16-18FEB11 - Red Bay, AL (via anniston, al)

We departed Gaffney on Wednesday, 16FEB, heading to the Tiffin Motor Home Service Center in Red Bay, AL. We decided to take two days to make the drive & stopped at a military FamCamp on Anniston Army Depot, Anniston, AL. the Depot is the main “rehabilitation” center for most of the Army’s mechanized armored vehicles. It is also home of large stock pile of biological & chemical weapons they are in the process of destroying! This process has been ongoing for decades & will take a few more to complete.

You may remember that we were just in Red Bay on 06JAN. On that visit we learned that Tiffin had just developed proprietary line of day/night shades & were offering them for a reasonable price to retrofitted into older RVs. By the time we signed up for them it was too late to be accomplished during that visit. So we had them take the measurements for our three main windows in the living area & made an appointment for installation on Friday, 18FEB.

http://theryanrvexpress.blogspot.com/2011/01/01-06jan11-red-bay-al-via-jemison-al.html

The reason we wanted them replaced is because our coach originally came with cloth day/night shades that were one continuous piece & raised/lowered by a very complicated & fragile string system (see picture). These shades for some reason were used by every RV builder, usually on their higher end models. The strings are notorious for constantly fraying & breaking! You can buy restringing kits, but you need the patience of Job & the manual dexterity of a teenager to fix them (it usually takes over an hour for just one shade!)!

Apparently the original owner of our RV got very frustrated with the original cloth day/night shades & removed all of them & replaced them with metal Venetian blinds (8 windows total). The problem with metal blinds is they attract dust like a magnet, constantly rattle, & never block out all of the light. So on our first visit to the Tiffin Service Center in Red Bay on JUN07, Dan asked to have the original shades reinstalled. Thankfully the technician strongly advised him not to do it.

Along comes a company called MCD out of Dallas, TX, that developed a double set of roller blinds – one black vinyl with thousands of tiny holes in the fabric for use during the day (you can see out, but they can’t see in), & the other solid white vinyl to use at night or when you want complete light blockage. The majority of RV builders have since switched to MCD blinds. We have been very interested in their blinds but found them very expensive. Even at RV trade shows where everyone is offering special deals, MCD would not come down on their prices. We even inquired about driving to Dallas & having the work done there, no deal or discount offered.

Eventually the strings for the metal blind by “Dan’s” chair broke & he decided to get at least one set of MCD blinds for his side of the RV. So at the FMCA RV Rally in Albuquerque that we attended back on 27MAR10, we tracked down the MCD rep & ordered one set. Once again they would not come down on price, but Corrie did get us out of the sales tax & shipping. It is a great product & works well, but unfortunately it will not work with our valance & we had to leave the valance off.
So like we said, most of the RV manufacturers are now using MCD products; but Mr Tiffin must have gotten tired of paying MCD & he developed his own product called “Rollease”. This is not the first time he has done this. He now has own TV antennas, TV switch boxes, surround sound systems; & now builds his own chassis for all his high end RVs. The difference between his blinds & MCD’s, is that MCD has an automatic roll-up feature, & Tiffin’s has a beaded chain you pull on to lower & raise them.

So by lunch time Thursday we were once again back at the Tiffin RV Service Center in Red Bay, AL. We checked into the Tiffin RV camp & confirmed that the Service Center was ready to install our Rollease blinds first thing Friday morning (they were). At 0700 Friday morning we rolled into service bay #29, & in four hours they modified our three valances & installed three sets of Rollease day/night blinds. The cost for three Tiffin blinds & w/labor was only slightly higher than the cost of one set of MCD blinds & no labor!!!

We could have left after lunch for the long drive back to Houma, LA & the kids; but the exterior gasket on our front door was ripping & we had asked earlier if we could get it repaired that day. The rip was not leaking yet & we could probably go months without problems, but eventually it would need replacing. Normally they are fully booked & tell you to wait in line; but for some reason they said to immediately drive over to service bay #32 & they would fix it!?! The next thing we know, we have three mechanics disassembling the entire front door, laying it on a cart, replacing the gasket, & reinstalling the door. Our original gasket one was white, & we haven’t cleaned it too often; as a result it was covered with black mold spots. So Dan asked for a black replacement & was told that they had so many complaints about white trim & mold, they only offer black now! Of course after we saw the bill for the three mechanics time, we wonder if we should have super glued it & washed the mold off?