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Wednesday, August 17, 2016

In-N-Out Cummins

The Roadrunner has been hesitating going up hills a little ever since I had a brain freeze and put a few gallons of gas into the diesel tank.  That was about six weeks ago.

While in Portland Pam called the local Cummins facility and they said it would be three weeks before they could get us in.  And they recommended Cummins Northwest which is a RV CoachCare repair facility.  It is located right outside of Spokane on I-90.

Not to overstate it, but this might be the best RV-friendly repair facility we have visited.  We were very glad to see the back-in parking spaces with 50 amp and water.
 We got in early afternoon on Sunday and had our choice of two spaces.  (Don't know why that had two school buses over there but a couple of motor homes that arrived later than we did could have parked there.)

We had time to go over the Fairchild AFB which was about five miles away.  We had been there five years ago when we had another Warner Bros Reunion in 2011.  We did some grocery shopping and returned to our parking spot.  It was an uneventful evening and watched the Olympics enjoyed the beautiful 90 degree weather.

We were there with some other folks when the door opened a few minutes before 7:00 AM and talked to Tim the Service Manager.  Pam had spoken to him a few weeks ago and he remembered.  Pam had a hunch it was the fuel filters that needed to be changed so that's what we asked them to do.

Tim said, "We'll try to work you in, but we are real busy and we may not get to you before your Thursday appointment."  That was three days away.  But we were hopeful.  How long can it take to change a couple of filters?
We explained what we thought the problem was and the fact the fuel filters are easy to get to to and....yada yada yada.

To our amazement about 20 minutes later Jesse the mechanic walked out and drove the Roadrunner into the shop!  He was waiting on parts from another job and had some time to work on ours.
Next we went into their small but comfortable Customer Lounge and used their wifi which was fast. I went over to the Parts Department and was able to get a baseball hat.  (Can one have too many hats?) Then I went back to the lounge and logged on.
I didn't get very far before the job was done!  It may have been 20 minutes.  It probably took as long to do the paperwork as it did to replace the filters.  $213 later and we had new ones on and a couple of spares in the passenger seat for next time.
We thanked Tim profusely and hooked up the car and made it to Mizzoula Montana for the night.  We had a few mountains to climb and it drove like a champ.  Needless to say we were pretty excited about how things went at the Cummins facility.  We are going to add this one to the list that is worth waiting for to get the Roadrunner worked on if we need to again out West.

It's a medium size facility with about 10-12 service bays, has electric and water hook ups and has a dump station to boot!  And the Petro truck stop is just down the street.  So we were able to fill up and get going in record time.  It is right off of I-90 and a little noisy but not a problem really.  (Especially when you run the a/c or ceiling fan.  Not much we could do about the trains but that is part of the charm in these parts...

It was a great experience at Northwest Cummins! We highly recommend and will remember this place.  That's all for now on the Roadrunner Chronicles. Thanks for stopping by.



7 comments:

  1. I'm surprised you were able to get in. It seems like any service company has a long waiting list to get in.

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  2. Where are you headed from Missoula? It's always such a blessing when you find a good RV service place because they are rare.

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  3. Nice it all went well. I did not know what a little gas would do, will add to my leaky bucket of knowledge. Happy travels.

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  4. Hmmmm we are in need of an oil change and may pass thru Spokane in about three weeks, may just have to give them a call for some service!

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  5. Nice to get to the bottom of the problem. The gas probably stripped some of the gunk that is in all diesel fuel tanks and the filters caught the debris before it got into the fuel pump and injectors, they did their job. I had similar problems with my diesel when diesel fuel started to get bio-diesel put in. Fuel filter replacement corrected the problem.

    Fortunately I know how to replace my own filters and carry two extra sets with me at all times, just in case.

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  6. Wow! Now that's what I call five star service.

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  7. Anyone use a diesel additive? We used to have more power a few years ago. But after getting some big work done on the engine awhile back - we lost power on our 400 HP engine. Though it rides smoothly, it doesn't have the 'get up and go/' acceleration it once had.

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