Finally, Sherman's repairs are complete!

We arrived at the Kal Tire store at the north end of Vernon at around 9:00am. When it was my turn at the front counter, I pointed back at the motorhome and explained that I'm trying to get a front wheel alignment. The guy took a glance over towards Sherman and said "it won't fit on our alignment rack."

I walked out of the office and past the service bays. And as I walked past the bays with the wheel alignment machines I thought to myself "why won't it fit??"

So I returned to the office to ask the question.

This time, I spoke to another guy and he said it was the wheelbase. But Sherman has a short wheebase and I told him it was only 13' 6".

"Oh, well it should fit then".

That's what I thought. Then, I queried him about the technician doing the job. I was told he's a red seal mechanic with 17 years experience. Okay... I'm happy with that. The last place that was going to do a wheel alignment had an apprentice to do the job!

Anyhow, they said they could squeeze us in if we could leave it with them. We said we weren't going anywhere and would be sitting in the motorhome when they're ready.

Around 11:00am, the mechanic Jamie came out to get Sherman. He wanted to take him for a drive first which I was very happy with... how do you know if you've fixed the problem if you never knew what he handled like in the first place.

I could tell right away from talking with this guy that he knew what he was doing. I my 20 years experience working in the collision repair business, I dealt with a lot of wheel alignment guys and not all of them know what they're doing.

We finally ended up in the bay, and surprisingly, Jamie said we could stay in the motorhome if we didn't move around too much.

View out Sherman's side window.

He worked at it for about 3 hours! He was very patient and tried a few different things and ended up shimming the upper control arm on the left side. I was impressed that he took the time to do it right.

He took us out for a drive, and the steering wheel was perfectly straight. And, he no longer pulled to the left! I'll keep an eye on it, but hopefully the bad tire wear we were experiencing on the left front is also gone.

Then, I asked if they could re-balance the one wheel that had lost a wheel weight after the tires were installed in Cranbrook. No problem, but the guy was in the middle of a job and it might be a while. We decided to stick around and just get it done.

We didn't get out of their parking lot until just after 4:00pm!

However... finally, Sherman's repairs are complete!

Total bill was $184 CAD ($144 USD) tax included... much better than I thought it would be. I've used Kal Tire stores here in Canada quite a few times and the bill has never been higher than I thought it would be.

So, despite the not great experience we had at the store in Cranbrook, I am still pleased with Kal Tire, and especially Jamie the wheel alignment mechanic!

From there, we drove the very short distance to my Aunt Barbara's house. 

Haven't seen Aunt Barbara for ten years, and of course everybody is getting older. But she's doing really fantastic for 86... we can all only hope to be doing that well! Still walks everywhere that she can, and keeps herself busy and lives in her own home.

Kevin, Aunt Barbara, and Ruth.

She made us an early supper and we had a nice visit. Too short of course, but we still have places to go and we've only got six days left before our flight!

And, we had been invited by blog readers and fellow RV'ers Lorraine and Dave to come for a visit and park at their place here in Vernon. So we did just that!

Dave, Kevin, Ruth, Lorraine.

No shortage of conversation, and we had a lot to talk about regarding our future travel down the west coast in late October, and our trip to Newfoundland next summer. They did Newfoundland two years ago in their motorhome so they had lots of tips for us!

Time passed too quickly and before we knew it, it was after 10pm.

Today, we have a "long" drive (164 kms, 102 miles!) to the town of Savona where more of our readers have offered us a place to park for the night!

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