Summary/Intro

In this episode of The Smart RVer Podcast, Eric Stark shares a recent experience that began with buying a boat and trailer and ended up changing the way he approaches RV repairs, hard-to-find parts, and the frustrations RV owners face when trying to keep older equipment on the road.

The boat was in excellent condition, but the trailer was another story. Worn bearings, bad brakes, disconnected brake lines, aging axles, hard-to-find proprietary parts, and conflicting information from manufacturers and suppliers turned what looked like a simple purchase into a much bigger project.

More importantly, the experience gave Eric a fresh perspective on what RV owners sometimes go through when they are told a part is discontinued, unavailable, or too difficult to identify. It also reinforced the importance of knowing your equipment, understanding the tools you carry, and developing enough basic mechanical knowledge to work through problems when they happen away from home.

Eric also covers a quick late-summer RV air conditioner maintenance reminder, including checking filters and cleaning condenser and evaporator coils. And in RV Envy, he talks about Solbio Holding Tank Liquid and why it has been getting such positive feedback from RV owners.

The big takeaway from this episode is simple: the more you understand your RV, your tools, and the systems you depend on, the better prepared you will be when something does not go according to plan.

Show Notes

In this episode, Eric Stark shares a personal story that gave him a new appreciation for the frustrations RV owners experience when repairs are not straightforward, and replacement parts are difficult to find.

It started with the purchase of a well-maintained boat in Seattle. The boat itself was in remarkable condition, but the trailer underneath it had been largely neglected. The tires were about ten years old, the wheel bearings were loose, the brakes were badly worn, and the brake lines were no longer functioning as they should.

Rather than risk towing the boat hundreds of miles back to Montana, Eric left the boat and trailer behind, returned home, gathered the parts he thought he would need, and went back two weeks later to make the trailer roadworthy.

That experience alone reinforced an important lesson: appearances do not tell the whole story. A trailer, RV, tow vehicle, or other piece of equipment can look excellent while still hiding serious mechanical problems beneath the surface.

The bigger lesson came later.

Once Eric started repairing and upgrading the trailer at home, he ran into proprietary axles, expensive replacement options, discontinued-looking components, conflicting information, and customer service that was not always willing to help him solve the problem.

At one point, replacing the trailer entirely seemed easier than repairing it.

Then a helpful trailer dealer changed the project's direction. Instead of simply selling Eric a new trailer, the dealer took the time to explain some practical alternatives, including converting the trailer from hydraulic surge brakes to electric brakes.

That experience stood out because the dealer was willing to forgo a potential sale to help someone make a better decision.

It also made Eric think about the calls he receives from RV owners who have already contacted multiple dealerships or parts departments and have been told that the part they need is unavailable.

Sometimes the part really is gone.

Other times, it is still available through another supplier, has been replaced by a newer version, or requires someone willing to spend a little extra time identifying an alternative.

Eric explains how this experience has encouraged him to look even harder when helping RV owners find difficult parts. He has always tried to go the extra mile, but now he better understands how discouraging it can be when every phone call seems to lead to another dead end.

The episode also highlights another important part of DIY RV ownership: knowing how to use the tools you carry.

While repairing the trailer, Eric was reminded that simply owning a toolbox does not mean someone knows how to use what is inside it. RV owners do not need to become professional technicians, but becoming comfortable with basic hand tools, sockets, wrenches, electrical testing equipment, and simple repair procedures can make a huge difference when something goes wrong on the road.

A little familiarity can help turn an emergency into a manageable repair.

Eric encourages RV owners who are less comfortable with tools to practice at home. Learn what the tools are called, understand what they are used for, and spend some time looking at the systems on your own RV before you are forced to learn on the side of the highway.

Quick Tip: Late-Summer RV Air Conditioner Maintenance

With summer winding down, Eric also reminds you to check your RV air conditioner before the season is over.

Start with the inside air filters. Dirty or clogged filters restrict airflow and can make the air conditioner work much harder than necessary.

The rooftop condenser coil should also be checked and cleaned. Depending on the air conditioner, the evaporator coil may also be accessible for cleaning.

Eric points out that RV air conditioner filters can become extremely dirty, especially after a summer filled with dust, smoke, pollen, and campground debris.

Clean filters and coils can improve airflow, help the air conditioner perform better, and reduce unnecessary strain on the system.

