What To Do About Speedy

Fort Pickens Campground, Gulf Islands National Seashore - Site #E6

In this edition—not much happens, friends arrive at Fort Pickens and the Speedy saga continues.

It's been a pretty quiet week, the weather continued cool with rain on Saturday. We went for walks and looked for birds and read and ate. Happily we could even watch PBS on Speedy's TV and got caught up with Downton Abbey. Things improved on Sunday with the predicted rain replaced by sunshine and warm weather. We did a bird walk in the morning and I took a bike ride to the Tom Thumb convenience store in Pensacola Beach, just outside the park boundaries, in the afternoon.

We've been seeing mostly the same birds each day, many Mockingbirds (the state bird of Florida is well-represented here) and lots of Yellow-rumped Warblers. We haven't seen the Sora again, but there have been a couple of Brown Thrashers that turn up regularly. The new bird for Sunday was a Red-breasted Merganser on the bay.

When I headed out on my bike, I hadn't intended to cycle all the way to the Tom Thumb, a 16-mile round trip, but about halfway there I reached for my water bottle and realized that I had left it on the campsite picnic table. So, I headed out of the park for water. Just before I reached the gatehouse, I recognized a pair of RVs driving in the other direction. It was our friends, Tom, Jean and Tom's sister, Kathy, arriving from Hull. They were a day later than originally planned, but felt lucky just to get out of the Boston area before the next storm.

After I got back from my ride, I joined Ellen who was visiting and catching up on their travels and life at home. It is good to see old friends and share meals with them as we've been doing for the past few evenings.

When driving Speedy at low speeds, we've been hearing an occasional squeak from one of the front wheels. It would go away when I touched the brakes, so I thought it might be the brake pads. Speedy has disc brakes in the front and drum brakes in the rear, so the front brakes provide most of the stopping power. The brake pads had been replaced about 40,000 miles ago. Since the squeak was becoming more frequent, we decided to have it looked at since one of the possible reasons for a squeak is a metal tab that is built into the pad as a wear indicator. We didn't want any brake issues on the way home. I've seen what happens to the rotors when the pad wears and suddenly disintegrates.

We decided to call the local Meineke, as opposed to finding a local shop, figuring that a national chain would give us some warranty protection at home. They said they'd be able to see us at 2 PM, so off we went to outskirts of Pensacola. It was five miles away as the crow flies, but about 50 minutes by highway, up the island, over two bridges and out to the far side of the city. When we got there, we had to wait about 20 minutes for the heavy lift to clear, before they could take a look.

The mechanics popped the wheels off and the pads still appeared to have a lot of material, but the edges of one looked to be corroding. But that wasn't all they found. The mechanic called me into the shop to take a look. The idler arms and drag arm bearings had a lot of play. These were the parts that were replaced in an attempt to solve Speedy's steering problems when we came back from Texas. In fact, one of the idler arms was replaced again (because it was a defective part) just before we left when they replaced the steering box.

The movement was so shocking that I took a video of the action to send to our mechanics back home.


At Meineke we had them replace the pads anyway and it was good that they did, since at least one was disintegrating in a way that was not visible from the outside. It seems to have been the source of the squeak, since it hasn't come back since the replacement. The mechanics think that rust on the edges of the rotors, a New England salty roads effect, may have contributed so they cleaned up around the edges a bit.

Once again, however, we have to decide on Speedy's fate. The first question is whether to get the steering components fixed fixed here or just drive it home and deal with it there. The mechanics at Meineke assured us that it isn't dangerous to drive if we don't push it too hard (in Speedy?). Our mechanics at home have said that they will replace all the components under warranty and would even apply for reimbursement from their vendor for the labor if we chose to get the work done here. So, should we do it here and possibly get reimbursed? What if there are additional problems (with Speedy this is very likely)? Or should we carefully take it home and back to Mass Tire and have them fix it again?

The second question is bigger: what to do about Speedy. The past year has been fraught with problems from tires to transmissions. It seems that each time we repair a problem another crops up. Until now, I've been fairly optimistic that we'd gotten past the major problems, but this trip has shown otherwise. Even the fixes have needed to be fixed. The question becomes should Speedy be retired?

Of course, this question leads to others. Should it be replaced? Do we continue traveling by RV? If so, what do we get next? Who knows? Our heads hurt from thinking about this so much!

I think we'll leave those questions for now and go have lunch with friends.