Wow… What a month this it has been.. I wish Gigi was already complete, so that I could go down south and lend a hand to help the people rebuilding their homes and their lives. We had several fires in the past few months, but nothing like that.. We were so lucky in comparison.. I hope the rain and cooler weather will come soon enough to help a bit… Regarding our politicians, attitude.. As usual, they do their best, to show their true colours! They simply don’t give a Shite about this country! Why start now? They never have…
Back to my conversion, I found myself having mixed feeling about the entire project. Why, you ask?
It is hard enough as it is, just to get by and build the motorhome using what “it seems” a list of good quality products. You pay a top price (sometimes double) and do expect in return a well designed, fully functional years trouble free product that performs as advertised by the company.
Yes, that would be in a perfect world, and the more days I spend on this planet, the more I realise, how bad things have really become..
Trust
noun
noun: trust
- 1. Firm belief in the reliability, truth, or ability of someone or something.
“Relations have to be built on trust”
Honesty, this month, was spent entirely on fixing or adjusting expensive quality products that are simply not performing as advertised or are simply a bad design.
While I only managed to give one coat of varnish to the front end of Gigi’s ceiling cabinets, I was able to accumulate enough data to write 3 modification blogs.
I don’t mind modifying something to make it better suit my needs, and never had a problem with it, but when you have to modify expensive product just to get the damn thing to perform as advertised, well, that’s simply not fair..
I’m talking about Dometic, a company that “makes” products used by millions of RV and Caravan users around the world. I put makes between brackets, because I actually don’t believe Dometic makes most of the item they sell.. They buy parts and possibly assemble them together, so the correct sentence here should be “a company that does “sell products used by…”
I have few Dometic products inside Gigi. The RPD 218 Fridge, the Dometic Fridge roof vent, the Dometic kitchen Rangehood kit and the Dometic 320 Series Toilet.
All these items have been in used for nearly a year now and what I learned so far is that Dometic has the quality and the names, but not honesty regarding prices or advertised features. There is no much we can do about the prices, other than shop elsewhere and vote with our wallet. But as far as the lies about the listed features, regardless if done by mistake or not, I feel the need to let as many people as possible, know the truth, so that hopefully, company will fix their act and perhaps build a more trustworthy relation with their customers..
When this summer, the temperatures has constantly sitting above the 40 °C for weeks, that’s when I find out the hard way, that, in my opinion, the Dometic RPD 218 Fridge, is NOT built for a Climate Class rating of “T” as advertised but it is merely a class N or perhaps ST with some conditions ..
The T rating clearly state that the unit has to perform in temperatures between 18 °C – 43 °C. If you want to use your RPD 218 fridge in temperature of 43 °C, then modifications to the fridge, are need it! I Wrote a Mod. blog including as many details as possible on how I achieve a true T class rating for this fridge.
While the fridge was out of its location, to my disappointment, I was also confronted by a Dometic roof vent, that allows water to actually enter the vehicle and reach the top of the fridge, creating a possible hazard due to the 12/24 Volts electrical connections being right in the open and in plain exposure to what ever it may enter the vent above. This is unfortunately due to a bad design not of the vent itself, but of the actual vent cap part N. 3311246.000.
As it turned out when the rain hit the sloped part of the cap, it splashes toward the inside of the vent. I don’t need to tell you what it actually happens, when the rain is coming down on an angle and it is raining a bit heavy…
I think I have been very lucky with this one that a fire was not started behind the fridge, mainly thanks to the fact that it hasn’t been raining that much for the past 2 years and that, having to move the fridge out of its location while it was raining, it showed me where the rain was coming in from… Again, another Mod. blog was written just to explain and to fix the faulty Dometic vent cap.
The Toilet and the kitchen Rangehood, on the other hand have been working flawless, so I’m guessing we are having 50% success or 50% failure rating for this company products..
As most time was spending fixing things, there are no pictures for Gigi’s Log book this month. What I got instead, is a selection of pictures from the archive that I believe were not selected at the time.
What? No new pictures this month. Is the QLD summer getting to you?
What’s that funny looking bolt in the fourth picture from the top? Keep up the good work mate
Ian
Hi Ian
Is this Ian from Volvo? More than the summer, is the pregnancy that’s killing me! 😉
I just realised that if you were Ian from Volvo, you would have known that that is a broken Ball Joint Head Threaded Bolt. It got me stranded in Forbes (NSW) for a day, because I couldn’t find a replacement. It holds the steering linkage in place and without, you can’t move the selector on the gearbox..
Ian from Woleebee creek?
Yes mate, Ian from Woleebee. How’s life been treating you lately?
Been reading your blog for a while, as I’m thinking of converting one of the bus we got left and quit the damn job. I’m ready but Wendy is not helping.
Ian
How are you mate? My life is just a roller coaster (as usual)..
Mate, that would be the best decision you have made in a long time.. Let me talk to Wendy… 😉
Perhaps instead of the Coaster, getting something a bit bigger and allow her to take the rest of the family..?… Nothing better than a Coaster for 4 dogs, 2 cats and 2 cockatoo. Please take a video when you hit the road. 😉
Call me now..