3400 RL Brake Problem - Montana Owners Club

kwbosch · 03-13-2005, 06:53 AM

Hi All,

I’ve been lurking here for a while but this is my first post, so bear with me.
We picked up our new Montana 3400 RL on 2/20/05 after a test pull to verify that my Dodge Ram could successfully pull this beast up the Cajon Pass, (California Interstate 15 out of San Bernardino), it passed with flying colors, so back to settle the deal. We are graduating to the Montana from a 23’ Forest River T23FBL Travel Trailer.

The problem I’m having is with my Prodigy brake controller and the new Montana’s trailer brakes. It’s displaying an overload error code as well as a short code occasionally. This didn’t crop up until we were nearly home from the dealer. I chalked it up to the crummy used battery the dealer sent us off with until Monday when they would trade the old battery for a new one. My wife traded the battery on Monday and I installed it but didn’t try the brakes until yesterday. With the new battery installed and fully charged, I hooked up the Montana and pulled it around the neighborhood. The first time I touched the brakes, I got the overload code and no trailer braking. I can hear the brakes click on then off as soon as the OL code displays.
For a test, hooked up our travel trailer and tried the brakes. They work fine.
I will schedule an appointment with our dealer service dept. tomorrow, but I’m a little apprehensive about pulling the trailer the 17 miles to the dealer with no braking.
Has anybody had a similar experience, and what did you do for safe transport.

Thanks,

CountryGuy · 03-13-2005, 07:35 AM

kwbosch,

First, welcome to the forum,

Second, pulling any thing, any trailer 17 miles or even 1 mile when you are pretty sure you have NO brakes is rather scary, not to be too strong in our language here, but we would NEVER go 1/4 of a mile if we thought the brakes were out. (Having said that, I can tell you a number of stories of having no brakes, and how lucky we were to discover it BEFORE we had a real emergency!)

Al suggests that if you know how to check for shorts in the wiring, a wire with a nick in it for example, to do so. Each time we discovered we had no brakes it was a wire with nicks in it hitting the inside of the axle, or the wires off the brakes.

OL means the Montana is drawing too many amps, which is caused by a short in the wires or a shorted brake magnet.

Good luck finding your problem, come back and let us know what you find.

Call your dealer! Have the situation noted in your records. Maybe they can send someone out to look at the unit??

Cheers, Carol

stiles watson · 03-13-2005, 07:52 AM

This may not be a solution for this current issue, but we have our emergency roadside service through Coach-Net. The reason is that the people they use for service are supposed to be technicians instead of just wrecker drivers.

Brake issues would fall into the catagory of on-site service or towing as far as I am concerned. If the brakes aren't working properly, my judgement leads me to find another way to get the rig to the dealer than hooking up and hauling. But then I guess I am overly cautious in these matters.

CRUZIN 2 · 03-13-2005, 08:15 AM

kwbosch

I have had that problem with our 05 we pulled it about 150 miles no problem, then the brakes started to short out but not all the time. I called the dealer but I couldn't get in for four weeks and we were going to OK. I checked the brakes myself after many hours of searching the short was in the one brake itself. The wire inside the brake drum was shorting out on what I call a swing arm the clip to hold the wire in place came off and let the wire rub on the swing arm.

Parrothead · 03-13-2005, 08:54 AM

Ken and Tina,
First welcome and try to join us at Mt. Shasta in May (check the regional category). We are neighbors (Hemet). Where is the dealer? Knowing the traffic and freeways in the area, I second what everyone else has said and DON'T DRIVE. We have Good Sam RV service and this would be covered under our policy.

kwbosch · 03-14-2005, 12:45 AM

Thanks to all that replied. We have Good Sam ERS so I'll give them a call this morning. The more I think about it the less inclined I am at attempting to tow this 12,000lb behemoth without brakes. I'll also call the dealer, Mike Thompsons RV Superstore to see if they can fit it into their schedule

.
I'm wondering, since I have a Pullright Superglide with the fixed hitchplate will a tow service be able to mate up to it without damage?

kwbosch · 03-14-2005, 12:55 AM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by Parrothead

Ken and Tina,
First welcome and try to join us at Mt. Shasta in May (check the regional category). We are neighbors (Hemet). Where is the dealer? Knowing the traffic and freeways in the area, I second what everyone else has said and DON'T DRIVE. We have Good Sam RV service and this would be covered under our policy.

Hey Neighbors!