RV Envy: Solbio Holding Tank Liquid

In the RV Envy segment, Eric talks about Solbio Holding Tank Liquid.

Solbio has been gaining traction with Highway 93 RV customers, and the feedback has been very positive. It offers RV owners another option for maintaining their black and gray holding tanks without relying on the heavily perfumed approach found in many traditional holding tank treatments.

Eric encourages RV owners who have not tried Solbio to take a look and see why it has become such a popular product among customers.

The Bigger Lesson

The trailer project turned into more than a repair job.

It became a reminder that owning an RV, boat, trailer, or tow vehicle means continually learning about the equipment you depend on.

Parts change.

Manufacturers discontinue components.

Suppliers give conflicting answers.

Repairs sometimes cost more than expected.

And occasionally, fixing an older piece of equipment makes more sense than replacing it.

The more you know about your RV, the systems inside it, and the tools needed to maintain it, the easier it becomes to work through those problems without immediately reaching the point where you want to give up on the RV altogether.

RV ownership is a learning process.

Every repair, every breakdown, and every frustrating parts search teaches you something that can make the next problem easier to handle.

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Miller Marine Orofino Idaho - The Helpful Boat Guy

Demco- Surge Brake, Couplers and Other Good Stuff

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Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Wholesale Warranties
• Highway 93 RV
• Sunpromfg.com
• EZ Loader Trailers

In staying on the road today, I'm going to talk about what I brought up last week. What appeared to be a simple purchase turned into a life lesson for me.

And then in quick tips, I'm going to discuss air conditioning maintenance and then an RV envy sole bio, the holding tank liquid that everybody needs to at least try once. I'm Eric Stark. Welcome to the Smart rver podcast. If you'd rather be camping than sitting repair shop, you are in the right place.

Every episode, I'll walk you through practical DIY maintenance and repairs that keep you on the road. Welcome back, Smart RVers. Today is episode 210.

So just a reminder, if you're looking for a new rv, whether it's new, used to you brand new, from a dealership, check out wholesale warranties. They offer the RV extended warranties that support you, not the dealership.

They're made to help you get your repairs done without all the headaches and hassles of extended warranties. And if you know somebody that has an RV extended warranty, talk to them. See what kind of problems they've had or maybe haven't had problems.

Maybe they found one that actually works really well. But ask questions. They're going to make them think about it. Not simple questions. Do you like it? No. How did the process go? How did they pay?

They pay the dealership. They pay you. How did it work? Does the dealership like using it?

The repair facility, Were they pleased that you use that company or are they displeased? If all else fails, just go to wholesale warranties. There's going to be a link in the description of the podcast. Check it out. They'll steer you right.

They will always steer you right. All right, now let's jump right into this. So I titled this in episode 209, what appeared to be a simple purchase turned into a left.

A life lesson for me now. I don't know, I've kind of rethought that. And that might not be the right answer heading the right title. But I'll tell you what.

I recently made a purchase that makes me want to help you more. It made me understand this is pathetic, right? I'm in the business.

But it made me understand a little bit more what sometimes RVers are going through when they have RVs that they're getting older or even newer and you're having problems with certain things. I don't want to give it away yet. So I want to build this up. I want to tell you what happened and I'm going to give You a backstory.

And I'm going to try to go through this quickly. I don't want to drag this out, you know, for 30 minutes. I want to try to wrap it up.

But at the end of the day, it's a lesson that, well, I think everybody can learn from it. But I certainly did, and I should have known better. All right, so this has to do with a boat and trailer.

I bought a boat on a trailer in Seattle, Washington. And this, all this took place in July, maybe started in June, but I know it got wrapped up in July.

I'm not going to get into details of why I bought a boat, but I did, and it was in Seattle, Washington. This boat was immaculate. This boat was maintained from the day it was purchased. It looks brand new. It's amazing.

And talking to the guy on the phone, the seller, you know, it sounded like, yeah, the boat, he has all the paperwork for it, all the records of maintenance, that was his baby. But the trailer was a different story. And that's what kind of brings this whole thing to life, is the trailer, not the boat.

Now, boat trailers are not the same as RV trailers in a lot of respects, especially when you get into like Easy Loader, some of the brands that are very proprietary and they have special axles, torsion axles, they don't use leaf springs. So it kind of changes the dynamics of things.

