Weekly RV Maintenance For Those Always On The Move...

Wanda is definitely a member of the family. Strange to say, but I honestly feel that way.  Obviously, I love my wife and pets more but I love my 2007 Winnebago Vista 30B. It must be because we made it our own, renovated it and improved it to our needs but we also spend a lot of time in it. Wanda is our home, our office and a form of transportation. 

The more miles we put on Wanda the more I appreciate her. She gets my family to see the best a state has to offer safely with all comforts of a traditional house. To accomplish this task, Wanda requires a lot of maintenance. I feel like I am constantly checking, inspecting, fixing and improving on Wanda. We demand a lot from her, so it is imperative that she is running at tip top shape.  This also gives me peace of mind that when I need Wanda to perform she's at her best.   When a full-time RVer drives, everything they love and own is in the RV. 

There are many things that require maintenance but at the bare minimum I do the following on a weekly basis. ​

Tires 
This goes without saying this is probably the most important thing to check.   Check PSI on all your tires including your Tow Vehicle. We have RVi Tire Patrol which remotely checks the PSI and Tire Temperature every time Wanda and Walter moves. Also, I visually inspect the tires. I make sure the thread is wearing evenly, and there are no cracks, bulges  or nails in the tires .  My biggest fear when driving is a tire blow out. I take all precautions to prevent this.  

Lubricate
Lubricating is extremely important and something that should not be skipped. There are lot of moving parts in an RV. Lubrication helps everything work properly and smoothly. Here are the components that I lubricate weekly: slide, stairs, and tow bars. Make sure to use the proper lubricants on each of these.  Lubricants like wd40 are great but gather dirt and grime and aren't for every application. This is also a good time to visually inspect each of those components for potential breaks or other issues. 

Tow Bars 
I do this a couple of times a week if we are moving a lot. Wanda kicks up so much dirt, road grime and water at the tow bars. If these aren’t cleaned regularly the tow arms struggle to extend making hooking up the jeep difficult and dangerous. Follow your owners manual for detailed instructions on how to clean your particular tow bars. 

Wash or Hose Down the RV or at Minimum Clean Your Windshield
Driving through Texas Hill Country in the Spring has caused the front of my RV to look like a mass grave for flying insects.  If the parks allows it, I will wash the RV. If they don’t allow RV washing, I will quickly hose down the RV and I can’t do either, I will use my jeep as a ladder and use window cleaner and paper towels. Wash your RV when you have the opportunity. You don't know when you will be allowed to do it next. 

Engine
I do a quick check of all the fluids and visually inspect everything to make sure it all looks right. The whole process should only take a couple of minutes.   I check oil, transmission fluid, coolant, and windshield wiper fluids every week. The rest of the fluids I will check once a month. 

Start Generator 
We don’t use the generator very often. We have solar and often times the sites we are staying in have electric but when we do need it, I want to know its working correctly. We made this mistake once by not running it and after a couple of cloudy days boondocking on the beach when we tried to turn it on, the inverter didn't recognize the generator.  That was a bad time to find out we had a problem.  So now we exercise it.  This might be difficult to do because you don't want create too much noise when you are at a campground, but you don't need to run the generator long.  I will generally run the generator for 5 minutes under load after its up to temperature. I generally run the microwave or flip on the A/C while the generator is on. 

Solar​
Get on the roof and glass clean those panels. On boondocking days we rely solely on solar power. I clean the panels everyday. Even a little dust can prevent the panels from soaking up sun rays. We don’t have a lot of panels, so need these 3 working super efficiently. 

What weekly maintenance do you do for your rig every week? Any shortcuts to make it go quickly? Let us know in the comments below. 

By: Kevin Quiambao

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