Facebook Official
~Wednesday, July 22, 2020~
Day 38
We spent the morning strategizing our approach in contacting Ford to take care of our situation. After 3 attempts with trying to reach Ford’s Customer service, he finally contacted the right guy, Josh, who really listened to our situation, and offered to call the dealer directly, speaking with Omar himself and possibly the warranty department to expedite things for us. I contacted Chris who loaned us the truck, to update him on the latest. Basically we can keep the truck as long as we don’t leave Bakersfield. Darn, I was really hoping to get out of dodge to Oregon (kidding for now). At around 1:00, we finally heard from Omar. They had our truck on the rack to drain the transmission fluid. If they found any metal fragments in the oil, they were going to take the transmission apart to see what failed. So we should know more tomorrow. Not sure if Josh’s call had anything to do with the progress of today.
The highlight of my day and what really matters…..our grandkids miss us!. Easton was asking where we were? Aw, it breaks my heart that we won’t get to see them for a while.
As we had to throw most of our refrigerated food away from being stored at the Ford parking lot, we’re hoping to get compensation for that, if not all out of pocket expenses we’ll incur. Since I was cleaning everything out, it was the perfect time to defrost the freezer. Apparently, RV freezers do ice over quite often, so you really want to stay on top of defrosting. Otherwise, your freezer has to work harder using more energy and likely wearing out your unit faster. Jeff had read a quick way to defrost a freezer is to take a blow dryer set to “hot” and voila, melted ice in minutes. Just make sure you have a sponge, paper towels and a small bowl to put the melted ice in. A great alternative to the old way of defrosting. I think the whole process only took 15 minutes.
In opening the collapsible water cubes Jeff had ordered on Amazon, he realized he ordered the wrong size. He ordered 3 of the 2.5 gallon by accident when it should have been 5 gallon. These cubes will really come in handy when we’re boondocking and need to replenish the fresh water tanks in the trailer.Thank goodness Amazon has an easy return policy with fast shipping. However, this was from a third party vendor. To return those items, you have to pay your own shipping as opposed to getting Amazon’s prepaid shipping label, or the ability to drop your return off at Kohl’s. Kohl’s is now partnering with Amazon to accept returns in the hopes that while you drop off your return, that you’ll shop in their stores. Pretty smart business strategy. It worked on me. In our case, we also don’t have a printer so UPS charged me $2.50 to print the label + the shipping fee. So be weary when ordering from third party vendors, making sure the item your ordering is really what you want. Thank goodness we have had very little to return with the multitude of orders we’ve placed through Amazon. After UPS, we needed a few groceries so headed to Trader Joe’s, where we decided a falafel dinner was in order. A nice change.
Sadie couldn’t wait to get out and wander the riverbeds behind our RV park. The Kern River must really be something to see in the Spring. We’re not too far from an oil refinery surrounded by hundreds of oil wells. Not the best air quality around here. I didn’t realize that Bakersfield’s Kern River Oil Field is the third largest producer of oil in California.
The most exciting thing I did all day…...getting us “official“ on Facebook with our “FootprintsOnWheels” page. Our dear family and friends keep asking when we’re going to post photos/videos/tips, etc. of our travel year. So now with Facebook and Instagram set up, YouTube remains as well as our blog site. Oh and one more thing...before I went to bed, I thought I’d check online for any recalls on the Ford F-250 Diesel Super Duty trucks, and sure enough there was one launched July 6, 2020 regarding transmissions. https://media.ford.com/content/fordmedia/fna/us/en/news/2020/06/25/ford-motor-company-issues-a-safety-compliance-recall.pdf OMG!! Do ya think that would have come up in our conversations with the service department. Well it will tomorrow. Stay tuned.