So I talked to him on the phone and I sensed that the trailer wasn't maintained, at least not to a good standard. And I asked him about the tires. Well, they're about 10 years old. And I said, so I told him I'm gonna have to bring tires in.

What's the lug pattern on the wheel, the size, all that. So I figure that out. We drive to Seattle, my wife and I, and we're gonna do this in a one day deal. Get there, come back.

So it's a 22 hour day, a long day, but that's the way I wanted to do it. That's the way I roll, right? So we get there, we take the boat out, It's. It's a dream.

And then we put it back on the trailer, go into the parking lot of the area where the boat launches, swap out the tires and wheels. Well, as I'm taking off the wheels, you know, I notice that the drums are really loose, everything's wobbly.

All right, so this is one of these situations that I know I don't want to take it apart in that parking lot. I'm afraid the wheel bearings are just going to Fall apart right there.

Then we're going to be in a bind if we can't get the parts to get it back together. And yeah, the very minimum, I could buy some wheel bearings and throw them in there and get it going.

But this trailer needs to make it back to my house, you know, so we got 600 miles, 800 miles, whatever it is, back to Montana. And I asked the guy, the seller, I'm not going to say his name, hey, can I just leave this trailer or the boat and trailer at your house?

I mean, he could see what was going on. And we made phone calls trying to find the parts. You know, I called around to everywhere I could possibly think of to call.

And you know what's funny is, and this made me think of you and what you go through sometimes looking for things for your rv. It's like, you know, not everything is just standard sitting on the shelf. But in this case, I called stores that I know had drums and drums and hubs.

Drums or hubs. I would have taken either or it needed drums, but I would have taken hubs.

I could have got home on just hubs without electric brakes or hydraulic brakes. But no one wanted to help. And I didn't want to drive around because that would take so much time because we really wanted to get out of there.

I didn't want to spend the night and end up with the same problem on Sunday. Well, I still can't get the parts. I got to go home and calling around, especially some of the big chain stores.

Well, you know, we got, you know, so many drums here. You got to come in and identify. We can't look them up. You know, it's just this mumbo jumbo.

I can tell you what bearings are in it, you know, the lug pattern, everything. Nope, we don't want to do that. It's just non stop stuff like that.

And these are some of the big auto parts stores, which is really discouraging because they weren't willing to help. And I didn't tell them it was a boat trailer, just a trailer, you know.

And I've been in some of these stores here locally and they have the parts I needed sitting on the shelf. I even told one guy, I bet you have these sitting out on your shelf. No, no, we don't have anything like that sitting on the shelf.

It's all in the back. You know, we got to open up boxes to do this. I think that's just ridiculous. Yeah, didn't even make sense. Right? But anyway, so.

All right, let me park the trail at your house. I'll be back in two weeks. So we get over this house, we unhooked the trailer from the truck and we.

I jack it up, pull off all the wheels because I wanted to see really what was going on. If I'm going to come back, I want to come back prepared. So I pulled off all the drums. You know, the axles were okay.

Figure I can polish up where the, the bearings ride. Not a big deal. Vacuum plates were garbage. The brakes were total junk. I mean, there were no brake pads left.

Steel on steel, you know, it was just amazing. This guy and this guy just, it was amazing. He's. He was blown away that this was going on with this trailer. He's like, well, I don't understand.

Which, you know, that's a lesson in itself. I'm going to get into that another time, but. Or maybe later in this one. But he had no clue how bad this thing was. He thought his brakes were working.

Everything was groovy. You know, he would have taken that thing to, to Arizona and if someone asked him to and not having any idea how bad it was. So I go back in two weeks.

I round up hydraulic backing plates, you know, with the brakes on fully loaded, new drums, bearings, grease, everything, cotter pins, go back with everything I need and I start swapping out the backing plates and lo and behold, the brake lines just snap right off. And I was afraid of that. But then I realized these brake lines aren't even hooked up to anything. They look like they are.

They're kind of tie wrapped to give that illusion. And this guy didn't do it, someone else did it. And it's like, I don't care.

You know, my expectations are pretty low and, and you know, when I there the first time, I didn't really inspect that stuff close enough. And I should have. I would have gone back and different, probably in a different direction. But nonetheless, you know, I.

All right, so that's doing the first backing plate. And I decided I'm going to put on all the backing plates regardless because not anything else. I'm going to drive down the road without brakes.

Hate to say this, with backing plates on there, it looks like I tried.

