January 9, 2012 Still in Red Bay

Yesterday, Sunday, we spent the day in the motorhome most of the day.  It was a rainy, gray day warm.  I had brought some shrimp along thinking we might have that for New Year’s eve if we didn’t eat somewhere which is what we did.  So I steamed the shrimp and made some pasta salad for our Sunday dinner.  And then we watched football games.
  Saturday in our travels around south of Red Bay we saw areas of devastation- trees snapped off or flattened to the ground, some buildings destroyed or being repaired- and a sign stating 4/27/11.  So Sunday morning Tom talked with the folks in the campground office about this area.  There were a series of tornadoes  that went through that area on the date stated killing 52 people.
Today, we anxiously wanted to get the motorhome in for servicing.  Tom went to the bay area to inquire and again we were “next” and to check back in at noon.  So at this point we thought we could finally get the plant tour in.  There is one tour each day at 9:30am and the uncertainty of not knowing when we could be summoned for service did not allow us to chance going on the tour before.  The walking tour took us through the motorhome plant and there didn’t seem to be any area off limits.  Most of the makings of these motorhomes are done here.  Cabinets are made, the flooring and roofs are assembled and some chassis are made here as well as the exteriors.

                                           A Chassis going into assembly station 1.

                                Motorhomes in the final assembly station before being painted.

We were free to walk about the plant.  All the white and yellow wiring is cut to size and labeled for it’s specific function and then assembled for each motorhome.

After the tour ended we were free to go into any of the motorhomes that parked nearby.  A protective film, Diamond Shield, is put on the front of the motorhomes and, interesting, this application is done here at the factory by a Diamond Shield employee, not a Tiffin Motorhome Company employee.  The exterior painting is done at a division of the plant about 6 miles away.  We did drive out to the area but did not go into the facility.
When we got back to the motorhome it was about noon so Tom went to the bay area and was told to bring the motorhome up.  So we packed it up and moved it into the service bay but now we had a “check engine” light that was being displayed.  The tech said they would correct the cruise control problem (apparently this was a known problem) and check on that check engine light.  We left the motorhome and went to the Back Street Barbeque for lunch.  Returning back to the campground we had to go into the service area lounge as we could not stay with the motorhome in this service bay.  About 3pm Tom walked to the service bay and was told that the cruise control had been corrected but some other techs not working today were needed for the check engine problem. 

                   This is our motorhome in the service bay and the lifts used to raise it up.

Tom is to go to the bay area in the morning to find out what our next step is to be.  We are feeling quite frustrated at this point- we really want to be moving on but at the same time we want any problems to be corrected.  The techs seem to be knowledgeable but are so laid back that time doesn’t seem to mean anything to them.
It was another cloudy day with fog and heavy mist at times.  This evening there are showers and this weather is predicted for the next several days.

Click Here to see all of the factory tour pictures.