Surprises don’t have to ruin an RV journey.
By Phyllis Britz, F423634
August 2022
After a fun and activity-packed time at the FMCA International Convention and RV Expo in Tucson, my husband, Eric, and I went on a trip to Page, Arizona, and then to Utah, where we visited four awesome national parks. We then headed east to Elkhart, Indiana, as we had scheduled an appointment with Diamond Shield, a paint protection company, at the FMCA rally.
As with any RV travel, you never know what adventure awaits you, and you learn to expect the unexpected. Sunday, on our eastbound journey, we were in Illinois. It was a windy day, and the interstates we traveled were rough. We stopped twice for fuel and once for lunch. Our routine is to walk around and check the coach and the towed vehicle whenever we stop.
About an hour after the last fuel stop, we arrived at a Walmart. As I walked to the back of the coach, I was shocked to find the bedroom egress window gone. How, when, or where it went missing was unknown to us — we had seen and heard nothing.
We called Gary Cipa, a good friend and an RV Basics instructor at FMCA conventions, for his advice on how to cover the hole left by the missing window. With storms in the forecast, we needed to act quickly. After a trip into Walmart to purchase heavy-gauge plastic and Gorilla-brand tape, we took on the challenge of covering the window opening in the wind.
After Phyllis and Eric Britz’s bedroom egress window disappeared on a windy day, Eric had to quickly seal the opening.
Monday morning, I called the Newmar service department and was referred to Master Tech RV, an FMCA commercial member. I called and spoke to Collin Borkholder. In this day of shortages of parts and workers, we were concerned, but Collin said they could replace the window on Tuesday!
Tuesday morning, we met Collin and Broc Watkins, sales manager for Master Tech RV. We warned Collin that we used a lot of tape to cover the opening, but he said, “You never can use too much tape.” When asked if losing an emergency egress window happened very often, he said that it happens more often than one would think.
The window was replaced on Tuesday afternoon. What fantastic service Master Tech RV gave — an emergency repair on a motorhome done the day after you initially called. Relieved, we went to our next stop: Diamond Shield.
After removing the old film, installer Boris Yegorov (above) applied new pieces of Diamond Shield onto the front cap of the Britz’s motorhome. It now looks brand-new.
We stayed in the Diamond Shield lot with 50-amp service for the night, and the operations manager, Yuriy Katasonov, had the coach inside the building before 7:00 a.m. the next morning. It took two hours for the old film to be removed.
Diamond Shield film is precut to the specifications of the unit that it will be installed on. The pieces of film are applied to the appropriate area with a wetting solution. The installer slowly and meticulously squeegees the liquid out, bonding the film to the surface. This process took several hours, but the result was a new-looking front cap on the motorhome. Yuriy and his installer, Boris Yegorov, were friendly and accommodating, allowing us to stay in our motorhome while the work was being done.
We’re now happy with how the motorhome looks, and we’ve since added checking the egress window at every stop to our routine.