If I get pulled over, cop wants to inspect it, a tail, lights out, you know, one thing leads to another and at least it has the illusion of everything's there. Oops, you know, you know, gosh, that doesn't work. Amazing. I get it all back together and you know, all the bolts are rusted. It was a hassle.

And you know, here's another thing, too. The seller had a lot of tools. And what was so interesting is he's trying to help me.

And I asked for a socket, and he says, oh, let me go get my sockets. And he comes back, big old tray sockets, ratchets, wrenches. Okay, give me a five, eight, half inch drive.

And what he does is he pushes the toolbox closer to me. Can you just grab it? I am kind of. And he just pushes it closer to me and kind of points. He didn't know what it was. And I wasn't upset at that.

It was just surprising. You have all these tools. You have a boat, man. Boats break down. I mean, I just, like, I was surprised. Okay, so he doesn't really have a clue.

He didn't know how to hold ratchet. I mean, he was really in the way, not helping, even though he is trying to help. I mean, I appreciated that.

I didn't knock him for that because it's just not his skill set. I was in NASCAR pit crew mode. I wanted to get this done anyways. You know, he's trying, but it's not much.

And it just made me think of how many listeners of the Smart RV podcast would have those struggles out on the road because they're not familiar with the tools they have or they don't know what the tools are at all. So I highly recommend, you know, whether. I don't know if there's a school for it, maybe I'll do something. But we.

We all need to be able to use tools to a relative degree to work on RVs.

Case you're out on the road and remind you, if I would have taken this trailer, I would have got out on the highway maybe 50 miles out of Seattle at the best, and it would have broke down. I would have been stuck out on the road. So that's why I went back the second time and brought everything.

So after getting all this done, you know, raising the trailer, doing this, doing that, and polishing the spindles so those bearings weren't going to wear out and made everything nice and pretty. Cleaned it all up, got it back together. So it's all done.

You know, we're in and out of there pretty quick and got back on the road, you know, so there's no brakes on the trailer. And the boat weighs about 3,600 pounds, so you got 4,700 pounds with the trailer. So you got a little bit of weight back there.

And my truck, I have a Ford F250, and I've replaced Drums, I mean, the rotors, the pads rebuilt the wheels, the calipers, put on new brake cylinders, and, I mean, master cylinder. And the brakes just don't work the way they should.

It's kind of a weird little thing here with this truck, but nonetheless, I wasn't too worried about it. There's one grade that'll be a problem or, you know, has the potential, but we're gonna go now.

One thing I didn't mention either is this trailer is an Easy Loader trailer. It's very proprietary. The axles are special axles. You're not just gonna go buy an axle for it.

You have to order them from Easy Loader, and that's a whole different deal. It has rollers on it, so the boat rolls up on it. Easy Loader, you know, get it, and. Which is cool. All that's nice.

And so everything on this trailer is kind of into life. You know, the clearance lights, not all of them are working, but, you know, I'm not worried about that.

And some of this I didn't realize, but I'm telling you now, the Easy Loader trailer. And if you buy a boat with an EZ Loader, check it out thoroughly. Thoroughly check it out before you buy it. This is one of these deals.

Now, I don't mind, because I do like the trailer overall. In fact, at one point, I was going to buy a new one to replace this. Let me get to that. So I get home and start looking at everything closer.

You know, the axles were torsion axles, which I knew, and I knew these were going to be easy loader axles. So I started kind of going through the motions here. Okay, I got to do something with these axles, the torsion assemblies. This.

The boat, like I said, looks brand new, right? So I call Easy Loader, starting this process, and, you know, right away, they don't.

They kind of come off like, hey, we're here to help, but we're not. It was three days before I got a call back.

And then when I talked to the person, she says, you know, I kind of don't really know what you're talking about, because I asked some questions about the axles. You know, not only are they available, but some specific questions about these holes in the back where Zerk fittings would go. She had no idea.

She's like, no, our axles don't have that. None of our axles have ever had that. But I'm not an expert. So let me turn you over to a different person.

And she says, you know, they're probably not going to call you back because they don't want to waste time helping people. They really want to just sell stuff. Like right on, there you go. There's customer service at its best.

Tell me right up front that I'm not going to get any customer service.

