What broke/failed on your Jayco today

[Route 66 Traveler]

The Norcold Guy said there is no bracket for the freezer door, only the refrigerator. My trailer is now 5 years old. I used to leave both the doors ajar when turned off, but now I am going to close them because when they are open all the weight is carried on those hinges. They are both pretty fragile and the plastic is brittle. Also, do not overload the door with lots of cans. The added weight just increases the chance of breakage.

[XoXSciFiGuy]

Mouse problem is no more. After I inspected and sealed the trailer, I hooked up shore power in the driveway, set traps in places the pets couldn't reach, and then let the cat and the Westie terrier spend the night in the trailer. Problem solved. (*laughs*) The Westie can hold it all night, but I had to do a small catbox for the cat.

Saturday morning we head off into the Cascades for some more dry camping while the weather is good.

[Roboink]

We just bought a one owner well cared for 2011 Jayco Eagle 322FKS from an elderly couple who are 85 years old. They are hanging up the camping because all there friends have died off. When we picked it up, the husband said when they put the awning in he heard the spring broke on the left side. Then proceeded to hand me a $100 bill to get it fixed. I am a first timer here on the Jayco forum and wondering if it is an easy fix. What part am I looking for? Any You Tube video's? Etc. etc. Thanks from West Michigan.

[JFlightRisk]

Welcome to the Forum from Western New York State!

Gather the brand and model name of your awning, and get on their website for awning parts, or give them a call. It's not difficult to replace a spring assembly. It just takes a little time. I bet there's some You Tube videos to show how it's done.

[Onyrlef]

Originally Posted by Route 66 Traveler

The Norcold Guy said there is no bracket for the freezer door, only the refrigerator. My trailer is now 5 years old. I used to leave both the doors ajar when turned off, but now I am going to close them because when they are open all the weight is carried on those hinges. They are both pretty fragile and the plastic is brittle. Also, do not overload the door with lots of cans. The added weight just increases the chance of breakage.

The freezer door hinges on my Norcold are identical to the hinges on the refer door. My lower refer door hinge broke when I let the door swing open as I was moving the MH forward ( I'd propped them open during storage and....you know) I was able to weld my hinge and reinforced it with the metal bracket from Norcold. So far it's held up. I did however go ahead and buy a new door, just in case, since the hinges can't be replaced. Expensive lesson.

[Rustic Eagle]

The GFCI receptacle on the bathroom wall decided to break loose from the plastic box that is mounted from 'behind" the wall panel ....., and the broken plastic 'was' part of this same plastic box. Appears two screws (upper left & lower right) hold the plastic box against the wall panel.



Bob

[nazhog]

axle hanger on my 2020 whitehawk fell of frame trailer sitting on tire at only 4k miles not happy with jayco right now .

[MichaelO]

I’ve been having issues with my solar panels charging my battery lately. At first I thought maybe the controller was going out on me. I would go up to my trailer and the battery would be low after a couple weeks of not being used by me. Go up the next week and the battery would be at 100%. Then the following week it would be at 83%. I do have the miscellaneous vampire draws as well as the fridge running all the time, but the solar panels should be keeping up with it. This weekend it was at 83% and I noticed that the solar wasn’t charging at all. I was thinking it might be the controller, but I wanted to eliminate any other possibilities. The connections were all tight. I then eliminated the circuit breaker I have between the panels and the controller and it started working again. When I added the breaker back in it would stop charging. Tripping the breaker and resetting it had no effect. So I’ll be replacing the breaker. That’s a lot cheaper than a new controller.

[TxLoser]

Today found a screw missing on the slide out frame, and another that holds the chord up out of the way in my pin box. And a a broken chair leg.

[Marcm157]

Hope I am not cursing myself here but the streak continues as yet another day has gone by and nothing broke on my Jayco....

[Route 66 Traveler]

I had my first failure last week on our way home from a Texas trip. Stopped at a park with no cable TV. No problem, went to turn on the TV Booster and no red light! Tried 2 or more times and still no red light. The fuse for the Booster is the same one for the CO/propane detector, which are still working. Maybe just a bad switch?

When I got home I pulled the Booster out of the wall. Wiggling the rats nest of wires made the red light blink on & off. Got it down to the small +12 volt power wire which was poorly connected to the bigger +12v wire. Cut off about 14 inches of unneeded wire and reconnected to the +12 power wire. Also rerouted some poorly routed coax cables and cleaned up the sawdust and scrap wire cuttings left behind by the RV Craftsmen! Works great now!

Worked for the last 5 years...the one time I really needed it a no go!

[ependydad]

This was an exciting find as I was removing the factory inverter from my rig. The one battery cable's lug was barely held on with black tape and the world's worst crimp.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nbfCKi5MXQ

[TxLoser]

That could’ve been bad. Good find.