Were soon to be closer neighbors, too. We're in the process of selling our home in Riverside and have bought a 1/2 acre in Idyllwild. We probably can't make the Mt Shasta rally due to the move and construction and such. Also I'm still a working stiff. Part of the reason to buy the Montana was to have a mobile place of residence while our home is being built in Idyllwild. I'll probably look for an RV park close to my work in Ontario, Ca. and commute to the mountains on the weekends until its ready.

Parrothead? ok, I won't ask....

Parrothead · 03-14-2005, 03:31 AM

Idyllwild has been my favorite mountain since I was a teenager. Many, many wonderful memories. We live right at the base and I can go out it my front yard, look up and there it is. Check out East Shore RV park in San Dimas. I've used it a lot when working in Orange County and LA. You didn't say where the Monty dealer down there is. We bought our unit up here but will need a dealer there when we retire 9/06. Parrothead is a name for Jimmy Buffett fans.

kwbosch · 03-14-2005, 08:44 AM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by Parrothead

Idyllwild has been my favorite mountain since I was a teenager. Many, many wonderful memories. We live right at the base and I can go out it my front yard, look up and there it is. Check out East Shore RV park in San Dimas. I've used it a lot when working in Orange County and LA. You didn't say where the Monty dealer down there is. We bought our unit up here but will need a dealer there when we retire 9/06. Parrothead is a name for Jimmy Buffett fans.

The dealer I bought from is Mike Thompson's RV Superstore. This division is based in Colton, Ca. There are several others but I'm not sure where they are. Thanks for the tip about East Shore, I'll check it out.

krvk · 03-19-2005, 03:56 PM

We were having the same symptoms (Trailer Fault or Check Trailer) with our new '05' Ford F350 with the Integrated Brake Controller and '04' 3295RK. 1st Adventure RV did a check on the trailer and said it was the TV, Ford then replaced a module in the controller (due to winter it was a while before I could check it out again), still had the same problem, even took the Ford shop forman for a ride pulling the trailer (said he would get back with me) after a couple of weeks he showed me a report from Ford that stated it was the trailer and suggested I have the dealer tow a another new trailer (they did and no error), so they towed ours again and finally an error showed up. It ended up being the wire harness on the left front wheel of the trailer was not properly tied up and consequently rubbed against the wheel rim and intermittely shorted out when turning a corner or the wind would blow it against the rim. I would like to commend Adventure RV & Truck Center and Rusty Eck Ford in Wichita,Ks for working together to resolve an intermittent electrical problem.

kwbosch · 03-20-2005, 03:20 PM

Hi All,

Well, so far here's what’s happened with my brake issue.
I called the dealer Mike Thompson’s RV Superstore in Colton, Ca. made an appointment for Thursday. The guy I spoke with said to have the coach there at opening (8:00am) to be sure it was looked at early. He went on to say that there was nothing on the brake system that would take longer than a day short of replacing both axles.
I talked to Good Sam ERS and they said they would tow my brakeless couch but they could not guarantee that they would get it to the dealer at or before 8:00am.
I decided Wednesday night that, hey this is an RV, I'll pull it down there in the wee hours of Thursday morning to avoid rush hour traffic. The trip went well with maybe one or two times I had to do any braking. I was at the door at 8:00am walked inside to find they had no record of me or my appointment. After some conversation with the manager, I was promised that they would begrudgingly look at my rig. They sent a tech out with a handheld device and hooked it up to the trailer plug. He asked me to pull forward and then he hit the brakes. The trailer stopped my truck. He pronounced that there was no problem and started to walk off. I asked him to get in the truck and go for a short ride with me. In less than 100' in their parking lot he saw the overload code and decided he needed to get authorization from Montana to go any further. He said the auth. would take 1-2 hours and wanted me to leave my trailer and keys with all of my possessions inside there. I told him I'd leave the trailer but there was no need to leave the keys since there was nothing on the brake system inside the trailer. He argued the point but agreed that nobody needed to get inside. Something about his actions alarmed me. I decided to close and lock the door on a precisely placed paper strip as a telltale to find out if they had opened the door. At 4:15 I had heard nothing from the dealer so I called to find that they were still waiting for authorization from Montana. The manager told me then, that it would be a minimum of 3-5 days to resolve the issue.
Nothing about this service center gave me that "feel good feeling" I decided to go down to check things out. When I arrived, my trailer was parked well out of the service lot in their driveway. I walked up and tried the door. It was unlocked. I looked for my paper strip and it was still in the door but had been moved 2' higher than where I left it. When I confronted the manager about it, he denied anybody went in and wanted to see the trailer. He said the wind must have blown the paper strip to its new location. The strip was wedged in the door seal and could not move without opening the door or ripping it. I made the decision to get my property (or what was left of it) out of that dealership.
I called Montana Customer Relations Friday to ask for the next nearest dealer or authorized repair facility. They gave me about 6 different RV Repair numbers to try in my area. The first one I called said they would come out to my driveway to do an onsite repair since it wasn't safe to tow without brakes.
My new appointment is Thursday afternoon. I'll keep ya'll posted with the outcome.

