Girard awning motor

[Adam Hicklin]

My awning needed adjustment (Girard 2000 I believe) in that it wasn't fully opening and when it would close, it would stop about a half an inch shy of fully closed.  I tried adjusting it myself, but it seemed whatever I did had no affect.  

On Friday I was traveling from L.A. to San Diego in the coach and stopped by Girard which is in San Clemente.  The service tech, Andre, was gracious enough to take a look and adjusted the awning in about 30 seconds.  That's the good news.  

The bad news:  he noticed that the motor in my awning was an old design with a plastic housing.  Apparently this plastic housing has been known to crack and when it does the tension, which keeps the awning in, will be released causing full deployment of the awning.  This can happen at any time according to Andre.  In fact, he felt that the situation was dangerous enough to wire my awning shut until I can have the motor replaced.

More bad news:  on any other awning/coach configuration the motor change out takes about 20 minutes because the awning is surface mounted.  But on a Beaver (at least my year) the awning is recessed in to the wall about 1.5 inches which necessitates pulling the motor end of the awning out of the recess to swap out the motor.  2 hour job.  So, I have it scheduled for later in the month.

I have no reason to doubt what Andre tells me.  He is the main service tech for Girard and travels the country fixing awnings. I dont think he's selling me a bill of goods.  And I have heard of spontaneous awning deployment while driving down the road, causing all kinds of damage.  So,I'll go through with the replacement and I'll take some pictures so others can identify if they have one of these suspect motors.  

Girard, and Andre in particular, have been very helpful to this pont.  They really aren't set up for service at their  San Clemente HQ.  its mosty offices and and an assembly warehouse.  I pulled up in front of the building and Andre helped me out.  But I figure if anyone should know about Girard awnings, they should.

[Keith Moffett]

Met Andre in Redmond Or. a few years back.  The story was the same on our 98 Pat.  There had been a recall but ours had not been taken in by the previous owner.  We had always planned on meeting up with Andre in San Diego so he could do the motor and  a new awning covering.
I believe you can trust what he's told you as we did.

[Roy Warren Co-Admin]

Andre is an outstanding representative of Girard.  He has adjusted our awnings and added parts.  We were lucky and this was all done on warranty, but whatever he recommends, I would trust regarding the Girard awnings.
Roy

[Joel Ashley]

Wish there was such a representative for Carefree.

My main awning unrolled on us at 60 mph on Canada 1 coming down the west slope of the Rockies.  Believe me, you don't want to ever have that happen.

The automatic awnings rely on the drive shaft of the motor to hold the awning's position, wherever it is.  Any fault on either the roller tube or the motor side of that connection can mean disaster.  In our case the steel drive shaft from the motor eventually wore down the aluminum casting it fits through on the roller tube cap.  Carefree (aka Careless) customer service as usual was no help.  I had to recover the deployed mechanism and detached fabric while it hung over a mountain freeway roadside drop-off, and with the aid of a French-speaking bicyclist passerby, I got the mess rolled up and roped to rooftop devices.  When we finally got to BCS 2 months later, I'm sure they thought I was nuts given the zillions of ropes and cords they had to untie up there;  but they didn't get the sh** scared out of them when that confounded thing came open.  It sure as heck wasn't gonna go anywhere again.  

To this day I don't trust that mechanism, even the as yet unused replacement cap and motor.  The end cap with the rounded-over shaft port was all that needed replacing, but Carefree only sells the entire end cap together with motor and shaft.  So it cost far more than it should and was a waste of a perfectly good motor.  For peace of mind I need to find a secondary way of securing the awning roller closed for travel, but it needs to be readily removeable from below or it negates the whole intent of automatic electric.

Joel

[Adam Hicklin]

Joel, that sounds like the same possible scenario. Now, Girard uses a redesigned motor with a metal housing. Even the new motor has two different manufactures; one French and one Chinese. Andre said he would make sure I got one of the French motors!