Is the steering finally repaired ?

After delivering the RV to Lazydays on 23rd May 2016 Spartan promised that they were going to jump on this straight away as they felt they needed to put this problem to bed.

Anyway Spartan arrived on July 13th to start work and a week later they confirmed in writing what work they did (see below)

Ours techs wrapped up the repair with your coach yesterday after a 350 mile road test. The feedback received from them was they were able to drive the coach with one hand in variable situations.  The path consisted of highway and secondary roads, high winds, uneven surfaces; with curves in the mix.

The good news, we didn’t have to go to other shops as I had conveyed and anticipated. Though we had inquired with Lazy Days prior to our trip, they had the lifts we needed for all of our work; we must have spoken the wrong person.

Below is an outline of the week.

• The Spartan team arrived @ Lazy Days Monday, starting out with a simple 20 mile road test for initial gauging of the situation, noted a very minimum pull to the right.  

• Went through a visual inspection of all the steering, suspension and axle components. The U-bolts on the drive axle and HTB (Hendrickson Torque Box) fasteners were found not to be torqued to specification. Though there was not witness marks indicating there was movement with either of the components these fasteners support, I thought it was important to note. As a maintenance recommendation from our supplier these fasteners should be checked for torque every 10K miles. If you cannot find this information on your Spartan owner CD I’d be more than happy to assist with you with this.

• They found a small amount of lateral movement in steer axle bell crank assembly.  

• Found the rear ride height control valve intermittently hanging up on a fastener. When the coach air springs would re-inflate after the suspension was dumped, the linkage for this valve would come into contact with some hoses in the area. After contact, the linkage would be deflected and intermittently would be stopped short of the intended travel. Our techs secured the hoses out of this area and retested, each time the linkage would complete the full range of travel.

• The  alignment heads were installed and it was found to not be in specification, specifically the caster on the driver’s side. This was noted by our service engineer in the 3 previous alignments performed.

• The new bell crank and related hardware were received and installed.

• The U-bolts at the drive axle and HTB  fasteners were torqued to specification

• The alignment heads were reinstalled and a full chassis alignment was performed and adjusted to specification.

• Various suspension and steering components were marked. This was done to check for any movement in these components during the impending road test.

• Coach was driven was driven 350 miles to access the corrections made.

• Brought into the shop and rechecked the alignment, was still @ the same measurements prior to the road test.

• Put unit back up on hoist, no indication of movement in the steering or suspension components, as well the ride heights were still good.

We take each and every one of valuable customer concerns very seriously and we are completely confident that you will be pleased with the results. We look forward to hearing your feedback once they’ve had an opportunity to get back behind the wheel. We are extremely confident your coach will meet our expectations as the best driving chassis in the industry.

So after owning the coach for 12 months will this finally be the first time that it drives the way it should. I can’t say anymore until I can get back out to carry out a test drive myself.