So it was three days before I get another phone call back and talking to the person, it's, well, you know, I don't know anything about what you're talking about, but it sounds like your grease seals are bad and that's why there's grease on the back of those axles where that hole is you're talking about. No, there's not a zerk thing that goes in there. It's just we don't know. But your grease seals are bad. So you got to buy new axles.

Like wow, bad grease seals is new axles in their world and bad grease seals. Just replacing a grease seal, you don't have to replace an axle. So she clueless basically.

Unfortunately, you know, sometimes you get people like that, male and female, so having this conversation and she tells me, you know, the axles aren't, are not available anymore. After she gives me part numbers for them. Oh, you can't get those.

You got to upgrade to these axles, to the wet axles where they have their oil bathed axles rather than grease. And some people like them, some don't. I'm not a fan of the oil bathed axles because when they have problems, it can be a big problem.

And that's just my take on it. There's pros and cons to it. So not only the axles more. And that's not what scared me away. It's now you got to upgrade to disc brakes.

So that's going to be 800 bucks per axle plus a new actuator, you know, the coupler on the front to activate the disc brakes. So it's like, wow, now these axles are getting into about. If I buy two axles with all this other stuff, I'm about 27, $2,800. That's half the price.

Less. Well, more than half the price of a new trailer. And she's well, no, the axles you have are not available.

You can't get them, we're out of them, we will never have them again. This is easy Loader, the company, not a dealer. This is the company. So it kind of leaves me. And she's liking this, well, do you want them or not?

Type attitude, you know, I don't want to talk to you anymore. And so I just stopped talking to her. All right, thank you. And hung up. Goodbye.

Called another company, Easy Loader dealer, and this is Eastern Marine, by the way, these guys are absolutely awesome. Talking to them, they're like, no, the axles are available. Easy Loader does that all the time. They just want to sell, sell, sell.

And this weekend actually recording this. Yeah. So these new axles are already on order? Not at this point, but I'm putting them on order as recording before. As this is being recorded.

I didn't say that. Right. But the axles are available. A distributor, Eastern Marine, they were out of them, said they're coming. I said, are you sure?

This is what I was told. No, like I said, they say that stuff all the time, sell, sell, sell. Then they got the axles in stock. You know, it's just amazing.

Surge brakes are great, but not on my trailer. And I'm going to get to that. So this trailer, all these little things and the Easy Loader stuff, you know, is very proprietary.

So I'm like, can I find other brands, you know, someone else that makes these roller that the boat rolls up on and you know, I already bought hydraulic backing plates, put them on the trailer. You know, I've. I've kind of gone that way.

And then when she's talking about wet axles, that means everything I bought is no longer be able to be used. Not the drums, not the. The backing plates, which is okay because I sell that stuff in my store.

The hydraulic backing plates I don't sell, but I know I can. We're in an area. There's a lot of boats and boat trailers.

So, you know, I start calling around, thinking, I'm just going to look into a price of a new trailer. I'd rather just get a new one that has all this stuff on it. And I can worry about it in 15, 20 years. I don't have to worry about it today.

And I didn't want to spend the money. And I know I could sell my trailer, get it, you know, decent and then sell it and thinking, all right, so I call this company In Idaho.

And I forget the name of the shop. And I should have looked it up before I called here or did this podcast. I apologize. I'll put the name of it in the description.

This guy was so friendly, so helpful, and he walking through the process of the trailer, and he goes, how come you want this trailer? And I said, well, I have one. And I explained to him. He goes, oh, you know what? Don't buy the trailer. He goes, let me give you some pointers here.

Make your life a little bit easier. He says, first off, just get rid of the hydraulic brakes. Go to electric. And that was something I was pondering. Should I just go to electric?

And I like that idea because electric backing plates, you know, with magnets, are much easier to find anywhere out on the road. And that's what I want, breakdowns out on the road. Because, you know, you look out on the highway, you see boat trailers peppering the highway.

Now, a lot of that's because of maintenance. People aren't doing it. I know they're not doing it. In fact, just had someone in the store yesterday who's not doing it.

But anyway, so this guy was, like, talking to me. He's going to help me go above and beyond what he needs to do or has to do, whatever, and help me make the right decisions.

And I wasn't going to buy a trailer. He talked me out of the trailer. Now, this guy just lost a trailer sale to help me improve my life with this trailer. Amazing.

Even turns me on to an axle guy. Now, the axle guy couldn't do anything for me, unfortunately, because the axles aren't in their realm of custom.

