Can You Fix Your RV Yourself? Test. Don't Guess... with RV Diagnostics
Send us Fan Mail It's 4 p.m. on a Friday, you're two hours from home, and your slide won't go out. Do you call a mobile RV tech, wait five days, or grab a wrench and screwdriver? ASE master certified mechanic and Army veteran Jeff Malatesta of RV Diagnostics joins Jennifer and her guest co-host, Ashliy Sutterfield from Wander About Fulltime RV to share the three questions he asks before anyone touches a tool, the mistakes he sees most often, and how to know when to put the tools down an...
Key Takeaways
- ASE master certified mechanic Jeff Malatesta emphasizes his core troubleshooting motto: 'Test, don't guess,' which helps RVers avoid unnecessary and expensive repairs.
- Before picking up a tool for RV repairs, ask yourself three preliminary questions: How long have you had your RV, are you doing preventive maintenance, and what was the last thing that gave you a problem?
- Knowing the location of your RV's key components, such as your inverter and fuses, dramatically speeds up the diagnostic and repair process.
- Common RV maintenance oversights include failing to check battery water levels and not realizing what electrical amperage you are actually plugged into.
- Investing in high-quality items like proper tires and essential basic tools, including a multimeter and a reliable jack, is crucial for safe and stress-free RV travel.
It's 4 p.m. on a Friday, you're two hours from home, and your slide won't go out. Do you call a mobile RV tech, wait five days, or grab a wrench and screwdriver?
ASE master certified mechanic and Army veteran Jeff Malatesta of RV Diagnostics joins Jennifer and her guest co-host, Ashliy Sutterfield from Wander About Fulltime RV to share the three questions he asks before anyone touches a tool, the mistakes he sees most often, and how to know when to put the tools down and call a pro.
Learn it before you need it.
In this episode:
Guest: Jeff Malatesta, RV Diagnostics. ASE master certified mechanic (L1 and L2), Army veteran, 56 years as "a wrench".
Links:
- RV Diagnostics
- Jeff's YouTube channel
- RV Diagnostics Facebook group
- Bonus lightning round on the Learn to RV YouTube Channel
- Learn to RV Blog post for this episode
- Ashliy Sutterfield: Wander About Fulltime RV YouTube Channel
Bonus episode on YouTube ONLY: Want Jeff's one-sentence answers on overrated gadgets, the biggest RV myth and the weirdest thing he has fixed over video?
Don't miss the lightning round, but you can only find it on our YouTube channel! (But it's still FREE)
Hosted by Jennifer Schillaci of Learn to RV. New episodes every Monday at LearnToRV.com. If you enjoyed this one, don't forget to follow, like & subscribe & be sure to leave a review and share it with a friend whether they are new to RV life or just a lifelong learner.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is RV Diagnostics?
RV Diagnostics is a service founded by Jeff Malatesta that helps RV owners troubleshoot and fix their own rigs through guided video chats, phone calls, and educational resources.
What are the first three questions Jeff Malatesta asks RVers before a repair?
He asks how long you have owned the RV, whether you perform regular preventive maintenance on components, and what was the last thing that gave you a problem.
What multimeter settings do RVers actually need to know?
According to Jeff Malatesta, the primary settings you need to know for basic RV troubleshooting are 200 volts AC (or 300 volts for 50-amp service) and the 20-volt DC scale.
What are the most common mistakes people make with their RV?
Neglecting routine battery maintenance, such as checking water levels, and failing to verify actual power source amp connections before running heavy appliances are among the most frequent oversights.
All right, so it's 4 p.m. on a Friday. You've just pulled into your campground and you're now two hours from home. And your slide won't go out. Now what? Do you call a mobile RV tech, or do you wait five days? Or do you see who's in the area that you can come see you for a weekend call and hope for the best? Today we've got an ASD master certified mechanic, an Army veteran, same guy, who worked on M1 tanks in the military, and he built an entire business around a belief that most RV problems you can actually fix yourself with the right guidance. And today he's gonna dive in and tell us when to put the tools down and call a professional. But we're gonna get hopefully the simplest fix that saves someone a fortune at one point or another. So welcome to Learn to RV the podcast. I'm your host, Jennifer, and today I'm joined by Jeff and Ashley. And Jeff is our guest today. Describe RV diagnostics to somebody that maybe doesn't know what that is.
SPEAKER_00Sometimes I have to send you files because we all know every RV or has every manual to their RV. I help you. That's what I do. We try to get you accustomed to your RV. The main question I always ask is, how long have you had it? And they'll go, oh, six years. And I said, and you don't know where your inverter is. So some of it is on the behalf of the owner to know where some components are. And that takes time. I understand that. But the more you know about where components are, the faster what I do to help you is achieved.
SPEAKER_03That's true. Yeah. Yeah. So you're not showing up at the door with a toolbox, though. You're calling and you're doing some kind of video chat or phone call, correct?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it doesn't matter if it's 12-volt electrical, 120, a diesel engine, a gas engine, a transmission. Um I always ask the preliminary question is do you have a multimeter? And I love the person that says, I don't know what it is. Because it's harder to unteach somebody bad habits than it is to teach them the proper habits. And of course, do you have common tools, a screwdriver, sockets, some wrenches? We can get you by. We we can get you.
SPEAKER_03Interesting. So how long have you been doing this?
SPEAKER_00RV Diagnostics is over eight years old now. I've been a wrench for 56 years. I did the same thing in the Army. You'd be communicating 55 tons and the M1 tanks out there, and you're, okay, do this, do this, and I can only be one place at one time. So my crew, I would teach them how to troubleshoot. And we had better secured systems, and I won't say they didn't mess up once in a while, but pretty much they were good. But it took me five years to put together a plan to help ninety percent of the soldiers that were coming in that didn't know nothing and teach them an advanced tank just in case we had to go to war, which was Desert Storm. But it it took me five years to hone this thing down to where it was ninety percent efficient. So I paid my dues back then.
