The van, and the jobs it will not pretend to do

What the van does well

Full pre-trip inspections, with the same fixed-order walk and the same written log you would get in the bay. LP leak-down tests and regulator pressure checks, which need a gauge and not a workshop. Battery load testing and replacement, parasitic draw hunting, converter and inverter diagnosis. Slide seal cleaning and treatment. Roof inspections, and small sealant repairs when the weather is right. Appliance diagnosis — a fridge that will not cool, a furnace that runs the fan and never lights, a water heater that has stopped. Most of the things that go wrong on a stored rig, in other words.

What it cannot do, and why

Anything requiring the rig to be lifted and held safely. Bearings, brakes, drums, hubs, axle work. A trailer on a jack in a gravel lot is not a workshop and we will not treat it as one.

Anything requiring a scale run. Setting pressures properly means knowing the weight on each axle, and that means a trip to a scale. In the lot we can read every date code, check for damage and set pressures to the best available figure — and we will write on the sheet that they were not set from weight, because that is a real difference and it should be visible.

Roof sealant in the wrong conditions. Not in wind, and not on a roof too hot to kneel on. Sealant applied to a surface that hot skins before it bonds, and a bead that looks perfect and has not bonded is worse than no bead at all, because you will believe it. Early morning or another day.

Slide rail and gear work. The room has to be supported properly, and that is bay work.

Anything that would leave your rig open overnight in a lot that is not ours.

We tell you which side of that line your job sits on when you call. Turning up, discovering it in front of you, and charging the call-out anyway is a trick and we do not do it.

How the run works

The van runs a rough loop rather than a fixed timetable: Sarasota, Venice and Bradenton, up through Osprey and Altoona, across to Nokomis, and as far as Astor on the river. I, Venicef your lot happens to be on this week’s loop, the call-out part of the job largely disappears — which is worth asking about rather than assuming.

Tell us which lot when you ring. We know most of the gates and most of the gate codes are a nuisance, and it saves a phone call from the curb. If the lot needs you present for access, say so, because that changes when we can come.

Campsites

We do come out to campsites, with two honest caveats. A pitch is a tighter working space than a lot, so some jobs are simply not possible where you are parked. And a fault found on a Friday afternoon at a campsite may not have a same-day answer if it needs a part — we will tell you straight away whether we think it does, so you can make a decision about the rest of your weekend rather than waiting on us.

What comes back with the van

The same log sheet. Same fixed order, same measurements, same zeroes for the lines that cost nothing, same written note on anything we recommended leaving alone. A mobile inspection is not a lesser inspection; it is the same walk performed somewhere with less shade.