Trust your gut

[stiles watson]

Did you ever override your gut feeling that maybe you should make another choice? Well, I did today. My gut told me to skip this station because of narrow lanes through the pump islands. but I maneuvered into the pump and filled the tank.

As I was leaving, I was being careful to make a severe angle turn to the right, but I failed to see one of those low slung guard pipes at the pump. I ripped out the discharge piping, tore up the lower panel and ruined the street side bay doors. The kitchen slide cannot be opened due to damage to controller rod and the LevelUp foot in front of the wheel is bent backward about 15 degrees.

Coach-Net was great in getting me off the pipe without doing more damage, a feat in itself. The operator then towed the Montana to the dealer about a half to three quarters of a mile away. Most of the damage is cosmetic and can be repaired without much ado. The foot hydraulic cylinder was not damaged, just the bracket. It doesn't appear that the frame is damaged.

Of course, this happened on Saturday afternoon, so I can't get a complete report until Monday morning. Now we are stranded in Wichita Falls, TX until then. Needless to say, our schedule to be in Colorado has to be altered.

Because I have a full timers policy with Foremost, emergency funds to help when you are stranded come into play. We have up to $2000 to get us through our costs while waiting for completed repairs. You hate paying premiums for insurance until you have a claim.

Trust your gut. If there is any question, don't!

[grampachet]

So sorry to hear of your mishap. Thanks for sharing, I will try and remember to trust my gut.

[The Weekenders]

I hear you, everytime I deviate from my gut, something bad happens.

[Mudchief]

Yes I have failed to listen to that feeling before and paid the price also. Sorry to here about the damage.

[kingdaddy]

I can relate to your story completely! In fact, one of the most important things I learned on my trip this week was to avoid the typical gas stations with the Monty in tow and look for the large, truck stop type with LOTS of room to manuvuer!
I pulled into a station, found I couldn't make the corner and had to back the Monty out into a busy street and take an alternate route. Should have trusted my "gut" on that one!
Good luck with your unplanned adventure...

[HamRad]

Stiles,
I am sorry to hear of your problem. That is one of my greatest fears! I always fuel at the large truck stop type stations. We can travel over 300 miles before we must fuel. This is much longer than we normally travel in a day so if we need fuel and there is no large truck stop style station we will unhook and fuel up without the trailer.

I hope there is no frame damage as the cosmetic stuff alone will be plenty expensive. Good luck and let us know how it goes. Dennis and Mary Kay

[jjackflash]

This is when it's nice to have an Aux tank,it's well worth the investment!

[Ozz]

Sorry to hear that Stiles, you have had a run of bad luck with this and the hail damage, time to turn that corner to smooth sailing. Hope the repairs go well for you two.

[CORattler]

Ouch!! A good post to remind the rest of us of the dangers of close quarter maneuvering. That had to be a sickening feeling to climb out of your TV and see the damage. Sounds like you have your bases covered though.
You're spot on about trusting your gut feeling on things. DW calls it her "inner voice".

[mlh]

Just ain't yo week Stiles, SORRY.
Lynwood

[exav8tr]

So sorry to hear this Stiles. My 56 gal fuel tank insures I don't have to pull into many fuel stops with Monty attached. I know, this doesn't help you any. I have had a few of those "gut feelings" things, but luckily they did not result in any damage, just some intense nerves. I know the rig will get fixed just sorry for the inconvenience. There was one time, before the long range tank, I pulled into the "RV" lane at a Flying J and had to make a sharp left turn to get away from the pump, had I not been looking I would have done the same thing. There were people parked ahead of me to go into the store which made it impossible to pull forward enough before making the hard left turn. I waited, (much to the chagrin of folks behind me), until folks came out and moved their vehicles before I pulled forward and made my hard left turn to leave the joint. That was the day I said "never again", I would henceforth ALWAYS use the truckers lanes, whether they liked it or not. After getting the aux tank installed I have only been in two stations with the Monty attached and they were both Truck stops in the truck lanes (once had to have the attendant come out and show me how to use the satelite fuel filling system....). Hope you are back on the road soon........(BTW: You know the saying about bad luck coming in threes, I would be super careful for awhile)......

[CamillaMichael]

Terrible! Hope you are able to get your Montana back in shape without a lot of stress....

[sreigle]

Oh, man, I'm sorry to hear about the damage. I hope they get it fixed quickly and you can get back on the road to your destination.

I have a boo-boo on the street side rear corner that DHenry can tell you how that happened.

Awhile back we were waiting our turn at a pump and another fifthwheel was in front of us. His fuel filler was on the left, like ours. As he pulled out he executed a sharp right turn and I cringed as I thought the swing of the tail end of his fifthwheel was going to catch the brick post but he cleared it by probably less than an inch. At the speed he pulled out of there I doubt he even had a clue how close he came. That swing can sure get you. It did me. Just ask Doug.

I still use gas station diesel pumps in the car lanes but only if I can see that I can get out of there safely. I try to avoid those where the pump lanes are perpendicular to the store but will go to those if there's lots of room to turn on exiting the pump.

[Art-n-Marge]

My gut told me long ago, when planning a trip, locate the truck stops along the way and only use them when towing. I'll use the smaller locations when not towing.

Best of luck on the repairs and costs. I hope all goes well and you can get on your way soon.

[stiles watson]

My habit is to park the Montana, then fill up after a days travel. I was not there because I was running out of fuel. I still had 200 miles to go. It was because I am a tight fisted Scot. I was fueling up about 50-60 miles from our projected end point. I figured that since the end point was near a small town, the fuel would be higher priced. I was topping off for the next days travel. Well, I am afraid my frugality turned expensive.

[pbahlin]

Stiles: Sorry for your troubles......we are in Burkburnett TX up the road from Wichita Falls, TX and have been listening to our inner voice all day as we were threading the needle and avoiding TStorms the whole way......we made decisions sometimes that the GPS didn't like but turned out to be right. We have someone upstairs keeping an eye on us as well, just checked the weather and the place we left this morning is under severe Thunderstorm watch again. We played the same game avoiding the tornadoes in AL etc.....

Hope the repair work doesn't hold you up too long. We are heading out in the morning hope to make it to Tucumcari...although we hear they are getting snow squalls.....this is making for some interesting travel.

We will say prayer for you....and wish you well.

Betty

[nowinter]

So sorry for your damages. I have come very close to the same situation a few times but luck was on my side. I finally decided to buy a 50 gallon TransferFlow auxiliary fuel tank to help to eliminate going into gas stations I was not confident that I could maneuver safely. I hesitated for a year but am glad I finally spent the money.

[tbhd]

So sorry to hear about your mishap. Hope it won't delay you too long but wonder also why does it always happen on a week end. Most important no one was hurt.

[Bill-N-Donna]

I too am sorry to hear of your miss-hap. I know the gut feeling you’re talking about. Sometimes we might know better but we still go ahead anyway. Hope everything works out ok and your back on the road soon.

[stiles watson]

pbahlin,

We were to stay in Crowell, TX Saturday night and move on to Tucumcari today. We were going to stay two days and then move on to Ft. Collins, CO. Alas!