[jetlag]

Back from our last trip last week, and the Winegard quit working. It had acted strangely during that trip in Myrtle beach, with the Wi-Fi switching from 4G where I had set it first day due to a weak Wi-Fi signal, and back to the camp's Wi-Fi without prompting from me. Once home, Winegard totally disappeared from the menu in the JayCommand tablet and says Winegard unavailable. The antenna, however, works well and connects to the home Wi-Fi with no issues. I can check on the camper from anywhere, just as I did with Winegard. Until I get it resolved, I won't be able to use the 4G card though. Good thing all this is happening now as we head for Lexington Virginia, for a week and then drop it off at the dealer in Staunton, Virginia for warranty work.

[AKRUEBBE]

Tried to adjust our Winegard Rayzar HD TV antenna and the antenna would not turn and the knob inside was turning. Took the knob off and two pieces of plastic fell from the head of the antenna. It was still within the 5 year parts warranty so I called Winegard and was told the only way those pieces could have broke off was if the antenna hit something. That is not the fact since we have been in the same site for a month and it was working fine when we arrived. Winegard was not sympathetic at all. Yesterday I sent them these pics and asking them to point out evidence that the antenna hit something heavier than a feather. The antenna doesn't have a scratch on it!

[TxLoser]

That’s a clean antenna. Mine has a couple branch marks across the top of it. Sounds like it just got brittle and broke. Hopefully they come through for you.

Knock on wood, nothing broke so far on this trip. A little maintenance on hot water heater drain plug with some plumbers tape, and found a nest in the kingpin. Still have to scoop that out.

[XoXSciFiGuy]

My 2009 Xterra finally blew the engine at 252,000 miles. And...it did this five miles up a Forest Service road...while we were getting ready to hook up the trailer and go home. I had to have a tow truck come out using GPS to find us. The tow truck could not haul the Xterra AND the trailer, so I stayed behind at the campsite and let the tow folks (married couple) take the wife back to Yakima.

Two Days Later: Wife returns with big borrowed truck. She tells me she sold the Xterra to the wrecking yard for five hundred. At first, I was REALLY angry. I wanted a chance to diagnose the problem myself. We haul the trailer home...

We decide to buy another rig and SHE finds a fully loaded 2003 Infiniti QX4 at Facebook Marketplace for $2,250...I see the pictures. It has only 114K miles on it, so we go look at it...

This thing is in near showroom condition. The young couple who own it had just taken possession of a new Ford Bronco. I can hardly get the cash out of my pocket fast enough...

We take it home. I order a Curt hitch from Amazon and install it. Along the way I put some high end seat covers on it, change the oil, check it out from front to rear. Absolutely everything works on it. I even got the old Homelink function mounted on the sun visor to work, so now it opens the garage.

We take this combo on a dry camp to the Tieton River area near Rimrock Lake. Everything goes great.

When I return home, I see similar QX4's going for between 4-9 thousand dollars, all of them with a lot more miles than ours. I also see that the original MSRP for this thing in 2003 dollars was $35,000.

Everyone is happy. The Xterra is forgotten. Pictures below, starting with the Xterra that died on us at the worst possible moment.



BELOW: The new rig.















Basically, we pulled success from the jaws of disaster. The wife was packing the smartphone on the breakdown trip (I had left mine at the house), so when she got to the repair shop they showed her that it would cost a couple of thousand to fix the Xterra (we got it cheap anyway), and with 250,000 already on the rig, just wasn't worth it. Since she had no way to contact me at the trailer, she had to make the call on the Xterra, or start paying storage, or have it towed AGAIN to the house.

I did go to the shop later myself to get the report. They weren't feeding her baloney. The engine had tossed the belt and bent the valves. I wouldn't have had it fixed either.

After we bought the Infiniti (Nissan product), I realized we were far better off with that, then some high mileage Xterra that never was suitable for towing anyway. (Rated to tow 5,000 sure. But too tall and too short and you can tell when you towed with it) The Infiniti tows the trailer pretty easily, as long as I don't try taking it to ridiculous places. I sometimes did that in the old Xterra.

[TxLoser]

I’d say that worked out really well in the end. I had an ‘03 Infiniti sedan. Probably the same engine and if was a great car. Dependable and nice all at once. Enjoy your new tow vehicle.

[Old and soft]

Check the oil often. We just unloaded a kia with under 100k that burned a quart of oil every 200 miles.

[XoXSciFiGuy]

Originally Posted by TxLoser

I’d say that worked out really well in the end. I had an ‘03 Infiniti sedan. Probably the same engine and if was a great car. Dependable and nice all at once. Enjoy your new tow vehicle.

Your car and my SUV probably ran the same engine, the 3.5 liter six. It runs at 240 hp. Now that's enough to tow a 17 foot Jayco, but not much more.