warranty / winterizing question

llr · 01-19-2018, 01:42 PM

I have my TT in for a few warranty items, one being low water pressure.

It is cold in Ohio so I winterized it before bringing it in, mid December. Today they called and said to work on the water issue there would be a $100 charge to re-winterize or they would leave it not-winterized which is not an option here. I told them to skip the water issue.

My thought is since it is a warranty issue they should cover the re-winterizing. Is this unreasonable?

SuicideSaints · 01-19-2018, 01:49 PM

They must be hard up for money/work. For a warranty issue or something that is covered by warranty I would think they would take care of it.

My previous dealer re-winterized my old trailer twice while working out warranty issues. I wasn't charged for either one and they didn't even mention it. They just did it...

Maybe pay the cost of antifreeze but to pay the labor is ridiculous to me. Just my opinion.

Moosey1 · 01-19-2018, 01:51 PM

That sucks. Will they let you come to the shop and winterize it? Make sure they don't try to charge you storage or something. So I guess you have to wait until its warmer which may delay your travel trailer usage. See if you can get on their work list first, before others, to get it done as soon as the weather is warm. Good luck!

Scrapper · 01-19-2018, 01:52 PM

My thought is if they have to drain the antifreeze, then test the system after the repair then they should re-winterize it even if they put your AF back in.

It doesn't take long to winterize with AF and the cost is a lot less than $100, 25 bucks at the most including labor. They should winterize it or make sure they drain the water heater and low point drains then blow the water out.

My campground charges $100 to winterize but that's because they are doing you a service, not warranty work

donniedu · 01-19-2018, 01:55 PM

Tell them to fix the issues, and be sure to blow out the lines. Take it home, blow out the lines and dump some antifreeze into the traps and toilet bowl. Lock the door and leave it. Should be just find as long as you do a good job of blowing the lines out.

5picker · 01-19-2018, 02:03 PM

Low water pressure how?
With the pump or the city connection?

They could easily test water pressure with antifreeze in the system rather than water. (using the antifreeze ingestion port as a supply) The pump doesn't care. If the pressure is OK with the pump then the only item to check is the city water inlet and its check valve and/or for maybe a kinked hose. All of which could be checked while still winterized with pink.

donniedu · 01-19-2018, 02:06 PM

Low water pressure, or more rightly low water flow is 99.9% of the time clogged filter screens on the faucets. Have you checked/cleaned them.?

Oaklevel · 01-19-2018, 02:17 PM

Sad $7.50 for antifreeze and $92.50 for 15 minutes of labor.

Just a side note our dealer does it for $35, not sure if they were working on it under warranty if there would be a charge.

llr · 01-19-2018, 02:18 PM

Thanks everyone for confirming my thought that they should cover it. If they wanted the material cost for the AF I would not have complained.

I will take care of it myself when it warms up, just frustrating. I figure worst case is a water pump which will probably run about the same as the antifreeze. I normally wouldn't bother with the dealer for something like this but since I had a few items I decided to have them do it. They had the TT since 12/11 per a scheduled appointment and just got it in today.

It is an issue while using the pump, not sure about city connection yet as we are rarely on the city connection.

**Iwritecode** · 01-19-2018, 02:51 PM

That doesn't sound right. That's like taking your car in to have the radiator replaced, then them charging you extra to fill it up with antifreeze again. Seems to me they should be returning your trailer to you in the same condition in which you brought it to them.

mjones12 · 01-19-2018, 05:25 PM

Amazingly, if you buy from my dealer, they will winterize it for FREE once a year as long as you own it. They put it in writing. They will do it while you wait.

The Newsoms · 01-20-2018, 06:47 PM

We were charged for winterizing while they had our camper in for warranty work. $125.

formerFR · 01-20-2018, 07:27 PM

I guess I can see two sides to this:

- yes, it 'sounds' reasonable that a dealer would give you back your rig the same way you gave it to them(winterized)

but

- no, you winterized 'after' you realized there was a problem with the water pressure, causing them more steps to resolve the same problem any other time they would not have to then 're winterize'.

and

- warranty reimbursement from the factory may not 'include' winterizing costs and time, since that is normally just a service and charge from the dealer itself. I know it 'may' seem like a trivial thing, but it does take some time, effort, and know how to properly winterize, unless you just want them to do it in a hurry and not properly.

just my thoughts...

TheWolfPaq82 · 01-20-2018, 07:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Iwritecode

That doesn't sound right. That's like taking your car in to have the radiator replaced, then them charging you extra to fill it up with antifreeze again. Seems to me they should be returning your trailer to you in the same condition in which you brought it to them.

I'm sure that anywhere you go and have a radiator replaced, they are going to charge you for the antifreeze. That's not going to be included in the price of the radiator.

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