RATING: ♦♦♦♦
- Dates: Jun 12, 2019 – Jun 17, 2019
- Length of stay: 5 nights.
- Cost per night: $0 plus repairs.
- Discount: N/A.
- Hookups: 50 amp, water, and sewer.
- Site number/quality: #10.
- Park Quality: Winnebago recently bought up Country Coach, and they have a service center in Junction City OR. They provide free overnight parking to customers a block from the service center with full hookups. This is our first time here. On the plus side, there is a small city park adjacent to the lot on the south with lots of shade trees and open space. On the negative, there are rail tracks adjacent on the west used by freight and high speed passenger trains, which blow their horns at every crossing all through town, day and night.
- Access: Center of Junction City, just off OR-99.
- Connectivity: Verizon-OK, AT&T-OK, and T-Mobile-OK.
- Return yes/no?: Yes, we are waiting on parts, and will return to have our service completed.
- Notes: Our leveling jacks have been a problem for years. Basically, they lose pressure when extended. Even more concerning is that they sometimes lose pressure when retracted, and have begun to drop while driving. We’ve had numerous repair shops look at them, but none knew how to fix the problem. After researching the issue, I concluded that the jacks were leaking and needed to be resealed. We heard that there was a new Winnebago Service Center in central Oregon. We described out problem, and they agreed that the jacks needed to be resealed. I order the jack reseal kits from Lippert and made the appointment with Winnebago. When we arrived, the reseal kits were not in yet. The shop did a preliminary diagnosis, and concluded that simply resealing the jacks would not be enough to fix the problem, because there was also an internal crack in the main unit and the entire hydraulic pump assembly needed to be replaced. However, Lippert doesn’t keep the pump assembly in stock any more. Instead, they have it in “virtual inventory”, meaning that they build them as needed. The assembly includes the pump motor, valves, coil, fittings, pressure switch, electrical connections, and a solenoid. It’s not cheap. $2,000 for the assembly plus labor. Yipes! To add insult to injury, it going to take 10 business days for Lippert to ship the assembly. Heck of a way to run a business. Hope this fixes our issues, once and for all. In the meantime, Winnebago removed our four jacks so we could drive without worrying about them dropping while we drove. Plus they needed to be removed in order for the jacks to be resealed when the reseal kit arrive. Down side (not a small one) is that we’ll be camping without being able to level or stabilize the coach. Should be interesting.
- Website: Winnebago Service Center