After our Roadtrek E-trek had departed for Canada on Friday, September 4th, we were anxious to verify that it had been safely delivered to the Roadtrek factory. Due to the Labor Day holiday, it was not received by the Roadtrek factory until Wednesday, September 9th, and the service technician inspected it on September 10th and informed us that it was in good condition. We also went over the list of repairs. In addition to repairing the secondary alternator/under-hood generator, the Roadtrek E-trek service technician will install a balancer that will improve the performance of the batteries. All eight of the 6-volt AGM (absorbed glass mat) batteries will be load-tested and replaced if necessary.
We also enclosed a list of the outstanding service items (we have not been back to the dealer since the primary issue has been charging the batteries via the secondary alternator/underhood generator which although a Roadtrek modification, was addressed by Mercedes-Benz since it is part of the chassis.) The Roadtrek service technician wanted to make sure all of our issues were addressed while it was at the factory. These issues included the following:
- replacing a warped cabinet door.
- replacing the monitor panel (battery disconnect light illuminates intermittently).
- testing the solar, since they do not keep the batteries “topped up”–may be an incorrect setting. We also noticed that our solar control panel is not the same as the one pictured in the E-trek Owner’s Manual, so we asked him to make sure we have the latest model.
- magnets on exterior bay access doors appear rusted and do not keep the doors closed.
- remove front table mount between captains’ chairs since we wanted a flat surface and do not use the table (we have a table top for our dog crate which was installed earlier this year see picture).
- we inquired about the new litium ion batteries; however, have been told they are on backorder. According to the service technician, with the balancer upgrade, we should see greatly improved performance from our AGM battery bank.
- finally, we have looked in to upgrading the suspension to reduce the bumpiness when riding on the rear sofa, so he will verify the clearance to see if the upgrade is possible.
We had heard about the balancer from another (former) E-trek owner who had similar problems with his E-trek. We have also seen the balancer as a topic on the Class B Forum, where our blog was mentioned. Here is the link: http://www.classbforum.com/forums/f5/the-e-trek-blog-3678.html.
We have also seen discussion about the E-trek battery bank on the Sprinter Source Forum. Here is the link: http://sprinter-source.com/forum/showthread.php?t=34233.
We are looking forward to getting our E-trek back some time next week. Although we won’t have it to drive out to the Hershey RV Show this week, we are still planning to attend on Friday.
