Thor Forums

[Wrench]

On the trip home from the dealer it appeared that the coach battery was not being charged. The immediate problem with this is that the coach battery will only run the refrigerator for several hours.

On this coach the inverter panel is near the entrance door and its default display, when turned on, is the coach battery voltage. So as you drive down the road you can check this. On 12 volt lead acid battery systems, as a rule of thumb, if the voltage is lower than 13 volts the battery is not under charge. I read the manual to verify that the engine should charge the coach battery (actually 2 x 6 volt batteries in series). Then from research on this site and others I found out how the coach should be wired and found a detailed document from the manufacturer that showed exactly how the BIRD should work. Assuming nothing, I located all of the relevant components and verified that they were all connected correctly. The BIRD, the Trombetta and the coach battery are all located in the first outside compartment behind the driver’s side front wheel.

The Trombetta is the brand name for the relay (or solenoid in some descriptions) that can tie the engine battery to the coach battery. This relay is energized by either the emergency start switch on the driver’s console or by the BIRD (Bi-Directional Isolator Relay Delay). The Trombetta was checked by pressing the emergency start switch and measuring the voltages on either side of it before and after activation.

The BIRD was checked against the document provided by the manufacturer, Intellitec. It is supposed to close the relay when, after a brief time delay, it is clear that one battery is being charged and the other is not. Since all components and all voltage test points are there in the same compartment it is straightforward to test the BIRD’s operation under scenarios of engine on, shore power off and engine off, shore power on. The BIRD was not pulling the relay as documented.

I spoke with the dealer’s service department. They would not send me a new BIRD but said they would send me one if I sent them the old one and their testing verified that it was bad. So I cut the wires to the BIRD, tested it out of circuit, wrote my testing up and mailed the BIRD off to the dealer. Contrary to promises made to communicate results and status, I heard nothing and my emails and voicemails were not returned but about three weeks later a package showed up in the mail from Thor – it contains a new BIRD. This one was tested on the bench, it works as documented. It was installed and proper operation was verified.

My strong feeling at this point is that the dealer is not going to do anything that looks like warranty work without involving the manufacturer, which at a minimum will cause communication and bureaucracy delays while the customer’s coach sits.