Conducting a Pre-Departure RV Checklist

Before you take off on any trip, it's important to do a walk around of the coach and make sure you don't have the TV antenna up or the compartments unlocked flying out down the road. So a good pre-trip checklist is important to have available. Write it out, type it out we've developed this one here, get it laminated and go by it just point by point, rather than try to go from memory. So, I typically like to start in the front. First thing I look for then is the windshield make sure it don't have any cracks.

Maybe even any small little chips or bulls eyes that are gonna take off when I go down the road, I also wanna make sure that my windshield wipers aren't stuck to the windshield and that they're nice and don't have a lot of pits in 'em because the last thing I want is to hit a rainstorm hit those windshield wipers and have just something that's smears a windshield. I'm also gonna look to make sure that they're connected here, that I've got, the windshield washer fluid that's gonna come up through, and then I'm gonna look inside here. I wanna make sure, first of all, this model has a circuit panel board. All the circuit breakers are outside here and I wanna make sure this panels on the top here nice and snug because if it's not I'm gonna need a lot of wind cold air on the inside here. I'm gonna check for engine oil right here.

Check the transmission fluid. I wanna check my coolant as well, and I'm not gonna do it from here. Excuse me, it's right here. I'm not gonna do it on the actual radiator itself. I'm doing it on the reservoir that's down below here as well as the windshield washer fluid and brake fluid and then also while I'm down here, I wanna make sure there's no leaves, debris, nothing blocking this radiator.

Nothing that's jarred inside there, no nests or anything. If it's been in storage for a while, otherwise those could get really hot with the manifold and actually catch on fire. Then I wanna make sure I shut this and get it locked nice and tight. Don't want that flying down the road when I take off, there we go. Okay, and I'm gonna check all the lights functions those as well and I've got Steve inside.

So let's start with the headlights first and go bright. Okay, I noticed too I've got all my clearance lights, my front marker lights, my side lights are both on and working well. Hazards, my hazards are working. Turn signal, horn. All right, everything's working fine.

So now we go through our checklist we're gonna go around to the side. So as we get off to the side here, the first thing I wanna look at is if I have an awning, now, this one doesn't happen to have one, but any of the awnings, they all need to be retracted, stored and locked. I don't want those arms flapping out and have the tendency of the awning to fly out and rip that fabric off the top of it. Make sure all my windows are shut and I don't have anything sliding open tip out any of that stuff open. Compartment doors, all locked I see I have one here that's in and one that's not so that the clips are there.

Now, I don't typically lock my actual lock when I'm going down the road, because I'm just stopping occasionally. If I'm gonna go sightseeing for a while then I might lock it or leave it out in storage. Now, also then what I wanna make sure is that my step here is on and we can see that it is on. So when I shut the door, it's off. I guess the reason that step was retracted is when Steve turned the ignition on, it does have an override for the ignition to pull that in.

It doesn't always work. So I make sure that this light is on and I can see the light or that switches on. I can see the light is on underneath here. So when I come in, those steps are gonna retract and I don't have to worry about 'em going down the road. Entrance light, that's off.

Propane, now here's another compartment that we have open, again, make sure both of those are shut, nothing there, okay? This is the solid snug. I've lost a couple of these over time. So I make sure that that's nice and snug. Now, here's my propane.

I like to travel with the propane off and that is off. And the reason is if I, there we go. I've got lines that run right along the side here, right along the side of my cabinet tree to go to my refrigerator and to my stove. If I side swipe a sign, somebody hits me. If one of those fittings works loose, I don't wanna have propane, open propane being able to flow inside.

Plus I don't wanna have an open flame, especially if I go into any kind of fueling station, I'ma have to stop and make sure those flames are off. So I'm gonna also shut all the open flames off when I traveled down the road and we'll do that when we go inside. So we've got another cabinet here. That's gotta be secured. One of the things that we did not do in the front and I'm gonna have to go back up and do it here.

I just noticed it on my sheet here, is I'm gonna check every one of the tires before I go. I wanna visually look at the tires for weather checking. I wanna make sure I don't have any tread issues going on and check the pressure both outside and inside duels. You can't tell the difference between 10 PSI less in a tire just by glancing at it and we'll show you that in the front here as we go around. We've got a backdoor here again.

