My GreyHawk 31FS Nearly 1yr old and 20,000miles

[CarlB]

I have been dormant for a while on the board because of work and travel, but wanted to share the ups and downs of the past year.

As you can tell by the title we don't stay still much...

We upgraded to the Greyhawk 31FS from a 08 Winnebago View 24P(their bunk model) with the main goal of getting some of the features things that we were missing in the smaller rig, like a room for mommy and daddy, a table to eat at while rolling, and levelers. Other things we got with this was a switch to a coach with a generator that ran on the same fuel as the vehicle. The View had a propane generator, which was awesome, but finding propane in unfamiliar areas because that was the only way to power the TV and run the AC to keep things cooler, proved to be problematic. A used Seneca is on my dream list...

What we have done with it:

• Shakedown trip to NC for a family reunion
• Monster anniversary trip - FL to Iowa for wedding, Iowa to Alaska, Alaska to FL(about 30days)
• FL to VA for Funeral/celebration of life
• A few other trips that I can't recall right now...

Things we have added to the rig:

• Acquired Rim and spare tire.
• Hitch mounted spare tire carrier
• Tire Pressure Monitoring System with flow through sensors TST-507RV
• Viair 400P RV kit for filling tires
• 12Ton Bottle Jack
• Rubber roof repair tape and can of cleaner
• Torque wrench
• Electric impact wrench
• Toolkit (wrenches, screwdrivers, tape, glues, etc)
• Added camco grab handle to the screen door
• ScanGageII
• Garmin 760RV
• Installed/cut cup holders into the main table
• Cell Phone signal booster
• Sewer hose holder (that thing that keeps a slope to the drain)

Things that have broken or needed adjusting:

• RTFM on the Hot Water heater & adjust for incoming H20 temps
• Shower floor was soft (fixed)
• House battery wouldn't hold a charge and had to be replaced (discovered in middle of trip through Canada) (replaced)
• Kitchen/sofa slide is misaligned and ripped the flooring. Dealer fix flooring and then trimmed the molding that ripped it, but did nothing to address the 3/4" droop on the side of the slide where this happened. (have an appointment)
• Factory alignment required parts from Ford to correct. (fixed)
• Generator cuts out from time to time (better, but still happens)
• Bluetooth microphone was not installed. (Fixed)
• Head unit's ability to play zone 2 properly. (been in twice and halfway fixed, but levels low and get motor noise now)
• Bedroom door strap pulled out (fixed)
• Refrigerator door hinge broke - lots of load and bad roads. (fixed)
• Tank heater pads became delaminated (fixed)
• Stairs would not retract with door closing, intermittently (fixed - dealer caimed it was a fuse)
• Stairs not retracting properly and making grinding sound (have an Appointment)

Things we have learned along the way:

• We don't care for the mattress
• The On demand water heater is horrible for boondocking with 6 people in the rig due to water consumption needed.
• The propane lasts a LONG LONG time.
• The inverter and the bedroom fan really drain the single house battery much more than it should, IMHO.
• Uturns are a thing of the past now...
• Using Acetone on the "wallpaper" is a bad idea (we were trying to clean the wall for some 3m hooks)
• If you go above 65Mph, don't expect anything above ~7mpg. (anecdotally, when you are in BFE northern Canada in the middle of the night, driving 40mph or less, the MPG figures are amazing)

There is more for sure, but I wanted to share some of my follies and adventures. One of the cooler, life events from the Alaska trip was our overnight stay in the Arctic Circle, followed by being in the tunnel to Whittier at the exact time that Anchorage was hit with a 6.5 earthquake. We didn't see too many bears, but we did see lots of Bison/Buffalo and Moose(including the two we nearly hit at 2am in the morning).

For those planning a trip to Alaska, you need to be prepared for as many possible situations that could arise, because there are great expanses of road with zero cell phone coverage, despite having a signal booster. If you are at half a tank and you see a gas station that is open, Fill up. Gas stations North of Edmonton often close around 7pm, so don't be foolish and drive by a gas station at 6;30pm when you have a decent night of driving ahead of you.

Remember that mistakes become what is called experience, breathe deep and just handle the things that come up.

