that in the winter when we will be in CA, AZ area.

Re: Not alone

Reply #4 –
Yahoo Message Number: 127
John (et al), I just rec'd a nice note from Jim Cooley at CCI re: the Invertrix inverters. They have been working on this and are recommending resetting the settings on them for the various charging modes. Jim said they were faxing over new codes to my repair person at Plemmons this afternoon. He's not sure if that will cure it all, but I thought you (and anyone else with the new Invertrix that isn't working right) should know that they are changing the settings that have been programmed on the Invertrix inverters. I'd like to think it was that simple. Here's hoping!
Jan