10 Minute hero!!!

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Well, it's been a minute since my last entry.  I'm not sure why it was so hard to write this entry, the one that will close the chapter on DETOUR, but it was.  It might be because it makes it real for the second time that my dream died.  I call this entry 10 MINUTE HERO because that is exactly what an old schoolmate said to me during my sister's class reunion in September.  "Hey, Deb you were my hero...for about 10 minutes".  I had to agree, I was my own hero for about 10 minutes too.

One attorney I spoke with that week was disgusted at the idea the dealership would charge me to sale my RV and he wanted me to come see him again before I did.  I know how lawsuits work, I know how long they take,  I know that once you start a legal process they will no longer do warranty work, I know regardless if you feel you have a good case it doesn't mean victory, I know if there are consumer laws intended to help protect consumers they are written with vague language that doesn't make it an open and shut case, so knowing all I know about lawsuits I wasn't willing to throw good money after bad and go that direction.  So now what.

That week on the dealership lot it was 100 plus degrees the whole week and I can tell you the A/C unit on those can't handle it.   So needless to say it was a long week.  A week of waiting for them to FIX the control panel for the third time in three weeks, and awning, order the recliner, etc.  A week of what, where, why, how...What will I do with myself? Where am I going to live?  Why is this happening? How do I face everyone who had faith in my determination, bravery, sense of adventure, and abilities.   

My mind wasn't completely certain until they put the third control panel in and it did the exact same thing it had been doing since the start.  I stormed up to the office of the sales manager with the lead service guy Chris (the only one with a soul) and they quickly called in Eddie the service manager to discuss the ongoing issues.  There were many crazy things that were said to me during the next 30 minutes.  Most were condescending statements and lies.  Eddie the service manager told me they knew there were problems and they were working hard to fix them, but that I wasn't making it easy on them.  Because I was recording them, I had the nerve to tell them not to install the new control until I was present, that angered him.  He told me the techs said "she is so anger"!  So deflect and blame me...really.  He said "maybe you bought more than you can handle" "maybe you decided it was more than you bargained for "  WOW, he really went there.  My response was, "so you are going to make this about me? not the RV you sold me that didn't work from the start?"  He was switching the blame to me, I wasn't the same smiling woman I was a few weeks ago, my blinders were off and there was no putting them back on.  Chuck the sales manager was telling me they didn't want me to loose money buy selling it immediately, haha they didn't offer to sell it for free.  I told them I'm in survival mode and I can only rely on myself, they proved useless when they didn't follow their own policy to help me on the road. I had to listen to those snake-oil salesmen say to me at least a half a dozen times, how much their customers mean to them and how many happy repeat customers they have, blah blah blah.  They couldn't seem to grasp if they failed me they couldn't convince me of their awesomeness.  In that meeting  Chuck read a new email from Forest River telling us to operate the rig differently than the other two ways I had  previously been told.  WHOA, these guys are flying by the seat of their pants, It is a guessing game of repairs and instructions and I'm stuck between them and the manufacturing repair game.  I REFUSE TO BE A PARTICIPANT!  The only person who said SORRY was my sales guy Keith.  

All the prep work and money, paying for systems to improve my odds against problems and ease my worries were for not.  I could only control my end of things and that was save myself and my money and my time and sell it.  That was hard to actually voice and my emotions were crazy.   That night packing up the very home I was so thrilled to buy and move into just three weeks prior, was nuts.  I found myself replaying the words my BFF of 40 + years said to me just a couple of hours earlier..."stop beating your self up, stop feeling sorry for yourself!"  Was I?  Surely not, if you know me at all it isn't something I do very often, but maybe. So I had to stop packing and assess my state of mind.  This is what I had rolling around in my soul.  I probably was feeling a little sorry for myself but it felt more like grief.  Grieving my dream of the last 18 months.  Grieving my trust in men and big business.  Grieving what little trust I had in people (besides my circle of friends).  I have great friends and support and I believe they grieve with me and for me.  Grieving  because I would have no place to live or call my own.  I know that is what I should have been feeling.

I didn't sell it because I got cold feet, I didn't sell it because I over bought, I didn't sell it because I was scared to  follow through with my plans.  I did it because I knew it wasn't right, what I didn't know was the why behind it, I would have to trust it might be revealed to me later, and it was.