Have we had some aggravation with the dealership and the quality of the unit, yes, but from my reading here we are in good company there. Am I happy with it, at the end of the day, absolutely!

What are we going to improve or replace:

• The MATTRESS
• Get slide toppers
• Improve the house battery situation (single 12V is just ridiculous IMHO)
• Look into the vehicle to house charging situation and loads when running the inverter.
• Window tint options to help retain cooler air versus having to replace windows with double pane glass.
• Replace the blind annoying pleated blinds with something like the MCD system
• Possible frame reinforcements to allow better safety margins for towing and weight capacities.
• Solar panels and charging system.
• Refrigerator replacement options (not a fan of the issues with ammonia based systems due to the fire risks)

[Jopopsy]

Nice write-up. Thanks for sharing.

RE: Fridge did you fix it w/ Norcold part 634166 (Reinforced Hinge Kit)?

[CarlB]

Ohhh thanks for the heads up as we have been REALLY cautious about loading stuff in the door again. Of all places for it to Fail, the lower hinge broke loose before we got to the Arctic Circle. We used the heatshield side window pieces to keep the fridge cool or loose the $200 worth of food we had stuffed in there that night. Our fix was duct tape(gorilla brand) and Gorilla glue until we got it to the dealer. As I am 4k miles away from being out of the factory warranty I am no longer using the dealership due to their feet dragging and crappy craftsmanship (the slide was the last straw). I will pay out of pocket and settle with Jayco.

[oldmanAZ]

Originally Posted by Jopopsy

Nice write-up. Thanks for sharing.
...snip

X2

[JDSport]

Wow, you covered some ground! Thanks for sharing your adventure.

[CarlB]

Something I forgot to mention in the original post:
Drinking water - Every occupant had their own hydration backpack(think Camelback, but a different brand) which we filled from a 5gallon water bottle with a pump.

For me as the driver, the bag hung behind my head like an IV bag and whenever I got thirsty, I just pulled the tube around for a sip.

Why does/did this matter? cases of water bottles are bulky in transport and then their disposal, and my kids are not the best at putting things away when they are done with them. Also the likelihood of a hydration bag leaking or spilling was drastically reduced.

Water pump
Hydration bladders and bags

[robertkellar79]

As far as the window tint CarlB see if you can find someone that does ceramic tint. We put it on our tow vehicle and it cuts 90% of heat transfer

[CarlB]

Robert, thanks for the tip. I know a guy in a FB group that does most of the exotic cars in the area, so hopefully he has access to some of that stuff.

[canuckowner]

Carl, What has been the lowest outdoor temperature you've camped at during your journeys? I am curious how these Greyhawks perform in cold weather; particularly water lines freezing, cold floors, etc.

[CarlB]

October in Iowa was our coldest run. We were in Davenport for the weekend to visit my new GrandDaughter and it got to 30 at night. We had no issues keeping comfrotable inside. I did panic a bit about the external water lines and tanks as we got there and I realized what the temps were going to be. I bought a heater and had it running under the tanks to keep things warmer as well. I am from FL, so we don't go visiting the cold to much if we can avoid it :-).

[CarlB]

As I read another thread I realized that I forgot a crucial thing we have added:
Heatshield windshield and side window covers.

Here in FL these things are a necessity to keep temps manageable. There are also great privacy/blackout shades as well. Also the side window shades can be taped together and keep your fridge cool while the door is off for repairs and you are over 5 hours from any regular provisions....

[Jopopsy]

I've got the heatshields too; I'm ma big fan. I have them for my cars too.

[CarlB]

On order:

• Fridge reinforced hinges - It fits the N821 I have.
• New spring and foam mattress

[RangerRob]

I had much of the same experience with my 2015 Greyhawk (see thread Problem Child). I am curious, how long did it take for Jayco to approve the repairs. It seems like its been forever since they received the work order and I am still awaiting a reply which is frustrating considering its the season already. Unfortunately for me, I live in the North east so Ive been forced to retire my 31FS into winter storage until recently. Also, Ive found that there are very few repair facilities that actually take any pride in the repair process, having gone through two already that butchered the repairs. Are you getting your repairs locally or did you address them while on the road with a nearby facility? Thanks!

