brianreed

I have had my RV for about 2 months now and it is pretty dirty. We have taken it out 7 times for weekends and there has been some rain and a little mud on the tires. I have asked at every Thousand Trails we have stayed in and they do not allow RV washing there. We even stopped at two different truck stops asking if there was a wash station and still nothing. We tracked down one place, but when we got there is was no longer in business. I have a Newmar Mountain Aire 4304 so it is pretty big and we pull a Mini Cooper so we are extra long. Where do you all wash your rigs? If I went to a large truckstop like Loves do they have washing stations?

So after a few weeks of camping weekends and fulling and flushing my black tank and using Happy Camper powder a few times the black tanks seem to be good and healthy now. Keeping the tank 3/4 full or so when we leave with Happy Camper for a drive and dump at a rest area with running the tank washer fitting has been the difference. The sensors are all working well, and running clean. Thanks.

I guess the Allison Transmission doe snot require yearly service, but this coach is new to me and I could not verify the last service. I thought I had my coach in my profile. 2006 Newmar Mountain Aire 4304, with the 400hp cummins.

I have been to Monroe for 4 weekends in a row, we were at sites 67-71. We will be in Chehalis next. We also went to LaConner several weeks ago. I had reservations for Leavenworth over Memorial Weekend, but ended up cancelling because of the towing 7 way. We needed to have a vehicle in order to make that work with a busy weekend.

jleamont If it is totally cold and have not been run for awhile it will take about 30 seconds of constant holding of the start switch before it starts. If the generator has been run in the past ferw hours or so it starts within 2 seconds. Once it starts in either scenario it funs flawlessly. To me this is not normal.

Thank you all so much for the advice, I forgot I even asked the question here. I took it to Cummins for a full service, fuel filter, oil change and filter, and coolant change. I was having the yearly engine and transmission service as well. I told them about the slow starting, but they did not address as far as I could tell. When I asked it was not in the notes, and when I picked up the only person there was the receptionist so I could not get any real answers. Good idea on checking the glow plugs so I will do that. However I suspect that it is just taking a long time for the fuel to prime. When I am holding the button down you can hear the fuel priming and them the sound changes slighting with the priming and it starts right up. Perhaps that "check valve" is where the issue is. My fuel tank has not been below 1/2 tank the entire time I have owned it.

Getting this towing all setup for Doris (our 2006 Newmar Mountain Aire 4304) to tow our mini cooper has been a series of events. I purchased the BlueOx towbar, baseplate, and wiring from them and as far as I could see it is all very nice quality. I have not towed with it yet, but think it will work just fine. I decided to purchase the heavy duty 10,000lbs unit even though my car is only 2500lb. I could not see much different in price and thought if I every purchased a larger toad then we would be covered. My pain was when the 7 way from Doris was not working right, I checked with a test light and everything worked except the turns signals and brake lights. I spent hours there trying to find a fuse, or relay, but could not figure it out. I finally called an RV guy that my dealer recommended as a last resort. The Spartan Chassis book was of no help at all, it only had a half page of information on the fuses and the one in the book, was not even the one I had on the coach. I even found the full Spartan wiring diagram pdf and it showed that there was an inline fuse for the brakes and turns. It took the RV guy 4 hours to track where those fuses were, but it bugged me to find them right at the chassis battery.. Why is this not in the diagram or the fuses section of the owners manual. So frustrating to spend $340 for a guy to find where a fuse was located. Ugh such is life. I leave in a few weeks on a grand adventure for 2 months making a huge loop of the US. In the mean time I am spending every weekend at a Thousand Trails campground learning how to drive, park, and live in our Doris. This weekend is my first time towing Estella (our 2008 Mini Cooper S) which I am excited about.

IN my 2006 Newmar Mountain Aire 4304 I have a smaller 7500 Onan. When starting it takes a very long time to prime. 30 seconds or more of holding down the start button, it is the same from outside or inside. From outside you can hear it pumping/priming. Once it starts it runs well, and will restart quickly if I shut it off for a couple of hours. But if it sits overnight it will take a very long time to start. I plan on getting a complete service from Cummins next month, and will include the generator service, but want to prepared for any costly repairs if needed..

I have never been RVing near NYC, but we are this summer and did as much research as I could. We decided on Liberty Harbor RV park as others have suggested. We have reservations July 4th week so understand the fireworks that night should be spectacular.

Thank you all and you are correct. It was a bad clamp that someone tried to "repair" rather than replace. it was just a matter of time before the other one was broken as well. I could see small cracks on the edges of the bracket. I went to Cummins and purchased two new stainless clamps and a third as a spare and trashed the old two.

