brianw8602

Just purchased a 2014 Jeep Grand Cherokee and absolutely love it. We tow it behind a 2009 Fleetwood Discovery, with a DEMCO commander tow bar and base plate. I previously towed a 2006 Jeep Wrangler with the M & G brake system. Loved that. Unfortunately, the M & G does not fit the new Grand Cherokees. Opted for the Air Force One brake system and am very pleased. As far as setting up the GC for towing, piece of cake. Just follow the instructions in the owners manual and you can't go wrong. I think you'll find that the instructions are pretty straight forward. I was a little confused when I first read them, but once in the GC and going through them step by step, they fall into place and make perfect since. Have towed the GC approximately 1300 miles since purchasing in SEP and no problems with towing or with the GC either. Hopefully I will have no problems. Brian

Frank, I had a clunking noise on my 2009 Fleetwood Discovery. Complained about it during my annual inspection while being serviced at Freightliner Chattanooga. They could not find it. Next year took the coach to Gaffney for the annual. Went for a test drive with the service tech who was going to do the annual inspection. He immediately diagnosed it as a loose shock. That was it. No clunking noise since then. I know you said the shock brackets had already been tightened, but might be worth another look???? Brian

Jankit, replacing the fan clutch solved our issue. No overheating problems on our trip back to Georgia. Point2man, Coach-net was spectacular. They paid for both tows for the motorhome no questions asked. Gotta love that. I will definitely renew when the time comes. What I didn't mention in my previous post was that the next morning after being towed into Albuquerque, my wife and I decided to do some exploring in the Jeep. Went to the local car wash to hose off the Jeep and since it was so hot, decided to leave the engine running while I washed it off. Finished that, jumped in and went to put it in gear. The shifter just slid back and forth. I looked at my wife who immediately declared she hadn't touched anything. I called Coach-Net and wallah, a tow truck was there in 20 minutes. Turned out to be a $1.54 part that connected the shifter cable to the transmission that was easily replaced by me after it cooled down. You can't make this stuff up. Good news is, I think I will get my coach home from the shop tomorrow. Reference the fuse pulling, although it did in fact over ride the fan clutch, it did not allow the fan to operate at the same RPM as the engine because the fan had already failed. Poppo, hope all is well with your rig. Sounds like you may have solved your problem. Good luck. Brian

Thanks Herman. Not really how I had planned my arrival:)

Jim, While attempting to get to Arizona from Georgia in June, I experienced the following on our 2009 Fleetwood Discovery. We have a 350 HP Cummins, with an Allison Transmission. On day 2 of the trip, i got a "Coolant Temp High" warning light on 2 separate occasions within about a 2 hr period. The temperature gauge was also noted to be rising. I down shifted, as recommended in the owners manual, and the engine cooled down immediately, and the warning extinguished. Although it was quite hot outside, mid 90's, I did not think too much about it. The following day we had only been on the road for an hour when we started getting the same warnings and temperature readings. Although I downshifted in an attempt to cool the engine down, this procedure was not working as it had the day before. I was finally forced to pull off the freeway to allow the engine to cool down. My first call was to Coach-Net. After explaining what was going on, they dispatched a tow truck to tow us back to Santa Rosa, NM to a big rig repair station. The mechanic looked under the coach and saw no apparent problems/leaks and felt we just had a dirty radiator. After he power washed the radiator, I drove the coach and all problems seemed to be fixed. We hooked our tow vehicle back up, and off we went. Unfortunately, not very far. We made it to a rest area about 10 minutes west of Santa Rosa before we were overheating again. I too called Freightliner and after describing the symptoms, they walked me thru the process of pulling a fuse which controlled the cooling fan for the radiator. This was supposed to make the fan turn at the same RPM as the engine, thus providing more cooling across the radiator. I also decided that maybe it just was too hot (again mid 90's) and for some reason we would have to unhook the Jeep to keep the temperature down, at least until we could got to Albuquerque to the Freightliner dealer there. Jeep unhooked, fuse pulled, on the road again. Made it as far as the first place we had to pull off earlier. Now we had the previous coolant overtemp warning and a check engine light. Called Coach-Net again and they dispatched another big rig tow to tow us the 2 hours into Albuquerque. Arrived around 10:00PM on a Friday night and the mechanic on duty came out and informed us he couldn't do anything for us until Sunday, maybe Monday. So much for our vacation. The next morning we got a call from the daytime service manager and he advised us he had squeezed us in for a diagnostic evaluation. He had narrowed our problem down to the radiator fan clutch. Apparently it is a viscous fluid fan, with approximately 4-6 ozs of fluid that had failed. With that small amount of fluid, I could see where it might have possible for the mechanic in Santa Rosa to have missed it when he crawled under the coach to inspect it. That was the good news. The bad news was that they did not have the part in stock as this is apparently unique to the RV industry and that UPS nor FEDEX delivered on Sunday. Well as luck would have it, the part did not get shipped on Monday, finally arrived Tuesday morning, and by 4:00PM that afternoon I was out of patience, out of vacation, and out $1200.00 for a new fan clutch. Fortunately the trip back to Georgia was uneventful. As a side note, and I know this has nothing to do with your overheating issue, when the tow truck driver arrived to tow us back to santa Rosa the first time, he had me use my leveling jacks to lift the front of the coach up so he could slide the tow bar underneath. He then had me retract the jacks. What he had not done was to raise his tow bar up to the front axle. There is only one speed on my leveling jacks when I hit the retract button, FAST! Needless to say, the sound of the crunching of the front end cap on the coach and the look on my wife's face was pretty exciting. Our coach is still in for repairs to the front end which totalled over $8000.00. Part of the lengthy repair time is they need 30 days for the Diamond Shield to cure once it's installed. So much for summer vacation plans. Hope some of this helped. Brian