Thursday, March 19, 2020

Fixes and Fails - Turn signal

On our way back from purchasing our 2019 Thor Palazzo 33.2 in Houston in March of 2019, I was merging onto I-435 in Kansas when one of the other drivers gave me a hand gesture.  No it wasn't just one finger, he was opening and closing his hand.  Interesting!

When we finally got to our RV park, we checked the lights and found out that the left rear turn signal did not work.  I tried a different bulb and that did not help. We had already scheduled a trip to Camping World of KC to work on a list of issues we had discovered, so we added this to the list...

As soon as we mention it to Camping World, they insisted that any issue with the turn signal is Freightliner's problem, along with the issue with the dash fan only blowing hot air. They were wrong about the dash heater and A/C system as that is a part installed by Thor, but what did we know.  We dropped it off at Freightliner of KC, since they are a first come first serve shop, it took over a week before they looked at it.  Luckily, we still had our house and had not moved in full-time yet.

When we got it back, Freightliner  told us that neither the heater nor the turn signal issue was their problem!  Great, finger pointing both ways.  So, I got on the Internet and started looking and I found a blog that talked about replacing the Freightliner Rear Power Distribution module to fix a similar problem.  I also discovered that there was a Recall involving the Rear Power Distribution Module.  I called Freightliner and asked about this Recall.  They said that no Recalls came up when they  entered our VIN number, so I pointed them to a notice of the Recall.

Turns out, the Recall had been issued, but they had no fix, so it wasn't in the system.  By this point I was speaking to the Service Manager who was able to squeeze me in without having to wait my turn.  It took them awhile to find the PDM. They didn't ask me or I could have told them it was in the Inverter bay.
It's that black box left of the inverter
Well, they swapped it out and VOILA, the turn signal worked! Except that's not the end of it.  Since the Recall had not been finalized, they said it may still need to be replaced when they identify their final fix.

I had noticed a small drip from the back of the Engine and asked them to look at that too.  Transmission Cooler is cracked!  Is this ever going to end?

Well, after all the crap I had been through, they got me in fairly quickly to replace Transmission Cooler, and at the same time, checked some voltages on the new Power Distribution module to supposedly verify that it was good and would not fail. They said it all checked out.

Pat
Transmission Cooler or at least this is what was dripping


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