I typically like to make sure this one is locked when I'm going down the road 'cause I'm not really using that one. I've got another door here, this look shut and locked, everything here is secure. So, now as we come around the back of the unit I wanna test the lights back here. So I give Steve a visual signal on the inside. There we go, we've got our running lights are working.

Let's try our left, right side, left side, excuse me. Turn signal, right side turn signal and I have a turn light out. So that's good to know. Let's try the brakes. Same thing we got a brake light out.

So we've got a bulb there that needs to be replaced before we go in. Let's put the unit in reverse. We've got our reverse lights work fine and the last thing is hazards and again, our one light is out in that corner. So that needs to be fixed. But let's turn on the headlights just so we can see the running lights.

Okay, running lights. We do have one running light out up there. So those need to be fixed before we take off and go down the road. Now, the last thing in the back that I'm gonna do here. I'm gonna set this down.

I wanna just get up and visually check on the roof. I'ma climb up this ladder and I'ma look at a couple of different things. I wanna make sure that the antenna's down verify that I wanna make sure that my air conditioning shrouds are intact that the bolts are on top. I don't have to get up there and go through everything but I'm just gonna do a quick visual inspection. Make sure there's nothing that looks out of the ordinary.

Any vents that may be open that I have to do. My air conditioners look good nothing out of the ordinary. Refrigerator vent is on. You see a lot of air conditioning shrouds out on the highway and that's because people aren't visually inspecting 'em So coming around the side here, the next thing I wanna do is place that there. I'm gonna check my generator compartment and I'm doing that because a lot of the generators have a cover over them that just basically snaps on in some grommets and if I don't have that in that could go flying out down the road and take off.

It's not uncommon for somebody to come out and do a little generator work especially if it wasn't running, they might have come out and prepped it a little bit so this one doesn't have one, but that's on my list just to check and make sure everything's good in there. So again, we look at the winds. Windows are all shut here. First thing I noticed here is my city water fill. I did not put my cap back in so I wanna make sure that's in and snug I don't want any dust, debris, stuff coming in it's not critical but it's just good maintenance.

Check my tires down here I want the proper PSI on the tires. Now I get to the service center. I wanna make sure that my hose is unhooked from the dump station. That my water is unhooked, my electrical is unhooked. So I have all that on my service center.

Dump valve shut, hose clean and stored covers connected. Now, I want these all connected in here too I don't want any, especially if I get into a rainy situation, I don't want any water shooting up from the road inside. If I got a cable TV connection in here make sure that's disconnected. Everything's back in place and the water is disconnected. So everything's stored in its place not gonna bounce around too much and shut and latched.

And again, if you wanna lock it here. One more deal. Steve, if you could go back inside I wanna check my clearance lights on the side which I did not do earlier. I have a clearance light that's working up there and I have one that's not working here. So I'm gonna have to replace this bulb before I go out on the road.

Again, door shut here. If I have any slide rooms I wanna make sure they're all shut. I do have a window open here. So I inside I'm gonna go in and make sure that's shut. About the slide rooms have to be in if I have braces inside, I need to put those on too but this one doesn't have any slide rooms but I got it on my list here.

And the last thing then is leveling jacks. Now a lot of models will have a driver's door right here and my leveling jacks controls are here. So I wanna just do a quick visual inspect. I have no leveling jacks down so don't have to worry about those. Now, here's where I'm gonna show you a tire pressure.

This tire right here, is running right at 100 PSI. Let's go over the other side and take a look and what that tire pressure is we'll just go around the corner here and we see right here, we're at about 85. So we've got quite a difference in that. But looking at the two tires, just glancing at 'em or taking the trucker's mallet and hitting 'em you can't tell that, make sure you check your air pressure. This has got to be go up to a hundred PSI before I take off.

Now, something else that I like to visually inspect and you can see it on this unit here is I'm not gonna take and pull the tires off and the rims off and check the brakes all the time but I see quite a bit of brown dust in here, that's brake dust. It's telling me I'm starting to get some in there. So, the more I get, the more buildup I see of this the more I'm gonna kind of see how my brakes are and periodically I'm gonna have a service center probably take that off 'cause that's a pretty good indicator that these brakes are starting to have a little bit of wear. Maybe nothing to be critical about yet. So now let's take our list and let's go inside.

