kokofriend Report post Posted December 28, 2011 I live in Nashville and need some work done on my CAT engine in the motorhome. I took it to A-1 Diesel here in Nashville, but they said they couldn't get the specs from CAT that they needed to adjust the lash. The truck dealers here are nice, but don't like to work on the motorhomes. Does anybody have experience with either of these 2 Freightliner Oasis service centers in TN. I am about equidistant from both if them. I would appreciate any advice. This is my first diesel! Barb Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wolfe10 Report post Posted December 28, 2011 Barb, Welcome to the FMCA Forum. My recommendation on any "in engine" work would be to go to a dealer for that engine-- Caterpillar in your case. I would rather have a guy who has adjusted valves on 5 engines just like yours this week than a guy at a chassis dealer who has done 4 brake jobs, 3 front end alignments, 2 clutch jobs and may not have worked on an engine like yours in a month. For a Caterpillar dealer near you, call the Caterpillar RV Hotline toll free at: 877 777-3126. BTW, the first valve adjustment on a Caterpillar engine in RV service is 30,000 miles. The price can vary widely depending on how much (or how little) access your coach maker left to the top of the engine. In most cases, if you do the work to gain access to the top of the engine, you can save some labor charge. Brett Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
sundancev Report post Posted February 17, 2012 Brett: After having numerous Diesel Engines in Commercial Work Boats and now having a 350HP Cummins in our motor home I would normally agree with your statement about using the Engine Mfg. for service. That being said, I will tell you this past summer and Spring I had three occasions to use Cummins Dealers for minor problems including check engine light and supposedly lift pump/algae issues and was very dissatisfied with my experience in all three cases. I also had occaision to use Freightliner the chassis mfg. on three occasions and could not have been happier with the results. In each case the Freightliner Dealers could have taken us to the cleaners with our limited knowledge of heavy RV use and they did the reverse by giving us straight forward answers and service that limited our outlay of dollars. Cummins, we felt did the exact opposite. We simply felt as if they were trying to maximize their dollar intake at our expense. The Cummins Dealers would not allow us to be in the work area to see what they were actually doing whereas the Freightliner folks were glad for us to be present as long as we conducted ourselves in a safety first manner. One of the episodes involved a "check engine light." I have previously contacted Cummins national 800 line and received instructions as to the most likely problem and had the fix described which was very simple. The Cummins Dealer however stated they had a minimum "check engine light" analysis of some $300. They came to the same conclusion as their 800 tech and quickly fixed the problem after making us wait for over an hour while they did nothing after running their analysis. I will avoid Cummins dealers whenever possible in the future. Thanks again for your forum expertise. Paul Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
wolfe10 Report post Posted February 17, 2012 Paul, As I am sure you and everyone else is aware Cummins (as well as Caterpillar, Freightliner, Ford, Chevy, etc) dealers are all independent businesses. Some are well run and have excellent service departments-- others are not. Impossible to paint all dealers of a certain brand as good/bad. As the General Manager of large metro dealerships for many years, I can tell you there ARE differences! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