Check in for the next chapter Moving Home! A place that still feels like your GOING HOME, even if no family lives there. What will I learn from this full circle move in life...???

When I left the office of my salesman and returned to the RV, I found my service tech and another guy already working on it.  They had pulled a blown fuse from the awning and immediately showed them the previous blown fuse, and said clearly there is a problem.  They got the meter reader and found out it was pulling 15 amps not 10.  They were going to rewire with a 15 amp circuit breaker.  My worry is that the rig is wired for 10 so had does that work?  I am also told they had rewired it when it came in from the factory, so that too wasn't disclosed "they don't have to".  

I started videoing everything they said and did, and recording conversations with the sales manager and service managers.  Chuck the service manager's response to the idea of rescinding the contract, "it's not like it's a $6 dollar shirt you bought and can return."  I'm floored by such a ridiculous statement and realize the nice guys are gone and replaced with people who deal  with unhappy customers by reminding them how great their company is compared to all the rest.  I never said aloud that was a fallacy in reasoning,  Circular reasoning is saying something is, because it is.  They kept telling me how important their commitment to their customers was, yet they hadn't done a thing for me.  Found out later in the week they didn't even follow their own policy.  Apparently when i called, since my issue  was electrical, Dominic should have called Forest River to get me a faster appointment in Shreveport, HE HAD NOT!  TALK IS CHEAP!!

I spent my week trying to figure out my options, meeting with attorneys, and doing more research. And trying to figure out how not to spend my limited retirement in RV dealerships, quite possibly driving long distances to find someone to work on it.  I found out that many places refuse to work on them if you didn't purchase it from them.  I found out people who start off with problems tend to continue having them and more. I'm physically so stressed all I can think about is having all my money tied up in this adventure and now I KNOW I shouldn't be doing this.  When I had the strong gut instinct (God) telling me not to buy it, just three weeks before... I justified that a dragonfly landing on my arm at the lake was a sign, and it was the anniversary of mom's passing, and they called to say the RV was here, Blah Blah, Blah.  Making my plans happen and ignoring the message from God that it wasn't my time to do this. 

If I trusted they could fix these issues and stayed the course would I find myself with the money from the sale of my house all gone?  I had to cut my losses because I believed staying the course would cost me so much more then money in the long run.  The money was huge but maybe it would save me from something much worse.  I don't know the answers, I don't know where I'll go, I don't know if it will sell if I decide that, I don't know how to have my dream die so quickly, I don't know if my self esteem will bounce back from this epic loss!  

For people like myself who love having control over their lives...bahaha, it's an illusion.  And I know is that my journey was about just that, me realizing I wasn't the one in control and I certainly couldn't control this outcome.  I reached a quick decision and was more than willing to finally  STOP MOVING, AND PLANNING, AND FIGHTING and be still, listen, and learn.  You can teach an old dog new tricks, and for the first time in 30 years I didn't have a plan!

My drive back to the dealership was easy breezy and my comfort level much better then when I left.  Too bad this here gig was going of the rails so quickly.  None the less I arrived on the lot Sunday, July 15 and to my surprise my friends Joe and Marcia were still there waiting for there replacement washer.  They were there before I left and it was getting close to 30 days for them.  They too were full timers and staying on the dealer's camp ground (concrete parking lot with hookups) since it was their home.  God put them there for me to visit with that week, for sure for sure.  

I was reminded about the priorities in life almost immediately, I mean within less then an hour of arriving.  I was faced with a friend in a medical emergency and headed to the nearby ER!  It was a scary few hours and once I was back in Babie that night, I thanked God for my troubles being so much less then what I thought, and giving me perspective.  People are important and that's that!

Later that first night I got to visit with Joe and Marcia and Boy Oh Boy did I get a story.  They told me about their second RV which they purchased new after 14 months of full timing and falling in love with the lifestyle, and it is a terrible story.  Their second RV had electrical problems from the start, much like mine, and after a year of fixing it off and on it burned to the ground.  Yes, RV home was in ashes and luckily they were out of it getting ice cream, but they returned and watched their home and belongings go up in flames and then down in ashes.

