If It Ain't Broke Don't Fix It Or ......... ????

FULLTIMEWANABE · July 14, 2022

Hubby and I just finished a several week trip around Idaho Panhandle, Washington State and Oregon. During that trip we were questioning based on age or our A class being 2003 a few of our devices we use and rely on, and then our Splendide Washer/Dryer combo drum stopped turning which we need to repair resolve. Any suggestions on that much appreciated as well.

We also wondered if our 19 year old water pump might be getting near the end of life as it seemed a little less powerful on spraying the commode I felt. So to that end, do you long time RVers that use your rig often tend to replace items such as water pumps, water heaters, gate valves for grey and black and anything else before they actually need replacing/repairing OR ........ do you wait until these things actually fail and replace at that time?

Thanks for the input, and if you carry spares of anything what those might be with you.

Jaydrvr · July 14, 2022

That's obviously a personal question, but my take is to always replace or repair before it becomes a problem. That's likely in some measure due to my lifestyle of working on the road, where waiting until failure can be disastrous. I prefer in almost every instance to repair early and not attempt to squeeze every last ounce of life from the offending part. Jay

Darryl&Rita · July 14, 2022

Water pumps are common enough, and easy enough to replace, that we wait for failure/substantially decreased performance before worrying about it. Water heater, same, although we do have a replacement board for it. Sold to us by a less than skilled troubleshooter/mobile RV repair. Valves? If they start to weep excessively, they get emptied and removed/replaced. Sometimes removing and cleaning is good enough. Most things, we wait until it fails, unless it's life support critical, or the parts are hard to source.

Kirk W · July 15, 2022

Rather than replace the water pump, I suspect that you can get a rebuilding kit for it to return it to original output. It is difficult to predict the lifespan of any appliance. A lot depends on the amount of use, but even then it is seldom very exact.

Ray,IN · July 15, 2022

We never full-timed. The only time we carried a spare water pump was on the Alaska caravan trip; there are very few RV supply stores between the lower 48 and AK. Once in AK if you need a part it must be flown in from Seattle, shipping for axle parts for our 5er was 3X the cost of parts.

I do always carry a spare engine acc. drive belt, replacement fuel filters for drive engine and genset engine.

RE: your Splendide, call service and support phone number in your owners manual, they are very willing to help and are quite knowledgeable. I called about a broken door latch, spoke with a man for perhaps 10 minutes and he shipped me one, it arrived 2 days later by UPS - with installation instructions.

Dutch_12078 · July 15, 2022

I do carry a spare water pump, although it wasn't intentional. I was given a pump that had failed, and when I tore it apart I found that an accumulation of sediment had clogged the internal pressure switch port. A bit of cleaning and the pump worked as good as new. I left it in place and still have my original pump as a spare. I also carry a universal ignitor board in my spares that works with many furnaces and water heaters. A handful of spare PEX quick connect fittings and various other products like a roll of 4" EternaBond roof repair tape, hose repair tape, a selection of various sized nuts, bolts, screws, and clamps make up another section of my spares.

kb0zke · July 15, 2022

We're full-timers and I carry a small collection of repair parts. Generally I don't need what I have with me, so I have to go to the store anyway. Yesterday I had to work on a leak. Got the repair parts EXCEPT for the ½" PEX clamps. I remembered that I had some. Got home and the ones I had are ⅜", so when I take the car in for service in a few minutes I'll pick up a package or two of ½" clamps.

FULLTIMEWANABE · July 15, 2022

Awesome, thanks for sharing guys 😄. Seems general consensus is if it ain't broke don't fix it for the most part. Which has been us for the longest time. Guess as we are aging thought patterns are a changing LOL. Of course we do try to do routine maintenance to prolong usage of everything but ....

Been good to read what most of your thoughts are. Thanks again.