So continuing inside the coach we're gonna start up in the front and the first thing I wanna do is I wanna make sure my TV is secure. I've got a strap in here so I'm gonna have that buckled up. I definitely want these secure that's glass and that starts to bang around as we go down the road that could break that glass and we'd really have some issues there. We've got our windows are shut, locked. Over on this side we've got windows shut and locked and a map light up out of the way, tables retracted.

One of the things that this one has a lot of people like to do it. They will put a little reminder that tells you that check your TV antenna and this is something you can either clip to the keys so as the last thing you do as get in to turn the engine on. You notice that that's there. Some people will put a sock over the front of it. Now, some of your newer units actually have a log digital log that'll go through and tell you a certain items in those a Freightliner chassis for example, the manufacturers can put, check your antennas check various different things inside.

Some of 'em will put just a dummy light we call it has an antenna light that comes on but it doesn't, it isn't actually tied to the antenna so it's doesn't mean it's necessarily on it's just more of a reminder that, hey, go check that, check your steps so forth. So, once we know for sure, then we come back here that our antenna is down and we verified that when we went up on the top and looked, but here we can see that I can't put that down anymore. So I'm just gonna hang this back up, on my spot inside here. So anything I have inside, I wanna make sure I get rid of it because it can become a projectile. I have something to set it on the counter, on the table, in here.

I have a collision that's gonna shoot forward. So I wanna make sure that everything is secure. Coffee maker like this here. It's good and secure on the front of it. I wanna make sure my furnace is off, my refrigerator and my stove top.

Everything that could have a pilot light needs to be off and we turned our gas off earlier so it's not gonna light, but some of them will still try to spark. So I don't want that spark even coming because when I get into a fuel stop, I don't wanna have any type of spark or open flame, in case there's any fumes in the inside of it. So as we come back a little further, one of the things that I do when I take off too, is this has a tendency to be pretty loud as I go down the road. So I'm actually gonna just put this right there like that. So when I put this down, that's nice and quiet and I don't have to worry about it.

Make sure my refrigerator is off, the door is shut and if it has a lock position, lock it that'll keep it cold in there but it also keep it from flying out. All the lights are off, water pump is off, water heater is off check all the furniture is stowed and this one I like because it actually has a braced down with the bottom so it's not gonna fly up and down on me but if you've got a chair a hook loop chair that you've moved somewhere make sure it's secure. If you've got any additional chairs, some of the freestanding dinettes have a folding chairs that come on, get those down, store 'em, get that on your list. Then and make sure all the doors are secure. This is a pretty common thing as you're going down the road.

If you don't have this door secure and you make a turn, it goes and that gets very annoying. So I wanna make sure that that is snapped all these are hooked. Again, anything inside needs to be put away. So it's not gonna go all over the place. In the bathroom, I wanna make sure there's nothing on the countertop.

If I have something in the shower base and it needs to be fairly secure because if I got that bouncing around in the shower it's gonna scratch it up really bad. If it's heavy, it could break my shower pan. So I want put that in. And then the last thing on my list is I wanna make sure I have my license my registration and my insurance before I take off down the road. Now there's a couple things left out in the campground that we're gonna do.

So then just a few things left in the campground. I like to walk around the campground make sure all my garbage has been put away, thrown away. I didn't leave anything out, no food, my campfire, I wanna make sure that's completely doused and there's no food or anything in that either because that could get rotten and you could attract animals and so forth. So I'm gonna make sure that's all cleaned up. I also have then all chairs, equipment so your list is gonna change a little bit as you have different accessories things outside that you wanna make sure to put away.

If you have pets, you know that's a, you're gonna make sure that not only you brought the pets but you also got the chains or any kind of enclosures that type of stuff that you didn't leave there. Now what we didn't cover in this that's typically on my checklist is trailer towing or dinghy towing, I should say and since this unit didn't have it we didn't see that on the back but if I have a dinghy that I hook up, I'm gonna check the hitch, I'm gonna make sure that my pins for my bumper on the on the actual unit itself, the blocks are intact. I want the safety chains secure on. I want the electrical system. I'ma check all the blinkers and lights for that just like we did with this unit here and make sure everything's secure on that.

So if you do some dinghy towing make sure you put that list together but take a little bit of time, do the walk around, make sure you have a checklist. You're gonna avoid some costly repairs in the future.