Marcia and Joe were told they had a great case for a lawsuit so that is what they did.  They said it was a horrible experience and that their case wasn't even listened to by the judge, it was determined they weren't experts so what they had to say was dismissed.  They had a $20,000 bill for their attorney and got a bill for $90,000 from the manufacturer.  They settled on paying only $40,000 of it.  They told me of another customer in an expensive Class B van, who was on the lot in November when they were  there again, and how he and his wife drove it down from Kentucky to fix a window and while there, they were in it one night when they started smelling something burning and they did.  They found an electrical wire that was passing over the pilot light of the stove and melting.  Needless to say Marcia and Joe don't trust attorneys and hate RVIA, a national association representing manufacturers. They said if their second rig was their first they wouldn't be in another.  They shared a story of being there once and a rig inside the building caught fire.  This is where they have millions of dollars of stored RV, along with the ones they service. She said she had never seen people scramble so fast. They were sad for me that I didn't even get started so I too could fall in love with it and they understood my distrust and position.

So here I am feeling a million different things.  "How is this happening?  Why is this happening? What are you going to do if they laugh in your face?  You have a huge chunk of change tied up in this! You retired a year early, you have no home, you sold or gave away most of your belongings! Why? How? What? Really?"  I had been researching RV fires since I was having electrical issues and now I'm listening to stories from people who have lived it and witnessed others on this very same lot.  I can't unlearn new research I've found, saying there are an estimated 20,000 RV fires a year!

Monday morning, exactly two weeks after proudly pulling out to start my adventure, I'm going to face off with the people who so knowingly let me hit the road with a rig they knew from the time it arrived had some big issues, and the same issue continued up to the time I was leaving.  So how would they treat me now?  Would they be the great guys they were when they wanted me to buy from them?  Hahaha! Within just a few minutes I heard two things from the service manager Eddie, that would make it clear, I wasn't going to win and they don't care. First he said to my statement about wanting a buy back or to rescind the contract because they failed to disclose the control panel had already been replaced before they sold it to me. "we don't have to"!  Second was to my comment about having a brand new $90,000 RV that had persistent issues and that I bought new to avoid those things initially.  His response was, "you should expect to spend the first two months finding out what all is wrong with it!"

So this is how this story of my dream is going to crash and burn so quickly, with a bunch of people who can't be trusted and a product that is so poorly made I have no faith in it and the process to get things fixed tries the patience of a saint.  Check back in a couple of weeks to find out just how many more crazy things I hear come out of the mouths of the sales and service staff of NIRVC!  And how someone deals with their own craziness and the thoughts and feelings that come with such an epic fail!  "How did I get in this position?, I'm sick of feeling sick"!

I began my second week of waiting with a call from Chris, Chris is the only guy with a soul at NIRVC.  He says he didn't want me to take my RV to Camping World and they should be taking care of me.  I quickly said "that is one reason I bought from you all, because everyone said you had great customer service." He said he would get back to me.  

I had spent the first week talking with friends and family about my RV issues and discussing, how can it be legal that they didn't disclose the very control panel that still isn't working, didn't work to from the start and the fix didn't work.  A car dealership owner said "bad publicity isn't worth his reputation and making stuff right with customers is his greatest concern."  Everyone, including myself, felt like maybe, just maybe, they will do the right thing.  After more research, I am thinking quite possibly this isn't going to turn out so well and certainly not as I PLANNED!  I had one cousin say she didn't think it would be so easy to go cry FOUL and get my contract for a working RV rescinded, on the grounds they failed to deliver what was ordered.  Computer friends explained that the control panel dating back to the 1970's is a Y2K issue and it is the operating system not a motherboard issue.  "That doesn't sound good!" So, each day I learn more about the issues on the RV and none of them sound promising and I was loosing faith already.

My gut instinct during this waiting period, my next message from God was..."if you decide to go east on interstate 20 instead of west back to Lewisville, you will spend the next year doing this waiting game of getting service appointments, getting manufacture approval, and parts delivered and fixes completed, all across the nation.  You didn't listen when I said DON'T before buying.. Will you now?" Do  Needless to say that didn't sound FUN, it is the opposite of FUN! I'm retired and I set 18 months aside to do this thing and I can't spend a month for appointments and another 6-8 weeks for fixes!  This is truly how they operate and I would figure that out soon enough.

