Those of you who have been following our saga all along may remember the Motorhome From Hell, our first RV, which was a Fleetwood lemon. It literally fell apart driving down the highway and we spent the first eighteen months of our fulltime adventure running from dealer to dealer and even to the factory, trying to get it fixed under warranty. At the time, I was frustrated by Fleetwood’s continued failure to keep their promises to fix the long, long list of problems we had.
But now I appreciate Fleetwood, in much the same way that I appreciate my old Army drill sergeant. He rode us all hard and long, but the experience and lessons from boot camp helped keep me alive in Vietnam. I realize now that Fleetwood was just prepping me for dealing with Apple.
Since I still had not received the promised phone call by about noon yesterday telling me that my iMac had been repaired overnight, I called the Apple store and was told they were working on it and needed another 1½ hours to finish up.(That would be 1 p.m., remember that time.) What happened to working on it overnight? I guess the same thing that happened to fixing it as soon as the parts came in Tuesday morning.
So we ran a few errands, stopped at a Barnes & Noble bookstore to browse for a while, and arrived at the Apple store about 3 p.m., foolish thinking they must have it finished by then. Guess again. After a half hour or so of checking, the young lady told us they needed another 1½ hours to finish up, that’s two hours after the first 90 minutes they needed!
What the hell, it’s not like we have lives to live or anything. We went to Costco and picked up a few things, then stopped at La Salita for another one of their delicious Mexican dinners. About 5:30 the same girl called and said they needed another 1½ hours to finish up. Are you seeing a pattern here?
Finally, at 7:45 p.m. (almost 7 hours after their first estimate) we got the iMac back, with assurances that it is fixed and working like new. They replaced the CD/DVD drive for the third or fourth time, as well as the cable for that drive, and the logic board. When we dropped the computer off on Friday, they had also said they were going to erase the hard drive and reinstall the operating system fresh. The reason for this was that they thought that part of the Parallels program that they sold me when I bought the iMac (and then said was a known problem source and removed on my last visit to an Apple store), probably had some bits and pieces lingering that were causing problems. They didn’t do that and when I asked why, they said it wasn’t necessary. This is typical of my experience down the line – one "genius" tells you one thing and the next one tells you something else entirely. Anyway, we’ll see how long it works this time around. I’m not holding my breath.
Today we plan to leave the Albuquerque area and drive 130 miles to Las Vegas, New Mexico. The Elks lodge there has RV sites and we’ll spend a night or two there while we visit the Mora Valley Spinning Mill and a couple of other local attractions.
We had planned to stop in the Colorado Springs area for a few days, but with the wildfires burning in that area, we may have to go to Plan B. Always have a Plan B.
Thought For The Day – Some people can hear you speak a thousand words and still not understand you. Others will understand without you even speaking.
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Nick Russell
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Air quality is terrible at our son’s place here in Colorado Springs. Everybody’s eyes are burning and we all have sore throats from breathing in this crap. We are parked in his driveway keeping the motorhome ready to go in a hurry if we have to evacuate. We’ll throw the grandkids and dog in and run like hell.
we have a used Georgie Boy Cruisemaster and yesterday we got the transmission fluid changed and now it’s leaking so much for preventative maintenance, we got it done at a truck stop who should know what they are doing since they do all the trucks there. ugh, rving does have it’s drawbacks I hope we don’t get some computer problems now. Ha.
Nick,
That sounds like a rep that I dealt with at AT&T. She couldn’t understand why I didn’t “jump at the chance” to take the GREAT, $4.99 add on for free nights & weekends usage, when we were using less than 1/2 of our program minutes as it was. After over 20 minutes of “discussion”, I gave up, she never did “get it”, nor did I.
The really bad thing is, these people reproduce and vote!
Butch
I’ve stayed at that Elks Lodge in Las Vegas, NM. There used to be a good Mexican restaurant next door, not sure if it’s still there or still good. Wishing you luck with the iMac. Loved your point about boot camp and Fleetwood preparing you for this war with Apple – total frustration!
We are at Mountaindale RV Park southwest of Colorado Springs at a rally this week, and air quality is fine here even though we are between the Black Forest and Royal Gorge fires. We had planned to stop over in Colorado Springs Friday night on our way out, but given Charlie’s comment perhaps we will skip that and head further north.
glad you got your computer back, maybe this time they really fixed your problem. Stay safe and finally enjoy your trip.
As bad as Apple might be with customer service and being locked into a 90-minutes more-mode, they are rank amateurs when it comes to crummy service and inferior products such as that from Fleetwood.
I’m sorry to hear your Apple problems. For some odd reason your experience is completely opposite ours. They have always taken great care of me and I’m just a 2 ‘puter guy who’s been a customer since the mid 80’s — so I’ve had my share of problems along the way. Maybe you’re finally fixed and you’ll see the other side of them. Here’s hoping.