I'm just finishing almost 12 hours worth of emergency road service after the Stagecoach broke down. The bill, at this point is most likely in excess of $1000 and maybe over $1100-1200. I called Good Sam Club pretty soon after I broke down. I spoke with one lady that apparently had everything taken care of but, due to the amount of time involved for the 1st service truck to show up, diagnose and request a tow truck, she had been replaced by the oncoming shift and things fell apart from there. Since everything around here had already closed, my concern, and theirs, was to get the Stagecoach towed to a safe location, hopefully inside of a locked yard. The first lady agreed to tow it back to the storage lot and then tow it again on Monday to the service center. A tow truck was dispatched at that point.

Then the new shift of ERS dispatchers came on duty and the next guy cancelled the tow truck and started the process over again - Wonderful! It was a bit difficult making him understand that there are two or three QUALIFIED places around here that will work on a motor coach chassis and they were all closed. He said it was against their policy to tow it to somewhere other than where the service would be performed. I understand that but wanted to know where they were going to take it that wouldn't result in it being left on the side of the road somewhere. Taking it to the storage lot might not have worked since I hadn't considered a 39' coach being pulled by a 45' tow truck. This point alone took me about 30 minutes to explain why it was suggested in the first place and why it wouldn't work now, FORGET ABOUT IT and move on. I was placed on hold twice and called back twice before the ERS dispatcher finally understood. Meanwhile, the towing company had been placed on hold and finally hung up on about 45 minutes later. I'm sure they had nothing better to do, right!

Just when I finally thought the tow truck was enroute, the driver tells me they have been put on hold again and to stay put! I've had three kids walk buy and attempt to steal my caution triangles that I had placed behind the coach so I chase them off and bring the triangles back inside. Who shows up? A state trooper, I'm figuring he's there to ask where my triangles are, no - he's just checking to make sure I'm okay. The trooper goes as far as checking on the tow truck and lets me know they are 25 minutes out. HEY, I can't even get that out of ERS but, I'm feeling better now since my wife had brought me emergency food service (Burger King) and my daughters had called me several times to check on me.

This really wasn’t as bad as it might sound since I had hot food brought to me, I had a generator that provided power to heat the coach and allow me to watch two complete college football games in HD (what a stompin Florida did to S Carolina!). I have to tell you, this all could easily have been taken care of in just a couple of hours if ERS had listened to and responded to the information I gave them. It seemed like they were only filling in the blanks and then getting someone, anyone, to come to my rescue. BIG, costly mistake!

Lessons learned: I'm not sure what I'll do but, if anything like this happens again, I'll want to make certain any responding technician KNOWS how to work on my coach and my particular problem before they are dispatched. I told ERS I had a fuel delivery problem and I needed someone that could work on a 3208TA CAT. The tech that showed up was a nice guy but didn't know very much about Cats or fuel problems. He spent an awful lot of time messing with things that had nothing to do with fuel delivery, I'm surprised he didn't wash it; you could tell he was on the clock.

The next time I get on the road, even if it is around the block, I will certainly have certain items on board for just such an event. This was part of the problem, everything was closed and no parts would be available until Monday. Obviously, I can't have everything needed but there are certain items that should be kept handy and the suspected culprit here (fuel solenoid) is one of them. Not that big of a deal for me since I was very close to home but this could have been a lot worse. I could have been a long way from home without cell service, I'm glad I have the optional CB that still works; it might come in handy one day.

As for the total bill, I'm not positive since I didn't see the service bill. The first responding tech said they charge $90 an hour for mobile service if they end up coming to the storage lot to work on it so I imagine that would hold true here as well. This bill might have been around $360 or maybe even higher since some charge just to show up. The towing bill ended up being $787.50 to tow it about 6-7 miles. It did involve removing the drive shaft.

ERS had to pay for the bill with a credit card that was refused. It apparently went over their max of $500 per charge and took them about an hour to figure out dividing the bill in two and running it through twice would eliminate the problem. The towing company was ready to tow it to their yard, add storage fees and a 2nd tow when the bill was finally paid. ERS was really putting me in a tight spot, I told the driver I would take care of the towing if ERS didn't but, fortunately, it didn't come to that.

I've rambled on enough, I must be really tired and certainly a bit PO'd. Would FMCA been any better? I'm not sure but it is better to be prepared regardless of whether it is FMCA or Good Sam. The good thing is that, even though it took most of the day, I'm not the one paying the $1100-1300. Emergency Road Service was an excellent investment!

had to remove the driveshaft? and what was the root cause of the fuel problem solenoid? so you broke down on saturday ? assumption since u were watching colledge games !! hope ur team won !

We have Coach Net. Broke down a couple of years ago about 50 miles east of Knoxville. The tow truck arrived in 30 minutes, towed it to the Ford dealer in Knoxville. The charge was about $400 and we never got a bill. Coach Net paid. The Ford garage tried to screw me by telling me it would cost $2000 to fix it. I then had it towed to my son-in-laws house at my own expense. He found the problem was a stopped up catalytic converter. Rodded out the converter and the thing ran great.

The repair bill for my Stagecoach adventure was $711; the culprit was a broken wire inside of the fuel solenoid.

The tow truck driver didn't ask if I wanted the drive shaft removed, he just did it. I asked why and was told it could damage the transmission if the driveshaft was left in place. Part of the repair bill involved replacing three zirc fittings on the driveshaft that were broken when it was removed. I felt like the Stagecoach was being held up again with the repair bill being that high. Was it in line with other repair shops, I don't know?

I sent an email to the Good Sam Club detailing what happened and did not receive a response; I'm quite surprised at that.

A word of warning about where they might tow your coach. First of all, ERS sent a technician that wasn't knowledgable about working on this problem involving a CAT engine. When it became obvious a tow was needed, ERS and the technician really pushed for me to have it towed to their yard. I can't help but feel that would have been a very expensive mistake, especially since they were planning on dropping the fuel tank to replace the fuel pump. I'm VERY happy that I didn't cave into their pressure and allow them to repair it at their yard and I came close to doing exactly that.