Wait, that doesn't look good. Oh my gosh. Welcome to the RV
Life. We're noticing a problem with your RV actually makes you
feel grateful. Grateful for the fact that it could have been
worse and caused a dangerous situation while towing. In this
series, we're tracking our RV expenses in the high-cost state
of California. Last week, we ventured our way down
Interstate five with not much to see but high fuel prices.
After arriving at our destination in Bakersfield, we
noticed something a little wonky with the tires on the
passenger side. In this episode, we're bringing in the
experts to help us get back on the road but at what cost? We
had no idea there were warning signs of this impending failure
and it will probably make you want to look around your tires
before your next trip. Good morning from Bakersfield,
California. We made it here safely but not unscathed. I had
to laugh to myself because the other day, I said, it's nice to
be back out on the road after sitting in one spot for two
months were finally able to get the RV back out on the road and
give it a chance to stretch its legs but I think instead of
stretching its legs, we accidentally broke its legs. It
was a rough ride the other day and I think the trailer paid
for it all. The first dead giveaway was noticing that the
tires of the trailer were super close together. Looking in
between the tires, you could see the actual suspension kind
of cockeyed to one side and really shifting a lot of its
weight forward almost. I'm like that does not look right. We
crawled underneath and sure enough there is the leaf spring
completely snapped in half. RV life. The more things break, the more we
just start laughing. Is that more concerning that we just
laugh now instead of like crying and get angry. We just
laugh. That might be concerning. We should probably
not let people know about that. That's why the Equaflex like
that's why the tires are so close together but I wonder
what made it snap. Yeah, that's crazy. Now, if you're not
familiar with what a leaf spring is, just think of it as a
simple mechanical add-on to your suspension. It helps
support the weight of the trailer. Now, here's the
kicker. I put out a call immediately to the local repair
technician. No answer. Finally get a text back from a random
number yesterday. Local repair technician said hey I missed
your call. I thought huh this is weird. But I'll bite. I said
my name's Kyle. I told him about the situation we're in.
He said I can have someone there in the morning if that
works for me. Heck yeah that works for me. We're at the KOA.
Here's my site number. What time can we expect ya? I'm
expecting a call by now. Nope. Just more text messages.
Between nine and ten I'll be there. Just know that the
service calls a hundred fifty dollars and then on top of
that, it's an additional $125 an hour. Sounds good to me.
Send them away. I don't have time for this. We gotta get
this fixed. Then he writes the weirdest text message, name,
address, phone number, vehicle info. Alright, are are you are
you sure you're not the IRS? I'm actually kind of glad this
is happening to us because this is going to go hand in hand
with the videos we just released a couple weeks ago
about when things go wrong in RV life which they will. How do
you get them addressed out on the road? Because all the
dealerships that are selling you these RVs, they don't want
anything to do with it. Their hands are clean of it. I guess,
they don't want to deal with your sorry butts sitting in the
parking lot. So now, you're left out on the road looking
for answers but you're not getting any. Is the mobile tech
the way to go? Is this actually going to work out in a way
that's going to get us back on the road safely. Is it going to
be professional? Is it going to be overly expensive? How long
is this actually going to take? Heck, should we have just done this
ourselves? Need not worry, pump the brakes. We're going to
answer those questions for you here in just a minute.
They have to jack the trailer up I'm assuming to access this
which I'm thinking the slides gotta come in but do all the
slides have to come in do we have to be hooked up? Never had
a leaf spring snap in half before so this is a first for
both of us. My other concern why did it snap? Like I'd like to
think our RV has gone under some crazy you know travel over
the past few months and it just, it just needed a little pothole
to snap it but we also just installed this washer dryer and
added some extra weight to the RV. Are the leaf springs, I heard
you saying they're kind of they help support the trailer. Are we
putting too much weight on those leaf springs? Yeah, I
don't know. We might be and on top of that, I'm really glad to
know that if that is the case, this did not happen up in
Canada when we were in the middle of nowhere. Luckily,
we're in Bakersfield now.
