We have about 50,000+ miles on the truck and 20,000 on the RV. When we are driving around town/interstates visiting places we can get out MPG up to 13.0. But just towing 20 miles from Vancouver to Portland (on interstate) took it down to 12.9 mpg. Thank goodness the price per gallon has come down. Also, Safeway has diesel pumps that offer discounts depending upon your Safeway purchases over the past few months.
Leaving Anchorage in June 2008, we had 4 new tires on the RV and 4 relatively new (3,000 miles) tires on the 2008 Ford. When Boots was driving Ruthi to the airport last week, the trucks “Low Tire Pressure” came on. So, after dropping Ruthi, Boots went to the local Ford dealer. They could find no problem and put more air in the tire. Over the past 3 years of full-time RVing, tires have been our most challenging item. We had a slow leak on one of the RV tires that took 4 different stops to finally find the problem (weld in wheel was leaking).
So, now we thought we were in for the same challenge on the truck tires that had been replaces at 35,000 miles for front and 50,000 miles for back). After the visit to Ford, Boots continued to enjoy her alone time with Karma. Saturday, Boots went out to take Karma for a run in an off-leash park. Lo and behold another “low Tire Pressure” message. Since it was late Saturday afternoon, she quickly called the Ford dealer that had not found the leak yesterday to check when they close. So, off she went flying to their office to get there before they closed. With further review a screw was discovered in the tire.
Why do we have to revisit issues to get resolution. As has been said inour blog many times, customer service is sorely lacking across America. Our experiences with Ford had been particularly good until recently (Bishop, CA and Portland, OR). Now we need to get an oil change and a “recall” issue resolved. So, we are going to another Ford dealer in the area this week.
