Early Repairs
We have been on the road for just over a month and have begun to settle into the “on the road” style of life. After our first few weeks of having the trailer in Nanaimo and on Denman Island there were a few factory defects that were starting to show. Little bits of trim had come unattached, the toilet had sprung a leak and the rear facing dinette bench had detached itself from the wall of the slide. As our next stop on our journey was back to Victoria it made it rather easy to schedule the repairs. We called up Arbutus RV and they were able to squeeze us into their busy schedule. Because we are living in our RV full time it can be hard to have time to schedule repairs, especially bigger ones but Arbutus seemed confident that the work could be completed in one day. We dropped off our RV in the morning and having no home headed off to Salt Spring Island for the day. When we returned, everything was done and our RV was in better shape than before. We headed back to the campground and reset everything up and settled down for the remainder of our week in Victoria.
On top of having to make some repairs on our Rockwood we also had to make some repairs on our truck. Back in early February, the night that Emily had arrived back from Japan we had parked our truck out on the road outside our apartment building. Unlike our Venza which we could park underground our truck is too large to fit in most parkades at a height of 6’8”. As a result we have to park on the street but we don’t usually park outside our building due to the street parking being limited to two hours. We normally have to park around seven blocks away on a street that doesn’t have restricted parking. That night in the 12 hours from when we had parked till we returned to our truck some unknown individual decided to key all of the vehicles parked on the block. We filed a police report with the Victoria PD but nothing came of it that we know of. We then filed an insurance claim and were told that we needed to make the repairs within two years of the incident for insurance to cover it. Being in the middle of moving and having a fully packed schedule we did not have time to make the repairs right away. Once we arrived in Vancouver we knew that this would be our last opportunity to have the repairs made until we return to BC around July. I started phoning around to different Craftsman Collision but each one we tried was not able to book us in until the following week for an estimate and then wanted to book another appointment to actually complete the work. This wasn’t going to work for us because we were planning to be traveling to the United States in several days time. Eventually after feeling like the repairs weren’t going to happen I came across a location in White Rock that was willing to have us email in photos to complete the estimate and then book us in right away for an appointment. Upon sending the photos we received a call back within a few hours saying work could start on Monday (it was currently Wednesday). I was a little disappointed to hear this as that was the day we’d been planning on heading south to the USA. I kindly explained to them the situation that we were in and that we wouldn’t be back in BC until July. To my surprise they responded to this by saying if we could get the truck to them later that afternoon they would try their best to have the work finished by the end of the week.
It turns out the the process for repairing a scratch on the truck was rather complex. They have to remove the door handles, side mirrors, running board, both passenger side doors, 5th wheel hitch, tailgate, rear bumper and the entire box. Then each of the scratched panels had to be sanded out down and the paint had to layered in to make the repair invisible. My understanding is only scratching the surface of the process they went through but the end result looks like the truck was never scratched. If anything else happened I would definitely give Craftsman my business again. The cost of the repairs was just shy of three grand but luckily insurance covered most of it minus the five hundred dollar deductible. We did have one issue with the repair which was the rear passenger door would not open after we rolled down the window but that was easily fixed when we called back on Monday and brought the truck back in. There was a cable that connected the door handle to the lock and it had gotten wrapped around something when the lock got reinstalled. They were super nice and let us visit a closer location although they were hesitant at first as they like to keep any follow up work associated with the location that originally did the repairs. The other thing of note that we didn’t realize beforehand was the level of outgassing that would occur as a result of the paint job. We were basically unable to drive the truck for a few days until the paint smells dissipated. Now that both our truck and trailer have been mended we are ready to continue our journey south.
This Weeks Places
Victoria - Photos Coming Soon
Salt Spring Island - Photos Coming Soon
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