Owning an RV is an exciting adventure. It gives you the freedom to explore while keeping the comforts of home with you. But an RV is a house and a vehicle at the same time, and both halves need attention.
The good news is that most expensive RV repairs start as small maintenance items somebody missed. Stay ahead of the list below and you avoid the majority of them.
1. Roof and exterior seals
If you only do one thing on this page, do this one.
Every seam, vent, skylight, and antenna on your roof is sealed with caulk, and that caulk does not last forever. Michigan is hard on it: freeze and thaw cycles work at the sealant all winter, and UV bakes it all summer. Once a seal opens up, water gets into the roof decking and the walls, and by the time you see a stain on the ceiling the damage is already expensive.
Inspect the roof twice a year, spring and fall. You are looking for cracks, gaps, lifted edges, and anywhere the sealant has pulled away from what it is supposed to be stuck to. Reseal before it leaks, not after.
2. Tires and wheel bearings
Tires are the other item that fails dramatically rather than gradually.
RV tires age out before they wear out. Check pressure every trip when they are cold, and check the sidewalls for cracking, which tells you more about a trailer tire’s remaining life than tread depth does.
Wheel bearings need service every 12,000 miles or 12 months, whichever comes first. A bearing that lets go on the highway takes the hub, the brakes, and sometimes the axle with it, and it always happens somewhere inconvenient.
3. Plumbing and the water system
Check under sinks, behind the water heater panel, and around the pump for drips. A leak the size of nothing behind a panel will rot a floor over a season.
Once a year, flush the water heater and sanitize the fresh water system. If the pump runs briefly when no tap is open, something is leaking or a check valve is not holding.
In Michigan, winterizing is not optional. A cracked water line or a split water heater from one hard freeze costs far more than the service does.
4. Batteries and the electrical system
Clean, tight battery terminals solve a surprising share of “my RV is dead” calls.
Check the state of charge, look for corrosion, and top off the cells with distilled water if you have flooded batteries. Test the 12V side (lights, fans, slides, pump) and the shore power side (outlets, GFCI, converter charging) before you leave, not at the campsite.
Look at your shore power cord and plug too. Scorching or discoloration at the contacts means heat, and heat means a connection that is on its way to failing.
5. Appliances
Run everything before the season starts, not on the first night out.
Test the furnace, water heater, refrigerator on both gas and electric, and the air conditioner. An A/C should be cleaned once a year, ideally before the first hot week. Generators need oil, filters, and a real load put on them regularly.
Appliances that sit unused are the ones that fail, which is why running them is itself a maintenance task.
6. A Michigan season plan
Grouping the work by season keeps it manageable, and The Michigan RV Year lays the whole thing out on one page:
- Spring: dewinterize, sanitize the fresh water system, inspect the roof and seals, check tires and bearings, test every appliance
- Summer: service the A/C, keep an eye on seals, exercise the generator monthly
- Fall: winterize the water system, inspect the roof again, service wheel bearings, prep batteries for storage
- Winter: if the rig is stored, check on it. Look for pests, leaks, and battery charge
7. Know which jobs to hand off
Plenty of this list is owner-level, and you should do it. Some of it is not.
Roof resealing, wheel bearing service, appliance diagnostics, propane work, and anything electrical past the obvious are all jobs where the cost of getting it wrong is much higher than the cost of having it done. A yearly professional inspection also catches the things that are not on anybody’s checklist, because they are specific to your rig.
We come to you
We are a mobile RV service, so none of this requires dropping your RV off somewhere and waiting weeks. We work in your driveway, at your campground, or at your storage lot across Southeast Michigan.
Call or text 248-517-5165, or check whether your address is in our service area.