Welcome! Join our journey of thousands of miles and our life full time in our RV! Also on YouTube! We previously owned a 1973, 28 ft Avion.
04/22/2025
Pardon the long post, but its times like this it helps to get it off our chest....
Living life on the road has created a lot of "firsts" for us...first earthquake rumble, first time in many states, first time to AK, first time evacuation from flood and tornado.
But.....
Today was a FIRST TIME we suspect we were deliberately SABATOGED by a small town auto service center. It was at Sawyer Tire/Car-x in Stockton. At Sawyer Tire-Their staff seemed less than happy to have our business. We noticed their shop had no others in it (5 bays) and we should have had our internal radar vibes more tuned in.
Two days ago we went into a nearby town in MO to get a simple oil change at Sawyers Tire/Car-x. The shop was 12 miles away. After the oil change, Not more than 5 miles heading home our truck had a little hiccup like water in the gas sputter. Kevin wrote it off as bad gas from a fill up in same town earlier. We went no where yesterday. Today we wanted to get some gas additive to solve the issue so we went back 12 miles into town to O'Reillys Auto for gas treatment bottles. The truck did that little hiccup sputter again on the way.
After putting in the gas tx Kevin went to start the truck in the parking lot.
Nada, nothing, then billowing smoke coming out of hood on passenger side. Quick lift of hood, battery blazing hot, super heated, smoking wires, potential fire. We had large sports bottles of H2O and kev put it out quickly. The Fella at O'Reillys recommended a good mechanic where he takes his personal vehicles and they in turn recommended a good tow company.. So off we go, Nutmeg on our lap in yet another tow truck to Bocks Automotive on Rt 32, south of Stockton, MO. Bocks Automotive was awesome!!!
Here is where it gets tough to think about...and caused me to shake and tear up. This truck and our beautiful Avion is all we have. It is our life we have chosen to be abe to enjoy our retirement years. But it causes a real wakeup call that it could be gone in a split second.
After looking at our truck, they found the culprit pretty quickly.
The positive wire to the starter had been taken off, the nut put back and screwed down and then the cable just slid down on top of the post. Nothing holding it in place. While driving, it slid off and grounded onto the engine block causing the wires to start smoking which could have led to a major engine fire.
God was looking out for us for sure today. Our range of emotions goes from scared to angry to thankful.
We had planned to replace our (2, due to our DC to DC charging unit and 500 amp Mikman alternator) batteries this summer as we knew they were not too great anymore. Our Bock Auto mechanic said if we had had new batteries with their high power levels we could have had a major disaster and loss of our entire truck and even our lives had we been towing our trailer at the same time. Folks this cable wire is NOT something that any repairs have been done on the starter since we have owned the truck for 70k miles we have put on it. Our mechanice at Bocks said he seriously doubts that this happened anymore than within just the last few days. So this leads us to suspect malicious tampering at the oil change shop. It did NOT unscrew itself and then put the nut back on by itself.
Here's the hard lesson. We do miss not having our local, loyal repair shop to go to anymore who we can trust.
When you are traveling and especially far from home, local shops know they won't see you again. Who knows what kind of ill will folks may have. Or hopes to get more repair business from your while in town so they cause something to happen. This could have gone terribly wrong for us, even deadly. We are scheduled to leave here Thursday morning and would have been towing our 10k # travel trailer (our only home) over hill and Dale on rural roads of Missouri headed north into another remote area.
Like we said we cannot and do not have absolute proof of sabotage done by Sawyer Tires staff but the coincidences and report from our excellent mechanic at Bock Automotive (who was great) leaves too many unanswered questions. The capable mechanics at Bock did get us repaired in under 2 hours including the tow time. We have new batteries now and all is good, they found no other damage and the cable wire is back secured where it belonged.
Honestly, we have spent such money in truck repairs this year, I (Luise) think right now I would be content to just find a place to hunker down for the next 6 months and not worry about anything else going wrong. It has been a very stressful few weeks and a very expensive repair year so far.
So friends as you look at our beautiful sunset photos, our precious dog, our unique and wonderful camping spots we call home for a few days or a few weeks please know that all is not the golden hour all the time. Life is life and S&* # happens no matter where you are. So live life everyday like it may be your last. Please keep us in your prayers.
Hugs.
