Handling Routine Maintenance While Traveling

Given enough time and use, we have to take care of everything. Routine maintenance is one way we keep our homes looking good. Our vehicles running smoothly. Our bodies looking good and feeling good.

We knew this spring when we set off on a long adventure that things would need repairs. I think there were 70,000+ miles on the truck. The 5th wheel was only a year old, but I knew the tires were not the most reliable on the market. The kiddo has hair, and so does the dog. We all like to be pampered once in a while. Our travels were going to take us from Florida, to Washington state, then across country to Maine, and then back to Florida via whatever state catches our fancy the week before. So…lets talk about how to keep things running smoothly while away from home base.

Engines

Every so often you need to do regular maintenance on the moving items you have with you. We are seeing oil changes every 4,000 to 9,000 miles depending on the vehicle and the oils used. This is always a hard one to simplify, there are a few choices on how to handle this every few months.

Lets start with the fact we are running a Ford Superduty with the 6.7 PowerStroke Diesel in it. Book calls for 13 quarts of oil every oil change and don’t forget the filter. The local Ford dealership near our home base had the cost of $100 for an oil change. This has gone up over the past couple years to $150. It finally hit a price point for me to just do it myself. Last year, I did make some phone calls and got into a random dealership to get an oil change, but this year was going to be different.

My family is no stranger to turning wrenches and getting dirty. I read through the manual and the tech papers to find Ford suggested oils for the truck and the use case. Of course, it was expensive fully synthetic oils. I settled on the 5w-40 due to the fact we are pulling out house regularly making it a severe duty use. After checking prices on both the filter and the amount of oils needed, it was just slightly cheaper than taking it to a dealership. This does not take into account the time waiting for the “quick lube” service to be completed.

Enter the days of DIY oil changes. It’s easy…remove filter, remove oil, replace filter, replace oil.

The computer on the truck was saying 10% oil life left, we were in Cody Wyoming. Temps are not important, but I needed to find the parts to do the oil change and a location. First plan was to hit up Walmart and then find some off the beaten path to do my oil change. Walmart was a bust on parts, but the auto parts store had everything. Made my purchase and then I just asked, “Hey, where can I do an oil change?”

To my surprise, he told me in our lot, by the door, easier to dump.

This led to the realization that you can take care of most stuff in places where you NEED to take care of them.

Tires

Tires are a consumable that your whole travel life depends on. We have to deal with two different sets, the truck tires and the trailer tires.

Story time: We leave home, 2 hours later, we have a flat. It was a blow out, and ALMOST catastrophic. Swap out for the spare and roll on. Few hours later, the other tire on the same side blows out in a similar manor. No more spare, slowish leak, and 2 miles from next exit. We limp to the exit, and get parked at a truck stop. We are safe with no damage.

This now led to a bigger problem, It’s 530 pm on a Friday, in Small Town, USA. Phone calls to every tire shop in the phone book and nobody had our tires needed. Walmart, how could we forget about Walmart? They had a size and capacity tire we needed, in stock, no waiting. We were back in business!

I was not a fan of the stock tires, or the replacements, but they would do until we were parked long enough to get better tires put on. We swapped the OEM tires out for some 14-ply tires, and kept the new replacement tires on for now until later down the line. Moral of this story: If the tire shops are not helpful, check a Walmart!

Truck tires are another problem. 80,000 miles on the clock, original tires, but the tread was getting a bit thin. We were hoping to make the year and get back to home base before having to deal with that, but alas, mountain passes and winter temperatures (it snowed on us in fall) made me a bit nervous, and I wanted to make sure my family and house were safe!

I learned here that Montana does not have a state sales tax. We found a harvest host near a tire shop and made the day of it. Doing tires on the truck across the country saved me 7% on the cost of tires. It is a national chain shop and a big named tire manufacturer.

RV Parts

RVs can be a pain in the…yea, ya’ll all know. Broken stuff happens all the time. Many things in the camper can be fixed by a simple trip to the big box home repair store. I have seen many more small hardware stores in the small towns that carry majority of what you need though. This goes for plumbing to wood to electrical items.

RV specific parts are a bit harder to come across. In our travels, we have seen a bunch of large RV dealerships with full sized parts departments. This may not be the cheapest manor of parts acquisitions, but it will get you repaired fairly quickly.

Personal Maintenance

We have googled more than once where to find a barber shop. To our child’s dismay, we have even just walked into a local barber shop in a small downtown touristy area.

If you have personal dietary needs, some of the smaller towns may be harder to obtain ingredients or supplements. We normally stick to a major chain company to get supplements and protein shakes. This takes a bit more planning, but it assures when we are near a medium to large city, we’ll be able to find things that work for our family without compromising our needs.

Pedicures wind up with a quick google search for nail salons. Date nights may be at a local pizza shop.

A hard one to fill is the chiropractor. We have found out though, some will take cash and a walk up. This may require a few phone calls.

Orthodontist. This is a strange one. We decided to put our young teenager in braces. Our Orthodontist thought tray aligners would be better than metal adjustments. When we needed to get consumables, usually a phone call to a local Orthodontist near where we were staying would get the rubber bands or chewies needed. This worked in multiple areas.

I think the hardest thing to over come is thinking where you live is the only place to get anything. I know when we start out on an adventure, we want to be completely prepared for whatever life may have for us. It is honestly easier than that. In the US we have plenty everywhere. Each city will have a grocery store. Within a short distance will be an auto parts store or a home improvement store. You do not need to worry about where you will get maintenance done. You just need to make sure you get it done. If we take care of our stuff, it will take care of us!

You can get a copy of a basic Maintenance log on the BOM Printables page.

I’ll put out a tool list of my favorite tools to keep on the rig for general maintenance in a few weeks. If you want quicker access to our blogs then hit subscribe link.