I can see the comments now. Would you like some coffee with
your creamer? Listen, I don't want to be sad all the time and
just drink black coffee like I like to have a little fun.
She's not calling you guys out. She's calling me out because I
just drink my coffee black all the time and I guess I'm just a
sad person. And it's sad. It's sad. Okay, let's actually
update you on the washer dryer. I talked a little bit about it
in a previous video. We love it. It has been a lifesaver
when it comes to getting laundry done because no longer
do we have to log everything to a laundromat deal with quarters
and throwing everything in the truck and walking around with
dirty underwear all over the RV park. But the issue is that
this combo washer dryer does not come with a lint trap.
Trying to be good about checking the vent that we
installed and make sure there's not lint building up there and
this is the first time we're going to check it. We've had
the washer dryer for exactly a month, exactly one month and
we're going to see together how much lint has collected inside
there. Well, this is also a good moment to show you my
solution to preventing things from slamming into the vent
while we're driving. You guys can come on down.
Ta-da. I had it pictured in my head. Tension rods, right? Like
the ones that are doubled and then you just, I don't know. I
built a barrier around it and you know what? It works, okay?
And this is why I'm glad we did the vent this way 'cuz it's
easy access when we want to clean the lint out versus if it
was routed behind and through the pass through, we would
really have to do some digging just to clean the lint out.
That was easy. Holy cow. Oh my gosh. Nothing? Nothing. Oh, you
know what's great is because I have long lanky arms, is I
might be able to reach into that 90 degree elbow. I can't
take you seriously. You look like the tin man off the Wizard
of Oz right now. Oh my gosh, I can because my concern is like,
do we have to pull the whole washer dryer out for me to see
if Lint has is stuck in that 90° elbow? Mm hmm. But I'm
there baby with my hand. I'm ready. Okay, ready? Yup. I
That's it. Dexter, what is this? Look at this hair. This
is this is unacceptable. That's a fire hazard, sir. Let me
think about how many loads of laundry we've done. 31 days, 15
to twenty loads and this is how much lint we have. I think
where we went right was by, well, first of all, me
listening to my wife. Isn't that how it always goes? Yes,
dear. Second of all, she came up with a great idea. Keep that
extremely as straight as possible so that it allows for
adequate drying and when you do walk outside underneath that
external vent, I do see some build up of lint out there so
it looks like the drying process is doing amazing. RV
Life is giving us one positive vibe today so I'm happy about
that. You gotta count the little wins when you can. So, a
lot of people really want to know how long does it take to
do a full load of laundry and how much laundry can you do? I
got the data for you. To reiterate, this is a combo
washer dryer. It washes and then without touching it, it
goes right into a like a drying cycle. Actually, come here.
Let's show you our newest addition into the RV. Ta-da. We
can fill this up all the way to the brim and this is about how
much clothes we can fit into the washer dryer combo at one
time. I was thinking we were going to kind of have to take
three steps back when it came to washing and drying our clothes
like maybe this was a fisher price model. You know, the ones
you find in Toys R US. Not the case. We've been getting a ton
of laundry done. We are absolutely loving it. From
start to finish, it's about two and a half to three hours at
the most. Which I think is pretty good because you wake up in
the morning put on a load of laundry at 7 and have it done
by 11 and then you could still do more loads throughout the
day. You know what there's actually a lot of stuff we just
recently updated like new things we added to make RV
living so much nicer. I can't wait to share with you. We
actually did a video on this recently so it's on the channel.
Go back to our main page. Find it. It's a updated tour of our
RV. One more thing how do we find these people like the mobile
repair out on the road when we're in a unknown area that
we've never been before? I personally like to rely on
Google a lot and I rely on those reviews. A huge tip I
have for you is make sure you just read the Google reviews
and trust your gut because that's really all you have to
go off of when you're out on the road. And by the way,
speaking of which, it helps no matter where you're at or what
situation you're in. So, hit that like button for this video
to help us and show us that you enjoy our content as well.
