In early June, we made a trip to the motherland of RVing–Elkhart, Indiana. Beauty was getting a new suspension system and disc brakes at MORryde, and then we had a little recall work to be done at Grand Design. We decided to schedule it for the same week, which we had done about eight months earlier.

MORryde

After over a year of living full-time in our Grand Design 385GK and traveling thousands of miles on America’s roads, we decided it was time to upgrade the suspension on Beauty. While we were at it, we had them install disc brakes. This was an upgrade that was definitely worth it, and we could tell the difference immediately.

MORryde has a great system for getting work done. We arrived the night before our appointment, and there were four spots for RVs to hook up to electric power for the night. The only downside to this was that it was near the railroad tracks where trains ran every nine minutes all night long! Since we were told we needed to be hitched and ready to move into the garage at 6:00 a.m., this was the best place to be.

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Day 1 – Measure Twice, Cut Once

Once they were ready for us, we pulled to a level spot, and the technicians got to work measuring the exact height of our rig. We were perfectly level while attached to the truck, and our height was 13’3″. (This is important to know when we’re going under bridges!)

After that, Mike backed Beauty into her spot (like a pro). We unhitched and let the guys at MORryde do their thing. Walt Mason, our service manager, and Jay Burton, our install technician, were wonderful. Walt kept us in the loop on the entire process, and Jay was very patient, explaining everything along the way.

MORryde had a great lounge area for customers to wait, and Mike was able to work there as well. They even provided lunch from one of the local restaurants. We were very impressed!

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Overnight Magic

While we slept in Beauty (in the garage), they built our new suspension system right outside our door. Believe it or not, it was quieter in the garage than it had been beside the train tracks! We had power, so we could run the air conditioner and even watch a little television before bed.

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Day 2 – Installation Day

Installation began early the next morning, so we headed to the lounge to work and wait for everything to be completed. By about 2:00 p.m., everything was finished.

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After the install was completed, we re-hitched, pulled Beauty out to a level spot, and they remeasured the height. We were still at 13’3″!

They advised us to take a test drive around the block and over the railroad tracks to see if we noticed a difference in the way the rig road. Boy, did we! We barely noticed the rig going over the bumps on the tracks. This improvement was worth the cost, especially for full-time living.

Grand Design Service Center

After we were done at MORryde, we drove over to the Grand Design Service Center. We had a couple of recalls that needed to be done, so we took care of that while in the area.

Grand Design has a small campground on-site where we stayed overnight in anticipation of our early call in the morning.

We were instructed to have our rig ready to be transported by a Grand Design technician over to the service garage by 7:00 a.m. As with MORryde, these guys started early!

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The team at the service center told us our rig would be ready around noon, so we headed over to Middlebury, Indiana, and Das Dutchman Essenhaus for a delicious breakfast.

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We looked around Middlebury a bit before heading back to Grand Design. It was just before noon when we got there. As we were pulling into the campground, Mike got a text that our rig was done and would be returning to the campground. Right on schedule! We were very pleased with the work and how smoothly it all ran.

After doing the paperwork thing, we hitched up and headed off to our next destination.

Join us next week as we check out the RV Motorhome Hall of Fame and Museum and the town of Shipshewana.