Ok my first weekend "camping" in the new rig. I went to LaConnor, WA Thousand Trails. I did not know that all the TT parks seem to be first come first serve. Not sure why we made a reservation or told them the size of our rig. At any rate the place was so tight, but that is another story for another day. We did not get full hookups, which ended up being a good thing because we were forced to live on our tanks and I now know more than I did before. One is that I think the tank sensors are working pretty close to reality and just having the black tank full and flush a few times has really cleaned it out pretty well for the time being and the odor is all but gone. I did put dome Happy Camper down there for good measure. I am still going to find a pressure washing service at some point, but until then I think everything is working better now that it is not sitting.

I took delivery of my 2006 Newmar Mountain Aire with a Cummins 400 ISL engine. I have not driven a big turbo diesel before other than the single day lesson that I received from the dealer I bought it from. When I was taking it to my storage place I was going up a slight hill and was at about 55mph when there was a loud pop and I lost most power. At the top of the hill I was going 30mph and I immediately thought the turbo was not working right. When I pulled over on the top of the engine at the intake pipe it can separated at the clamp. Easy fix, but I am thinking this may have been my fault. Like I said I have not driven a big turbo diesel and I think I was driving like my regular gas engine. Perhaps I was giving it too much throttle and then backing off as I was hitting the incline. Could it be that I forced the turbo to spool up then let off too fast and caused some back pressure? During my lesson the instructor said something about allowing the turbo to spool up and easing the throttle. Like I said an easy fix, but wanted to understand if I was the cause.

@ Manholt Thanks for the advice. I agree, one thing at a time, and doing the fresh tank sanitation will need to be done soon. Luckily the fresh tank seems like it is in great shape, but will sanitize soon. I did replace the house filter (the 0.5 micron in the wet bay) as well as the water filter in the galley sink (small one under the sink) I purchased a new fresh water drinking hose and added one of those large 20 micro filters at the spigot. I also purchased a orange black water hose which I keep separate from the fresh water stuff.

I filled the tank with water using the black tank flush filler and then went for a drive for the first time. Driving this huge rig through narrow streets is a little nerve racking. I decided not to try anything first just do a water flush. It seemed like a fair bot of crap came out of the tank. I am going to try the calgon and dawn trick over next weekend when we go up to LaConner, WA for our first overnight in the new RV. We have decided to name her Daisy. I will let you know if more crap comes out. Also I now know that the grey tank level sensor id not working.

I go for a drive on Sunday where I am going to full the tank half full and then add dawn and Calgon while driving then go dump right afterwards to see how things look. I will let you know.

I looked at the Newmar Kountry Klub, but was not real clear on the benefits.

Thanks for the encouragement of the wand/low pressure through the toilet. I have been told the wands are useless, but I have no first hand knowledge. Someone told me the ice trick, but that seemed suspect and a myth. I say 1/4 full because the tank sensor says it is 1/4 full after everything is drained. Perhaps the 1/4 is not accurate, but a visual check with a flashlight down the toilet should tell me something. I have been told that the chemicals are also useless and not great for the plastic tank and the environment, but perhaps that advice comes for a tree hugger; we have plenty up here in WA. I will post back to tell you how this is coming along.

Ok I have recently purchased a very nice 2006 Newmar which had an aftermarket Macerator in the wet bay. This has caused a few problems, I suspect the PO kept dumping the black too early and caused settling of the "debris" as the macerator did its thing while dumping at a slow pace. So in the end I have a black tank that is at best guess 1/4 full (according to the level sensor) of "debris". I had the macerator removed and now want to do something about getting the tank finally cleaned. Here are my options as I see them. 1. I have seen a power washing RV service where they put a 400psi washer with 4 reverse sprayers. Takes about 30 mins, and on youtube the results seem great. This is my first choice, but unfortunately I cannot find anyone doing this service up in Washington. I suppose I can attempt this myself as the special nozzles you can buy, but not sure where to get a sprayer that would pump at the 400psi range and how would I even know. 2. Do some combination of cleaner, full tank flushes, and internal black tank flushes and hope this will get it all cleaned out. 3. Try that tank wand thing, but not sure how well these work. Any other suggestions short of taking the tank out and getting it cleaned and replacing would help.

My wife Becky and I have purchased out first Motorhome, a 2006 Newmar Mountain Aire 4304 and so looking forward to using it. We already purchased a Thousand Trails Camp Pass and have reserved several places as a warm up to get acquainted with our new beast. All in prep for our cross country trip over the summer. We are starting and ending at our home in WA, but will do a huge clockwise loop of the entire US over 2 months starting end of June. Becky is a teacher and I run a tech business, this is an experiment to see if I can work from the road for a long period of time. The FMCA forum has already been a help as a read tons of posts while I was is search and purchase mode, feels good to finally be a member.