Looks like he's here, babe and of course, it's pouring out.
Perfect timing. Let's have you bring the slide in. Okay.
Coming in. Okay, go ahead. Roughly 27 eye to eye and it's
a six pack. Yeah. So, are they really that difficult to swap
out on your own? Need a jack or how much? You do need a jack?
Okay. I don't know how high you're landing here will go but
if you're landing here, I mean, you can always, you know, block
up and block up and if you can get the tire off in an
emergency situation then. Yeah. Yeah, you can change it. Okay.
I do have another question for you. So, we're always getting
asked about when we're in tow, we always get stopped because
these rear jacks always hang so low. You can only see. Yeah. It
goes up to here and people are always like, oh my gosh, your
jacks are still down. I did too. Yeah. Are they able to go
up more? I don't. Like they don't. They are adjustable?
Yeah. These ones are adjustable in the rear? It doesn't look
like they can maybe go well. They're already maxed out going
down. Yeah. Have you hit anything yet? Well, sometimes
if we go a little bit too fast, we will ever so slightly bottom
out here. Is that something I know there's a lot on your to
do, would you guys be able to lift those while you're here or
would we, yeah? Yeah, we can lift them. Sweet. Just take em.
We'll just probably go up one or two bolt holes. Okay. As far
as we could take the thing up. Sounds good. Without hitting
the floor. Okay. Do you want to do just one broken one? Let's
just do em both. The leaf springs. Might as well. Oh
yeah. Let's just get em both some. Do both. I would at
least. Well, okay. Do both and then keep the spare good one
for spare. Oh, I like that. That's smart. If a lot of
people get scared with it too. Yeah. Like all the leaf springs
like, if you have one and you have to do it, you're
mechanical inclined. You get Gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure we
can swing it. Yeah. We're going to run and go get the leaf
spring and then well leaf springs. Yeah. Sounds good.
Thanks guys. Thank you. Whoo. It's wet out there. Okay, now
that I have you guys in here, what you caught out there was
actually how Ney and I like to do things where you know, if
you don't have the time to a lot in dealing with these
issues on your own, you might as well just utilize these guys
for getting as much as you can done all at once. You know,
we've known for the longest time that these rear jacks need
to be actually raised up more because everybody stopping us
on the road saying your rear jacks are down and we're so
aware of it but with our schedule conflicts it is just
so hard to find the time to allot to go out there and get
all this addressed. So all these guys have the tools like the
jacks and all the necessary parts to actually get this
addressed. Just get it all banged out at once I would rather pay
little extra money for some convenience than taking more
time and more stress load on our lives. Ugh. You know what I
mean? I learned so much here and I was pleasantly surprised
to find out how easy this job really is. I'll explain
everything but I have to say that I am not a professional
and this is nowhere near an install video. I'm only sharing
what I learned and you should definitely seek out some
professional advice before doing these things. One thing I
forgot to mention is that another reason we were unable
to do this job ourselves is because we don't carry any jacks with
us to get the job done. See, here's the thing that the
Mobile Tech said about having a jack underneath the axle. So,
we all you always do the jack underneath the axle. So, what
it is is when I loosen that leaf spring. Yeah. The whole
axle will fall down. So, basically, that's why it's like a, I mean,
that's a tiny jack. Yeah. Just a strangler. Yeah. But right
now, the only weight I have on it is the axle. I see. That
makes sense. Okay. These are what are known as shackle
bolts. I like to think of them as a shoulder bone or the hip bones
of the human body that helps keep your arms and legs
attached. Here's where the rubber meets the road. You will
notice a thing called a tie plate. That is that flat
looking piece of metal and then two big U bolts holding down
the leaf springs against the axle beam. Am I blocking
anyone's view here? Are y'all able to see the U shape I'm
talking about in those U bolts? Pretty cool huh? Like what is
this? It's almost like shaving off there. Is that anything to
be concerned about? It hitting? Oh, just from it actually
hitting? Okay. Yeah, when I broke the bolt. Most of the
time your RV will be exposed to some rugged conditions that
will create rust and other buildup. Making it just that
much harder to loosen important pieces for your repair. A quick
tip I learned was to use WD forty in these cases. After
loosening the four nuts that are holding in the U bolts, we
were able to remove the broken leaf spring pack for replacement.
