Shifter hesitation....

[Voortrekker]

I'm the second owner of a 2014 SportsCoach Cross Country 404RB. When I purchased the coach from a dealer in Florida last winter, I noted that the coach was "reluctant" in shifting into Reverse. The salesman said that wasn't unusual, and this was confirmed by a Service Manager. However, one of the techs who worked on the unit said that it really shouldn't be so sluggish in shifting. So I took the coach to a local Allison Transmission center and had them look at it. Long story short: Allison found no faults with the transmission, but did confirm that the Arens Shift-By-Wire system was faulty. Since this all happened the day before we were scheduled to return home, I decided to head home and take my chances.

Upon arriving home, I took the coach to a local Freightliner dealer who diagnosed the problem. As you'll see in the attached photo, one pair of pins on the underside of the shift pad was bent over and forced to connect with the female socket---that is, two pins in one socket.

Since Freightliner indicated that this "defect" was caused during the construction of the coach, I asked Coachmen to provide some relief for the over $500 labor bill to fix this problem. Since I'm the SECOND owner, Coachmen declined to help. I DO understand their position!

But....folks....if your Freightliner chassis motorhome is shifting in a rather unusual way, please get it in before your manufacturer's warranty expires. In the case of Coachmen, it's only ONE year!

More info: When you shift from Neutral (NN), to Drive you get a (61) indication in the window. When shifting into Reverse, you should get (RR). Sometimes when shifting into Neutral, I'd get a (-N)....in which case you can't restart should you shut the engine down. Most frequently when shifting into Reverse, I'd get a (-R) indication. You need a (RR) indication to really be in reverse. So...I'd have to shift between the various gears several times to get a (RR) indication. There were a couple of times that I thought I'd never be able to reverse out of a parking area, etc. NOT a comfortable feeling!