A Few Words About Red Bay

   Red Bay, Alabama... Birthplace of Tiffin Motorhomes Company, and where The Phantom, our current Coach, was brought into existence. To bring you up to speed, we purchased a used 2018 Tiffin Phaeton 37BH Motorhome from Motorhomes of Texas in Nacogdoches, TX. I will cover the reasons and process of that process in another blog post. 

   Our "new to us" coach was everything we were looking for in a 'diesel pusher'... it checked all the boxes as they say. But being a 2018 a few issues had arisen over time and needed to be addressed. An obligatory pilgrimage to Red Bay was in order. So, Off we went...

   The driver and navigator seats were looking a little worn, the coach was originally appointed with a mirror on the door to the after head (that's Navy talk for "back bathroom") This was not a good idea, a mirror on a sliding door in a mobile earthquake. Tiffin had used some unknown adhesive to mount the mirror as the door panel and the 'glue' had ruined the mirror making it covered in black streaks, hazy and looking a hundred years old. There was a significant and extremely annoying rattle in the navigator's side window. And courtesy of the previous owner, a six foot long scratch on the passenger side slide-out over the rear wheel.

   Our list of requested work contained ten items when we arrived at the Bob Tiffin Service Center in Red Bay. We registered for service at the check-in office and completed ownership paperwork and submitted our list of required work to be performed. We had no idea how long it would take to be scheduled for the service work for our coach.

  The service underwriter arrived early Monday morning, reviewed our list of corrections, made some service notes pertaining to the requested work and informed us he didn't know how soon they could get us into an Express Bay for service but said to stay available for a phone call. When they call you need to be available and arrive within 15 minutes or they move on to the next customer and you are rescheduled. Well, it wasn't even two hours later they called and requested our coach for its service appointment. Off we go to 'Bay 8' 

   I can't speak highly enough about the alacrity with which the two service technicians addressed eight out of the ten items on our list. Being a 2018 these issues were obviously out of warranty and repairs would be at our own expense. We had an intermittent issue with the back-up camera going out. The guys did a diagnostic procedure and found a faulty camera. Camera was replaced with an upgraded device and works amazingly well. The cabinet shop came over and suggested we replace the mirror on the rear bath with a solid wood panel as we indicated we didn't need the mirror. Problem solved. 

  The Techs quickly located the wiring for solar panel installation between the roof and the battery compartment. Three down... They made several adjustments to our 'Spider' lighting control system, all good! They disassembled the window frame at the 'NAV' position and corrected the mind-numbing rattle. While they were correcting the window rattle, they replaced the slow rise day shade on that window... we are flying thru the list... Six down.

   Two Techs from the upholstery shop checked our front seats and gave us a quote for recovering them at a very reasonable cost. Our assigned service techs, Jeff and Dave, checked for any updates or recalls associated with our coach. One of the updates addressed an issue with the Spider control system which was causing an intermittent situation with retracting our slides reliably. Eight down... We were so pleased with the level of care and knowledge demonstrated by Jeff and Dave. Thank you, guys, we will remember you for years to come. 

  That leaves the paint damage... When a Rig is out of the one-year time frame, Tiffin doesn't address paint issues. Our service techs were able to suggest a local RV Collision and Paint specialist that originally worked for Tiffin Motorhomes. Ricky McGee of Pro Finishes was wonderful to deal with and was fortunately able to get us in the Tuesday following Memorial Day... Let me say, "These guys are Magicians!" I know where the damage was, and the repair is absolutely undetectable. The paint match is perfect. I can't say enough about how impressed we are with the level of work preformed by the guys at Pro Finishes. The price was very fair and we left the paint shop as happy as we could be.

   It is a long way from Hondo, TX to Red Bay Alabama but the trip was absolutely worth-while and we would not hesitate to return to the Red Bay area for all future service.