Soft Start Purchase Cautionary Tale

[R.S.O'Donnell]

About 18 months ago I put soft starts on both air conditioners. Both worked absolutely flawlessly until about three weeks ago when the rear one failed. Only symptom was the compressor wouldn't run.

Contacted them and they said remove it and see if that fixed it. It did and since I registered online for the three year warranty I thought all was well. Problem was that I didn't buy them directly from SoftStartRV so I was told to file my warranty claim through the seller, they would send me a replacement, and SoftStartRV would replenish their stock.

Turns out the 3rd party seller I bought them from had gone out of business. I notified SoftStartRV and they went ahead and sent me a replacement.

In the future I'm going to bypass third party sellers and go straight to the source.

https://www.softstartrv.com

[jsb5717]

Interesting. I wonder what the failure rate is. Has anyone had a failure on the MicroAire EasyStart?

But good on the company for taking care of it.

[Mikendebbie]

I have MicroAire soft starts on both ACs - but unfortunately we have not been traveling much since I had them installed in 2022…only ran the ACs one week this past July 4.

[R.S.O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by jsb5717

Interesting. I wonder what the failure rate is. Has anyone had a failure on the MicroAire EasyStart?

But good on the company for taking care of it.

I was reading reviews on Amazon. MicroAire definitely rate better.

We spent the summer at MacDill AFB this year. The heat was absolutely brutal so both AC’s ran almost nonstop for months. That might have had something to do with it.

[RMcNeal]

I purchased 2 MicroAire easy starts last year from Hutch Mountain and they are still sitting in the box. My rig has been in the shop so much for sidewall cracks that I haven't had time to get them installed.
Now I have an appointment for it to go back to Elkhart in March next year, so I'm afraid the warranty will be expired on them before I ever get them installed. Hopefully, they will work. I purchased them because I plan to put a front receptacle on my rig and run a generator in the bed of my truck to run the AC's while travelling.
Best laid plans, I guess?

[R.S.O'Donnell]

Originally Posted by RMcNeal

I purchased 2 MicroAire easy starts last year from Hutch Mountain and they are still sitting in the box. My rig has been in the shop so much for sidewall cracks that I haven't had time to get them installed.
Now I have an appointment for it to go back to Elkhart in March next year, so I'm afraid the warranty will be expired on them before I ever get them installed. Hopefully, they will work. I purchased them because I plan to put a front receptacle on my rig and run a generator in the bed of my truck to run the AC's while travelling.
Best laid plans, I guess?

Had the sidewall crack issue as well:

https://www.montanaowners.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1282589&postcount=24

[RMcNeal]

My 2019 already had a relief under the front of the bedroom slide.
My cracks are on both sides of the rear living room slides. After 5 attempts to repair them at the dealer, Keystone has stepped up and is going to take it back to the factory to repair properly. I have been told that it is likely due to a broken frame weld within the side walls and the way to fix it may be to completely remove both side walls and replace them.
I guess I'll know more in March.

[badaxemi]

I have one on each of mine also and always wondered how to tell if they are working or not. As you mentioned the only symptom was the compressor wouldn't run. Did they happen to say anything about what to look for to make sure they are running correctly? I have no issues but I have always wondered.

[rohrmann]

The soft start devices replace the starting capacitor, so if the compressor runs, the device is working, and obviously, if it doesn't run, the device has failed.