I'm not a complete moron, I knew I would have problems to deal with, but I didn't EXPECT to not even get going before dealing with them.  I didn't EXPECT to loose faith so quickly, I didn't EXPECT all this frustration to hit me in the face so quickly.  After all I had bought new, I had purchased a very expensive second best extended warranty, towing insurance, tire pressure monitors, all the things to help make problems less drastic on the road.  What I could plan and handle (control) I had, but that didn't matter if the things I had NO CONTROL over weren't done.  I had a plan that included a properly operating $90K working home!  My home, the only one I had at the moment.  Now I'm faced with what anyone with any kind of RV will tell you, it's a long wait to get seen for service, people drop off units and don't see them for months. they  have a game of "we have to get approval from the manufacturer to fix anything under warranty".  But what I would later come to realize is that sometimes this exchange can put the consumer between dealer and manufacturer and no one really cares because they have you money and that is what matters.  

Chris, the service guy who called me after my survey, DIDN'T call me back like he said, I called him the next day and he went and got my friend Dominic and put me on speaker phone.  I didn't know until that exact moment what was coming out of my mouth!!!  I just took control of that conversation and spoke first, and said "I'm bringing it back"!  Chris "are you going to let us fix it"?  Me, "you fixed it three times already"!  I said it will be raining the rest of the week so I'll see you all Monday when you open. 

I'm wasn't sure how things would go once I returned, but I'm pretty sure my dream is over before it was started.  Check back for the interesting week at the RV dealership and see how I handle feeling like a complete failure at this point.  Some of the bullshit statements out of the mouths of the Sales Manager Chuck and the Service Manager Eddie will make you angry, they are so appalling and condescending.  At this point I'm brimming with questions and emotions, some so unfamiliar to someone who has planned and planned and planned...but I'm not going to move forward when all the signs are saying DON'T!

I know this will be hard to believe, but it's true non the less.  I don't always listen to my gut and it has proven a mistake from time to time throughout my life, but this by far was one of the biggest.  Just a mere five days before the RV would be delivered from the manufacturer, I was returning from my cousins in Georgetown, TX  and I clearly heard DON'T DO IT! It wasn't just an in your gut sensation, it was a clear directive and I knew who said it.  I'm not one to discuss such conversations because I have to process, and who am I to claim God told me not to go through with it.  So I kept my little secret all to myself, I mean I didn't tell a soul.  Why would I if I knew I was not going to listen?

I had too much to loose if I didn't go through with this amazing plan to travel this beautiful land and meet like minded people along the way.  I was going to write, shoot pictures and see one of a kind awe inspiring locations.  My thoughts running wildly through my brain were something like this.  People will think I just chickened out!  I don't chicken out, I'm fearless.  I should be uncertain and nervous, it is a big life changing path I've deliberately turned onto.  I know there will be challenges but I'll deal with them.  So I cared on even knowing what I knew.  

Once people heard I was told not to go through with my plan, they of course wondered why did I.  I use the analogy of a bride who says I do when she knows she shouldn't. When she is just days away from her dream wedding. The bride who has paid for the dress, the venue, the caterer, the invitations have gone out and what would people think.  I too was too far in, I had sold my home, 85% of my belongings sold or donated, no job to attend daily, NO PLAN B!  Also, I had so many people tell me I was amazing and brave and they wanted to do the exact same thing and they wanted to follow my adventure online...and and and.  

So I kept my mouth closed, kept my secret (which is odd, I'm an open book) and hit the road anyway.  

Low and behold if I wasn't immediately forced to reconsider whether or not MY PLAN was absolutely not the "REAL PLAN" I was supposed to be following.  And since I was stuck waiting to get the RV seen at the Shreveport dealership, I had plenty of time to decide what all this meant. How a brand new RV came from the factory with such issues, that they obviously didn't fix multiple times before, how I didn't even get started, how does all this weigh in with with my secret.  

Week two on the road unfolds and I begin a different kind of research on RVs.  An eye opening one that I failed to run across the previous 18 months.  Buyer beware...You might be shocked to hear some of the things I learned a little too late.