They make custom axles, but not like this. I hang up the phone, it's like, all right, electric brakes. Just get a new coupler. Take off that actuator, you know, the surge brake actuator.

So I had all that wrapped up, you know, on that coming weekend. I did it on a Saturday afternoon. Put on the new backing plates. Yeah, I took it all apart again, put on new backing plates, and that was okay.

Got to check the bearings because a little suspicious of the axles. You know, put it back together. Electric brakes working, you know, within hours. New coupler on there. Bought a nice coupler. Forget the brand.

Have to put that in the description as well. Very nice. Oh, Demko coupler. Super cool, easy to use. I like it. And I'll put that in the description.

If you have a boat trailer, you're going to switch over to this electric conversion, which I highly recommend. You know, those Surge brakes on trailers, boat trailers, It's a whole nother subject, but they do have their issues.

Now here's the thing, there was a lot of other things with this trailer lights that you can't get anymore, you know, or you can find them, but they're like $30 for a five dollar clearance light. Like this is just stupidity at its best. And the axles being the issue. And I think, gosh, you know, I don't want to have to put on these wet axles.

I want the axles that are on there, you know, But I was able to find them like I said. But here's the eye opener for me. For one thing, when you buy something and people tell you how awesome it is, it's probably not.

And I've always known that. But this trailer and the company that made it, made it so hard to find parts. And getting the right answer, that was just discouraging. As could be.

Buying a new trailer seemed like the only way out. $5,000 Versus hundreds or, you know, $1,500. It's just nuts.

And so it made me think about not only, you know, like I told you, the seller helping me, trying to get stuff done, not knowing tools, not knowing how to do anything on his own trailer, unfamiliar with the process, which that I get, but just not didn't have that skill set, but also finding stuff and how hard it can be. And I know now parts are disappearing pretty quickly for RVs.

And I get phone calls all the time, people asking, hey, I just called nine dealerships, they all told me this motor for my awning is not available anymore. Okay, well, we got them in stock or let me check. Yeah, they're available. I can get one for you in three days or whatever.

But there's other things that doesn't work with like let's say, slide outs. You know, a gear breaks on the motor and the gear is not available anymore. What do you do?

And you know, you call me and sometimes it's like, you know, I just kind of check my sources and I'm done. Because I can't spend forever hunting down all the parts everybody needs. But it made me think about that.

So I've actually started to improve on that some. I won't go as far as I probably, if someone would like me to go finding a part, but I will go that extra two miles.

I've already given it the extra mile because that's what I do. It's the two miles, though, and that's what matters.

And I understand much better the frustrations you have when you're trying to find stuff and you can't get it and no one wants to help you. And, you know, I don't always say this part's, you know, this part's not available anymore from the manufacturer. You'll never find it.

They discontinued it, you know, 20 years ago. Because on the Internet today, a lot of stuff reappears that we think is not available or a different brand of it comes out.

It might even be one of these low quality junky ones on the jungle website. But sometimes that might be the only option you have to get your RV going again or get this part of your RV going again.

And it might buy you a year, might buy you six months, get you through the wintertime, let's say, if it's a furnace problem or get you back on the road. So I completely understand at a different level now the frustrations that you have sometimes finding parts. And it's getting worse by the day.

So I see it and it's crazy that it had to come to this, right? And what I knew was always there. It's just this made it more real to me. My wife, you know, we talked about it.

I said this whole buying this boat, the boat's been the easy part. The trailer is a nightmare, has just been a learning experience. She goes, yeah, I can see it.

You've brought up a lot of things as we're driving, you know, home, talking about the different things that are going on here and how you look at it all differently. So even as a do it yourselfer, you really need to understand your RV at a much deeper level.

Know how to use tools, and, and I'm not saying all of you don't, but some of you just. It's not in your wheelhouse or it's not in your circumstances, but try to make it, try to learn a little bit more.

If you got a neighbor who's handy with tools, ask them to show you a little bit, walk through your tool set, maybe go out to your rv, put some wrenches on some stuff, just try it out.

I know it sounds crazy, you know, it sounds kind of childish maybe, but I want you to be able to work through the problems you have with your RV without it becoming that point where I'm just going to get rid of this thing. I'm tired of the frustrations and it might get to that eventually.

You know, you might get to the dead end where I just can't put any more money into this rv. It's kind of like this trailer even If I bought a new one and the axles lasted five years, you know, something happened and they broke prematurely.

