two days ago i got a call from the owner and the customer service rep on conference call. very polite and helpful. the owner pledged to fix the problems and the cust service rep was very nice in contrast with his demeanor on the phone 2 weeks before. back then the rep tried to convince me from florida that the bus didn’t smell. in fact it stunk. the smell wall unmistakably sulphur, a by product of cooking batteries along with hydrogen which can and does explode violently. “http://www.kd4bbm.com/battery_safety.htm
“http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071005103722AAlcwxX
“http://www.springerlink.com/content/l118p66p0u1gj912/fulltext.pdf?page=1
i am finding all this out reluctantly, i had wanted to avoid troubleshooting and repairing the bus myself which is why i brought it to the factory that built it to be repaired. the rep insisted that i wasn’t smelling sulphur and that the batteries were not cooking (overcharging and boiling ). he did that after he had me spend three hours measuring the voltage of the house batteries while the generator was on and the smell went from nothing to overpowering inside the coach. his demeanor when i reported the smell was incredulous and dismissive. he insisted that i must have a toilet or grey water problem in the bus which could be solved with deodorizer. however there was never any smell in the bathroom when the door was closed. at the factory there had been a smell from the other side of the bus because they cut a vent pipe and didn’t cap it, so by now i am familiar with the difference between the smell of an uncapped grey water tank and sulfur. i had to track down the sulphur smell myself and i did with the help of a local truck repair shop. it was the engine batteries which still showed the wetness from battery acid and smelled. i sent photos of that to featherlite. “http://e-report.us/chassis_batteries/pages/3BATT_04_10_10.html
today i got a call from the rep at 8:pm. again he was incredulous. “the engine batteries do not charge off the generator” i had just spent another three hours the day before monitoring the engine batteries with only the generator on and watching them charge up from 11 to 14vdc while monitoring their temp and having the assistance of a mechanic. the rep. actually began to argue with me over this point and i just told him that i was not familiar with the wiring of the coach. i did not want to argue with him about how they got charged, it was enough that i verified that they were charged when the generator was on and that they smelled and were hotter than the surrounding batteries. he finished by telling me that i was crazy and that he was going to report that to the owner of the company. this is the customer service rep. some company? it is now left to me to replace the batteries and see if that solves the problem and try to get them to repair the battery charge indicator system that they installed. the rep. told me today on the phone that he was had not researched the problem and that the person who installed it and programmed the display just a month ago “is no longer with the company”. they’ve been down-sizing and i don’t know what that is going to mean to me or to all the other featherlite coaches with the same system installed, but it’s probably not good.