How did we know what size leaf springs we actually needed?
Don't worry, we got you covered. Listen to this. So,
when you were making those measurements before, I was
assuming you were measuring the length between the the eyelids.
Okay and then, do you have to measure the width itself? Uh to
an extent, yes. To an extent, yeah. Okay. Gotcha. Cool.
Normally, with trailers are all the same but when you get into
like the cargo trailers and all that stuff, they're different
widths. The eyes of the leaf spring are located on either
side and this is where the shackle bolts secure
everything. On one side, it's secured at the frame of the RV
and then on the other side, it's secured at the equalizer
in the middle of the two axles. I thought this was such a great
hack for something that could be such a back breaker trying
to get into place. The mobile tech said this is the hardest
part getting everything lined up. So they came up with a
really cool ratcheting system around the axle and then on the
frame of the RV to pull the eyes of the leaf spring pack
into place so that the shackle bolts could be secured. Just
ever so slightly off and now he's ratcheting it so it could
get through that eyelet there. Oh I see. That's a good technique.
What a simple yet effective way to get the job done. Once the
new leaf spring pack was installed, it was only a matter
of applying some high-temp grease to the shackle bolts.
Don't overthink this. I think this stuff is called red and
tacky grease. Basically, it is a grease that will able to
withstand high temperatures so that it doesn't fling off
during your travels. I'm thinking that the cordless
ratchets and impacts are a great way to save some time to
get the job done by losening the nuts and bolts quickly.
However, just forget to use a torque wrench to ensure proper
torque specifications when tightening everything back
down. I know that is a mouthful but all in all, just don't let
er rip too much with these tools or you could end up
damaging some important parts. Our original leaf spring packs
were rated for about 3000 pounds. These new and upgraded
leaf spring packs, however, are rated for 3500 pounds. It's
just a little extra cushion for some wear and tear going down
the road which is always nice to have. We had 3000 before?
Okay. And these are 3500? Okay. It's not going to put
uneven pressure on one side versus the other. Oh okay. Does that
increase your RV's total gross vehicle weight rating and like
ever so slightly. Not legally because you can't change the
tag but. Oh yeah. It I mean I'd feel more comfortable having
more weight in here. And why do you guys recommend doing both
just out of curiosity is it just. So when that one broke
all the weight I'll put on the other one. Oh so it could've
really torque it. Stress fracture in it. This is one of
those things where it's like okay if you break one? Yeah.
You know you're on your spare. Go get new. Here is where you
could see our leaf spring broke in half. Remember when the
technician mentioned that the metal shavings were due to the
broken leaf spring pack? It's almost like shaving off there.
Is that anything to be concerned about? The grinding
and wear occurred because the axle was loose and floating
causing it to shift forward into the equalizer and creating
damaging grooves and metal shavings. They believe that
this has been happening for a while unfortunately. So we
might have broken in this earlier in our trip without even
realizing it until now. We were able to get it all banged out
at one time. Cannot thank them enough for coming out on such a
quick notice. I can't recommend anybody more than them. Mecha
Medix is their name. Mecha Medix. We'll leave a link in
the description if you're in the area and you need some work
done. These guys are really professional, down to earth.
They were great conversationalist. It's amazing how much we
need to be using these mobile more often. They are able to
pull us out of these scenarios that we find ourselves in quite
frequently but let's talk about extended warranties. Are they
even worth it? You're going to be surprised at how many
strings are being pulled at these dealerships and we expose
everything that I'm talking about in this video right here.
So, click on this one next and watch this. We'll see you guys
next week.