And they're not covered under warranty, the axles, the new axles would be more than half the price of the trailer. You're not going to keep buying new trailers, right? So sometimes you have to sink money into what we might call a dead horse.

It's like putting in an engine in a vehicle that you really like, and the vehicle's awesome. Sometimes. Well, it needs an engine. Forget it. Isn't worth it. What if the transmission fails? What if.

But buy an engine, transmission fails in two years. So what? Fix the transmission. And that doesn't work in every scenario, but it works in a lot of scenarios in the future.

You know, actually I'm already doing it. I mean, we're just trying harder now. And this isn't like a total change for my business model, but it helps me look.

Help just helped me to see things from a different perspective. So it's living and learning. And as a do it yourselfer, we need to keep learning, you know, have our, our minds open to new things.

So now that's going to bring us into quick tips. And you know what, anything about that you want to. You have a question about, you can contact me, you can call me. Use the contact us page. Text me.

The link will be in the description. Now I want to get into air conditioning maintenance. And this is going to be real quick. You know, this. So we're in the middle of September now.

You know, October is right around the corner. So summer's ending.

But before you finish out the summer, if you haven't already done it, you know, check your air conditioning filters, make sure they're clean, you know, because some of you are still traveling, you're going to go on more trips, you're going to spend more time in that rv. And it's cooling down, but yet we still use the air conditioner sometimes because RVs seem to become little heat boxes, hot boxes.

And make sure your coils up on the roof, the condenser and the evaporator coils are clean. Now on dometic air conditioners, a lot of them have a plastic cover. You just lift up and you can clean that evaporator coil real easy.

Coleman's, it's a little harder to do sometimes. You might not want to do that, but at least the condenser, the one that's exposed, clean that and drop those filters down on the inside of the rv.

This summer here in Montana, we have seen so many filters that look like someone pulled them out and packed them with mud and put them back. They're so clogged up. You know, my air conditioning doesn't work. Yeah, no wonder why. You know, it can't suck any air in.

And that's bad for the air conditioner itself. It makes it work harder. So make sure the condenser is clean on the roof. There's products you can get to just spray it right on.

You don't have to go up there with a hose. You spray it on and it cleans it very easy. Foams up. We sell it in our store. Is it 3x chemistry? I want to say it'll be on our website.

I'm not sure if we can do it or not just because of shipping and things like that. I'll look into that. But if not anything else, I'll put the name of the product there.

And then your filters get, you know, new filters, just replace them. And, you know, most filters are good for 90 days and 90 days, but that's a long time in RV life. 90 Days. So that means 90 days of usage.

So that could be years in an RV. Right. So it's not like you replace them every 90 days. It could be every three years, depending on how much you use your RV.

So that makes it less painful when you're having to buy them and replace them. Right. And now one other quick thing too. This is kind of along the maintenance line. This is the RV Envy section.

And kind of moving along here because I went a little long. I'm talking about my epiphany. So Bio Holding Tank Liquid. We have it on our website@sunpro mfg.com I'll have a link in the description.

I want you to check it out. The product is. We're selling tons of it in our store. It works great. We're getting nothing but positive feedback. Not one person has disliked it.

And this product's new here in the United States and we've been selling it all summer long, and it's doing very well. So it's on our website and we got a discount code, which I'll put in the description and you can check that out.

So, hey, I want to thank you guys for putting it up with me today. I just had to share that with you. It's maybe a personal experience that you maybe, maybe appreciate, maybe not.

But, man, it's like they say, I can feel your pain. Right. So in our next episode and 211, which will be middle of September, I said, this is the middle of September.

I mean, we're at the end of August now, but this will be in the middle of September, and it's going to be about winter storage and start getting prepared for that. So the air conditioning point, I said we're in the middle of September. I meant the end of August. So we're still in summer.

You know, a lot of stuff going on here. Got to keep it all straight. But we're going to start planning for winter storage. That's if you store your rv.

And we're just going to throw some tips out there, get you thinking that way. Doesn't mean you have to lock down your RV for storage. We're just going to move in that direction, so.

All right, everybody, that's going to do it for today's episode of the Smart RVer podcast, and thank you so much for listening. I'm Eric Stark, and if you'd rather be camping than sitting in a repair shop, you're in the right place.

Until next time, take care of the little things and enjoy the trip.