When Dodge Hands You a Lemon…
This morning I woke in the great city of Albuquerque, and if you can’t feel the seething nature of that statement, you don’t know me at all. If you read the 60 day Check-in, you know that I’ve been increasingly plagued with trouble with my brand new Dodge Ram 3500. To recap, there was a code in Tucson where the techs told me I was just a stupid girl and don’t know how to drive a diesel. Then a code in Las Cruces, which I couldn’t get an appointment for 60 days so I was forced to tow the trailer to Santa Fe, where the intercooler blew out, presumably from the last code but the dealership didn’t address the code, only the symptomatic failure. 140 miles later I find myself in the mountains with another code, all of which have been DPF (diesel particulate filter) related. But I’m just a dumb girl, what do I know.
Rather than continue to blindly trust Dodge and its fleet of dipshit mechanics, I instead decided to bring the trailer with me to the Albuquerque, check engine light be damned. And of all the harrowing and stressful drives we’ve had, this one was the worst yet. In a field all alone, three miles off a paved road, with a truck that continues to surprise me with fault codes, I hitched the trailer up and said a little something to God. Yes, that’s right, the bitterest of bitches brought the big guy into this because of all the shitty luck I’ve previously had, I needed every single source of positivity as I packed up my whole fur family into our house and towed it down a 13% grade with a truck that runs about as well as I do. I shed a couple tears, psyched myself out, and began the trek. A few hours later, we slid into our spot at this shithole they call an RV park, plugged into electric, and I was on my way to drop off the truck. Again.
This brings us to this bright and cheerful morning. In stark comparison to the forest field we just spent a week inhabiting, with light rainfall and the early morning surprise of mama cows with their silly galloping calves in the distance, sleeping like babies in the absolute solitude with only the sounds of animals in the tree canopy, I can honestly say this RV park is a fucking dump. The “50 foot” space is barely as big as my ex’s dick so you can be sure that a true 50 feet, which my trailer and truck are, sure as fuck wouldn’t fit in here. Thank goodness my truck got the privelege of staying in the Dodge dealership overnight even though they didn’t even open it the fuck up and look at it. I’m sure that garage was a fucking Holiday Inn compared to this place with the constant sounds of semis engine breaking, the complete lack of quiet hours, or the absolute joke of basic right angles when you say that a space can accommodate a certain size rig. I can’t open one slide because of the electrical box and tree while the other side is blocked by a bird shit stained metal table. The laundry room charges $6 a fucking load, and the dials don’t work so once you’ve put your delicates in, it’s hot heavy wash for you! The dryer is a whole other nightmare, and I ended up just hanging all of my things from hangers along the slide panels (which I’m absolutely certain is a fucking no-no). The pool is closed. The hot tub is under maintenance for the foreseeable future. The dog park is a dirt patch with a fence. I feel like I’m staying at an RV park in downtown LA. And I’m paying $65 a night while we inch into the weekend, and I still have no answers or reassurances from Dodge about anything. Add the expense of a rental car, and I could’ve gone on a four day cruise to Mazatlan. To say I’m mildly angry would be appropriate.
But don’t misunderstand me. I’m not mad that the Dodge techs explained away my truck issues with blatant sexism. I’m not mad that I’m staying in a city that smells like frying grease. I’m not mad that I have no way to leave this fucking nightmare of a living situation and potentially no way to tow my house, that I fucking live in, back to my original state of residence. No, I’m not mad as much as I’m disappointed. I’m disappointed in Dodge as a whole, in all of the dealerships that I’ve been to that can’t figure out that a square block doesn’t fit in a round hole, and I’m disappointed mostly that I’ve lost all faith and trust in my truck, something that is quintessential for full time RV life. I believed in Dodge and Cummins, enough to stake everything on their product and it’s reliability. I believed in them enough to tow my whole fucking life, all my worldly possessions, and my most precious cargo with their truck, and I know now, regardless of what happens this time with the dealership, that I will never trust that fucking truck again. Like a unfaithful lover, the doubt will forever be there, waiting in the shadows to reappear. But I find myself in the unique position of being completely unemployed so I don’t even have an option to trade that fucker in because I did a hatchet job on my seven year career and am now just a traveling gypsy with a 680 credit score.
So what do you do when Dodge hands you a lemon? Do you make lemonade or do you tell them to shove that rind up their fucking ass? To be continued…