Parrothead · 03-20-2005, 03:52 PM

Ken
I'm really sorry to hear this dealer isn't so good. He is the one we will have to use when we come home to So. Calif. Let us know who else they refereed you to. You did a really scary thing driving without brakes but so glad you made if safely.

D and M On The Road · 03-21-2005, 04:51 AM

kwbosch..... Do a search (top right of the screen there is a "search" button) of topics and find these two and read them:
"Door lock"
"Broken compartment key"

That will make you want to go buy new locks for at least your basement and outside compartment doors.

Navigator · 03-22-2005, 04:45 AM

Hi,

We're eager to find out the cause of your 3400RL brake failure because we're having problems with ours too! We have a 2005 3400RL purchased from Mike Thompson and a Prodigy controller. The Prodigy controller worked just fine with our former Dutchman 5th wheel.

Our Monty is at Beaudry RV in San Marcos, Ca. for some warranty work unrelated to the brakes. They've had it almost 2 months so maybe when you get an answer we'll be able to tell Beaudry to check our Monty for a similar problem.

Good luck to all of us,

tweir · 03-22-2005, 05:48 AM

I can't believe---well maybe I can, that this "stuff' takes so long. I've had our unit @ Beaudry's several times and the turn-around was really fast. 2 months...what are they doing? Who was/is your service advisor? And MT---well, there I can believe their wait times. That place is a zoo. I know of a place in San Marcos that is an independent operation and I took our unit there for work when it came out of warranty---they are really fast, do excellent work and their rates/prices are reasonable. A matter of fact, they are one of the only places around that can paint RV's in a paint booth at least in our area. Too bad they cannot do warranty work on Montana's. However, they are a warranty-authorized facility for Dometic & some of the "add-on" manufacturers. Gosh, I hope everyone gets their issues resolved and quickly.

Navigator · 03-24-2005, 05:27 AM

[Thomas said.....

I know of a place in San Marcos that is an independent operation and I took our unit there for work when it came out of warranty---they are really fast, do excellent work and their rates/prices are reasonable.]

Would you mind sharing the name of the repair shop that you take your Monty to for service? Ours will be out of warranty the end of July. Beaudry RV said they are selling units so fast that their repair service can't keep up with the need and their facility doesn't have the room to expand. If they keeps ours any longer the warranty will expire in their shop!!!

tweir · 03-24-2005, 06:28 AM

Be glad to:
SONRISE R.V.
1931 Don Lee Place
Escondido, CA 92029
760-745-2444
760-745-4605 (FAX)
(sorry---no website)
Randy Mills; Parts Manager
Don Service Manager

Take 78 West to Nordahl. Turn left on Nordahl and cross Mission. Continue up the hill (Nordahl turns into Vinyard @ the intersection of Mission & Nordahl). Turn Left on Aero. Aero dead-ends at Don Lee Place. They are at the corner of Aero & Don Lee Place.

Navigator · 03-24-2005, 08:11 AM

Hi Thomas,

Thanks for the referral!

tollmann · 03-25-2005, 02:36 PM

I'm having the same brake problem with my 2004 3670. Prodigy shows OL once in a while. The unit didn't start acting up until the warranty ran out. Hows that for luck. The unit is at an independent shop now getting its yearly brake and over all check up. I haven't received any calls yet about needed repairs but I will post the findings when I get them. I wouldn't take my coaster wagon to the nearest Monty dealer much less my 3670. My selling dealer is 130 miles away one way and being out of warranty it wouldn't pay to go there.

CRUZIN 2 · 03-25-2005, 05:00 PM

To all with brake problems.

I can't believe all the brake problems and the service people can't find the trouble. From reading all the postings they all sound like the problem I had, which I repaired myself because we had to pull it about 150 miles to the dealer and didn't want to travel that far without brakes. But it took me 3 days to find the problem. It was a short in the hot wire when you apply the brakes. What I did, is jacked up the wheels and applied the trailer brakes off and on, and spinning the wheels. If that don't work, at each wheel there is a splice, I had to cut the splice which disconnected the electric brake, do one at a time. That is how I found mine, hope this helps someone.

LARRY

P.S. I need to also add that Leach Camper Sales (Council Bluff IA.) reimbursed us for fixing it myself, how many dealers would do that?

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