On Sunday, July 2nd, while driving to the Salt Lake City KOA, the inverter (Xantrex FSW-3012) in our 3 month old Essex started making a fairly horrific noise — kind of sounded like pebbles in a dryer. The sound occurred even when connected to shore power, and flipping the breaker for the inverter didn’t help.
Early Monday morning I called Newmar customer service (Josh is the dedicated Essex representative) and he was clearly familiar with the problem, saying it’s likely the inverter’s fan hitting the case. He called around looking for mobile RV technicians and two hours later Mr. Mobile was on-site, and the owner (Mike) agreed the fan was to blame and the entire unit needed replacing.
The Xantrex inverter unit needed replaced
Newmar shipped out a new inverter late Monday and it arrived 3 business days later (which was Friday since Tuesday was July 4th). Mike from Mr. Mobile was out Friday afternoon, in sweltering 102°F heat, and swapped out the inverter. The entire job was done in about 2 hours, so the contents of our fridge were fine. So far so good with the new inverter.
A huge shoutout to Mike from Mr. Mobile in Salt Lake City for quickly fitting us into his busy schedule and to Josh from Newmar for coordinating everything. I literally made one phone call, didn’t move my RV one inch, and the problem was taken care of. Count me as a very happy Newmar owner.
