Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining and Unique RVs Found Along the Way

When we arrived at Buckskin Mountain State Park near Parker, AZ yesterday we had an unfortunate incident. The campground road takes a somewhat hard turn into the Ranger’s Check-In gate. I somehow managed to get the left-front tire of the Honda up on the curb. When I pulled the motorhome forward the front wheel dropped down to make contact with the pavement – as planned. What I didn’t plan on was having the aluminum TPMS valve stem on the Honda being sheared off. Instant flat tire and instant big problem, but our roadside service Coach-Net came to the rescue.


Last September we had a valve stem shear off on a high curb on the way to Starved Rock State Park in Illinois. It was $180 to replace, plus the long drive to Joliet, IL and back. So now in addition to forking over another $180 , I was looking at a 120 mile one way trip over highways where someone going 50 mph is gonna get a lot of horn honking and dirty looks. The nearest Honda dealer is in Yuma, AZ and I was planning on making the trip in a day or so.



Today we drove to Lake Havasu to Wal-Mart. As we drove there I was complaining about having to make a drive all the way to Yuma to replace a TPMS stem when we already have Pressure Pro Tire Monitors on the Honda. It would be wasted money, time and fuel. Unfortunately, by federal law, a tire dealer cannot make a TPMS system inoperable. We found this out last fall when we had to replace the first Honda sensor. As we were driving this morning, I spotted a Discount Tire store and had Sandy pull in. I went in to talk to one of the service writers. He told me what I expected to hear: that they couldn’t do what I wanted, but they had a solution. They removed the sensing/transmitting portion of the Honda TPMS and permanently affixed it to the inside of the wheel. So now the Honda Tire Pressure Monitoring System is still operating, but we could put regular tire stems on the Honda, thereby eliminating the need to drive 240 miles round trip and incur a big expense. Our Pressure Pros still protect us.



While we were at Discount Tire, we had new tires put on the Honda. We were within 1/32 of an inch from the point where tires should be replaced so we got that taken care of – and got a $100 refund in the process. So problem solved and money saved. I call that a silver lining to a cloud.

Now, for those of you who like to see pictures, over the past eight months I have been taking pictures of unusual RV’s that we have seen. These are unique and one-of-a-kind. Hope you enjoy.

Stay tuned