[CarlB]

The dealership ,ade the sloth in Zootopia look fast as far as getting repairs done. Everything up to now has been done by the dealership where I bought it. Many things they have done very poor work on and misrepresented my description of the faults/problems and have written up questionable repair efforts (example - when stairs decided that they were not going to work consistently, dealer wrote that I said it was a motor issue, then in their repair write-up, they claimed it was a bad fuse in a wiring bundle). The final straw was when they ran out the slide, and it tore up the flooring. The dealership's mechanic only dealt with the internal symptom of the wood that was able to rip the flooring, and they didn't seem to notice how the slide was misaligned on the coach. Also I never cared for the, "We can get you an appointment in a month, then we have to wait for JAYCO to approve before we can order anything.". So now I have an appointment with an RV repair only shop, where my a[pointment is only a week away, and may barely take a week to get fixed if parts are needed. Yes, I will have to prepay for the repairs and deal with JAYCO myself, but that frustration will be way less. Besides, when JAYCO paid for my alignment, and I had to pay Ford, the approval took less than a day and the payout took less than two weeks, which makes me question why the dealership's seem to take so long. Makes me think there is a degree of collusion to burn off warranty time while sitting unused at the dealership. Getting everything fixed after our big trip took nearly two months and they still had to take it back because they didn't understand/care to fix a few of the issues properly.

[RangerRob]

Wow, I thought I was the only one, figuring it was cause i live in BFE, but I guess not. We had similar issues, brought the coach to one dealer/repair facility that Jayco recommended and they butchered the repairs. Said nothing was wrong with a few of them including the misaligned slide and replaced one of the dvd players that was eating my kids movies with a different model that was 2'' smaller and used caulk to fill in the holes and didn't even clean it up to be presentable so it looks horrible. We were doing this walk through when the rain started coming in the misaligned s/o and caused the cabinet in the kitchen to warp in front of the service writer and he said "that happens sometimes, its nothing to worry about". I just stood there with my mouth open listening to the mouth breather for a bit deciding what to tell jayco as I brought it home. They had it a month and we had a two page list of legitimate write-ups and all that was fixed was the led light on the awning and , if you can call it that, the dvd player. I was contemplating using a lemon law, but I had to prepare for a deployment so it was sidelined. The dealership that we originally bought it from was just over two hours drive from the house and they wanted us to drive it to them, wait while they diagnosed the issues, drive it home, wait for parts, drive it back and drop it off, then come and pick it up after they repaired it. anything over 14 days of them having it, they would return it and have us make another appointment to come back to avoid lemon laws. Hand of God, its what the service writer told me... I am so disgusted by the lack of customer service I considered selling it outright and avoiding the RV life for good. The hard part is we thoroughly enjoy the family time with the kids and its entirely too much fun to give up, but I can say that Jayco and their affiliate dealers have very much left me with a bad taste in my mouth over this. Did you get an extended warranty? I didn't and I was thinking the same thing about them burning time.

[CarlB]

I am barely 30 min away from no less than 4 different RV dealership's, and only one is a JAYCO dealer. Tampa RV is my JAYCO dealership, a branch/division/franchise of the RV One network. They really pressure you to buy their extended warranties, but I resisted. No way I was going to finance a 5yr service for the life of the RV note. Now I may look into one from Good Sam or Coachnet.

RangerRob, unless you paid a lot cash and negotiated a heck of a deal, you will likely find you are very upside down. I would try to find a reputable mobile RV repair outfit, and work it out with them and the JAYCO Warranty department.

The dealerships as a general rule are very hard to get an appointment with, whether youbought from them or not. And then there is the mixed bag of nuts in quality and speed of repairs at the dealership's, so I am now moving all my business to those, whose primary revenue stream comes from repeat repair customers, meaning RV repair shops. Fortunately here in FL, there is a market that can support RV repair shops. From what I have read, and experienced, there is no single manufacturer that doesn't also have quite a few issues with new units, unless you go with one of the more low volume direct to customer manufacturers.

Consider that nearly all RVs are made within a 50mile radius, meaning the labor and management pool may not have lot of diverse DNA, so as long as the demand is there, there is little incentive for the big changes we are expecting when basically signing a second mortgage. Essentially, I have accepted the things that I can't change with this and while not happy, I know ways to get better results than the normal path set forth by the industry.