I’ve been thinking about this post for awhile and decided to actually write after seeing some YouTube videos. Those videos involved travel trailers being towed down the highway and swaying so much that they eventually caused major accidents. In each case, the TT would have been a total loss for insurance purposes.

Many people think RVing is a happy go lucky, carefree way to see the country whether it’s for a vacation or as a way of life. Whoa! Not so fast. I’m just going to discuss the traveling part of RVing, not the actual camping part of it. And of course, my perspective is that of someone towing a large 5th wheel RV with a one ton pickup truck.

I’ve been doing this now for about 15 years and had my share of problems while driving. What I hadn’t considered until just recently is how lucky I’ve been. I’ve always maintained emergency roadside assistance and, while it can be problematic in some situations, it has certainly saved my bacon on many occasions.

One of the more common, but still dreaded, problems we face as RVers are flat tires or blowouts. My first flat tire on the 5er happened on a secondary road in central Florida. There was nothing dramatic about it. I felt and heard nothing so I have no idea if it was an actual blowout or if it started as a flat and progressed to the tire shredding. I only knew it happened because I was watching my side view mirrors and noticed small black debris kicking out behind the RV. I found a safe place to pull over and walked around the RV. I found a tire that was more gone than there. What was left was wrapped around the axle. I placed my call to roadside assistance and gave my location and problem. While waiting for the mobile mechanic, I got the spare ready and made some minor repairs where the tire had beat up the RV wheel well. Assistance arrived within 45 minutes, cut the old tire off the axle with a hacksaw and mounted the spare. All things considered, fairly painless.

I’ve heard first person accounts of far more chilling incidents of wheels coming totally detached from the axle and rolling down the highway alongside the tow vehicle. How would you like to see that in your mirror? And then there’s the people who experience blowouts on the front axle of a motorhome or tow vehicle. Those are trickier because you need to immediately do something that’s counterintuitive. Your brain is probably screaming at you to hit the brakes as the vehicle veers to one side or the other. The proper way to handle this situation is to accelerate just enough to keep the vehicle going in a straight line, then start gradual braking to get off the road.

I’m not a mechanic so I never even thought about this next problem, until it happened to me 3 different times. I’m talking about broken axle hangars. They’re welded to the frames of towed RVs and keep the axles in the correct position. Again, although the break downs were inconvenient and cost money I could have put to more fun uses, I was very lucky each time (2 different 5th wheels). The first 2 times, I discovered the problem at interstate exits where I could get fast assistance. The first time I noticed lots of blue smoke in the mirror as I was exiting the interstate. I stopped on the exit ramp to investigate. About all I knew for certain was that 2 tires were rubbing together. There was a large truck stop at this exit so I slowly pulled into their lot and parked. There was a trailer and tire shop just across the street. I spent the night in the RV in that truck stop and walked across the street first thing the next morning. They sent a truck to align the axles enough to drive it across the street, welded the axle hangar and put a new tire on. I was on my way within a few hours. The other 2 incidents were fairly similar. It’s like I was surrounded by 4 leaf clovers.

How about clutch problems on the truck? Inconvenient? You bet. Lucky? Also true. One time my clutch stopped working as I was coming down a stretch of interstate called Dead Man’s Pass. There was a rest area at the bottom that I was able to get safely into. Another call to roadside assistance. They found a mobile mechanic who came to the rest area and had me back on the road within a couple of hours. The second time was definitely more involved. I had to get my truck and RV towed to the nearest big city. I already had campground reservations and the roadside assistance covered that tow 100%. The truck cost me a little extra since I wanted a different transmission shop to do the work instead of the closest one. Once again, my travel plans were only delayed a couple of hours. The transmission shop was within bicycle distance of my campground (where I was going to be for at least 6 weeks anyway) and a new clutch was installed within a week.

I could go on with a few more personal examples but I think you get the drift. As I said, I’ve been very lucky, or at least I think so. Others may not be so lucky. I see internet posts all the time from younger people who still need to work for a living but they want to ‘live the RV lifestyle before they’re too old to enjoy it’. These are usually the same people who have to start a Go Fund Me page when they encounter problems, or stand on an interstate exit ramp with a ‘God bless’ sign, or beg relatives for help getting a new set of tires. Folks, I’m not making any of this up. I’ve seen evidence of each of these situations.

I guess the moral of this post is: RVing is NOT all rainbows and unicorns.