SPEAKER_03Teaching guys in the army is kind of like teaching someone that's brand new to RVing, but that doesn't necessarily know anything. Your formal education, though, you actually are an ASE certified mechanic as well, correct?
SPEAKER_00Correct. Every five years you gotta recertify. I have L1, L2, advanced level. I guess there's a difference between me and a lot of other techs. Most of them did it to make a living. I do it because I love to do it. And what did they say, like the field of dreams? Yeah, the field of dreams. Build it and you will come, or they will come. I didn't think this thing would take off. Who's gonna trust some old guy on the other end to do this? But it did. It took off, and I'm having fun with it. I have a garage here that we work Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday that keeps my hands-on skills up because there is new stuff. So I get I get exposed to it to help people.
SPEAKER_03And you do bring rigs into the shop there then.
SPEAKER_00Oh my oh my god, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My wife wanted four slides, and now we we got rid of our fever and we own a 2007 Tiffin Allegro bus 42 QDP, and there you go. Like I needed more stuff to fix.
SPEAKER_03So the origin story of RV diagnostics is interesting to me because, like you said, you did it because you just wanted something to do that it wasn't necessarily something that you were looking for. What made you decide to do it though? Was it like listening to people, like their frustration in the RV industry?
SPEAKER_00Well, I work on them for a living and always make a joke when I get something in here. Always say, Well, what did the other Jeff do? Right. And a lot of Jeffs out there, um, they're doing their best. What they got. I got 49 years at it when I started, I guess.
SPEAKER_01So they do what they gotta do.
SPEAKER_00And then I get it in here and I gotta figure out what they did, and then find out the original problem. So, you know, I tell people if you want to stay in a garage with me and help me, because I am now 67, and the military beat the heck out of my body, but the passion keeps you going. I don't know. We we went from mayor, we tried, but how the story started RV Diagnostic was I had an army buddy call me, said, Ain't you down Outer Banks? I said, Yeah. You know, mile marker 10 or whatever it was that day. I said, uh he says, I got a friend that had down there camping, got a problem. I said, All right, so for some reason, this friend wouldn't let me come down a couple mile markers and check him out. So I said, All right, so let's just do it over the phone. I'll guide you. And then I was laying in the bed with my wife. I said, Hey, I'm gonna start RV diagnostics. She goes, go ahead. Just another idea. Just go ahead, keep yourself busy. And that's actually where it started. So, and like you know, Facebook, YouTube, same as people don't know RV, there is a learning curve. And that's what I tolerate. You you do. You have to, you have to laugh at some of them because they they they want the RV fixed. They want to roll, they want to move. And like you say, there's a time where I have to tell them, all right, you don't have a scanner, and we're I can't see certain readings. I know you can change alcohol and temperature sensor, but we're guessing now. And that is my motto: test, not guess. And then I live by it. I had to in the army, four, four million dollar tank, and I'm getting ready to spend taxpayers' money, $30,000 on a box about that big. I better be right.
SPEAKER_01Plus, I'm out in the middle of nowhere. So it took time to get me that part.
SPEAKER_03I think that's fascinating as far as the testing goes. But I also think that so many people do like troubleshoot and make bigger problems out of what they have long before they get started. And we experience that in RV roofing solutions, where people think they're going to fix the roof and they make a bigger mess, and then they don't understand why when they come to us, it's more money than it would have been if they'd called us in the first place because they have done something. And I think that a lot of DIYers, and Ashley's a DIYer and she knows her stuff, but she also knows when to put it down and call somebody and ask for help too. And so I think that that's so critical when it comes to like just that learning curve. So if you if you had to give our listeners a simple test, Jeff, three questions that they should ask before they even pick up a tool, what should they be?
SPEAKER_01I would say, how long have you had your RV?
SPEAKER_00Are you doing preventive maintenance on all the components?
SPEAKER_01And the third one is what was the last thing that gave you a problem? Because they're all they're all tied in. That'll get that started, and we go from there.
SPEAKER_03That's true. So if they come in and they have a problem with their propane system, would you tell them to tackle that themselves?
SPEAKER_00I ask them, is the valve one or does other components work? And then we go from there. That's an issue right there in itself, propane. Most people don't change their propane detector out. So you ask that question to get the safety things out issue, and you ask them the ultimate one, are you comfortable? And you sometimes have to take people out of their comfort zone. And some of them don't want to go. And I go, okay, hopefully I can help you on another problem in the future. If you don't feel comfortable doing this, I understand.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. You know, a lot of states you have to be propane certified as a tech in order to even work on propane. And our business, we work with a lot of different techs. It's very interesting to me just the dynamic that you face with average consumers wanting to tackle certain things on. I mean, obviously the simple stuff is one thing. Frank is not afraid to work on propane, but he does his homework long before he ever gets started with it. Ashley, is there anything that you've tackled? I know you've done quite a few things to your rig that you were nervous about getting into, or you were pretty sure and confident that you could do.
SPEAKER_04I mean, one of the first things that we ever had happen is when we were in Deming, New Mexico, it was like 19 degrees like overnight. It was freezing cold. And we went to turn our hot water on. You would hear the propane turn on. You would hear a click and then nothing would happen. So we had heat, but we didn't have hot water. And stemming, it's not really a big city. There's like Las Cruces is close by, but they didn't have a part we needed. So we ended up calling a mobile tech. He's like, hey, it's gonna be a week, but what it looks like is your motherboard went out in our hot water heater. So then we ended up just ordering the part from Amazon and put it in ourselves. And it's been five years and it's still working great, but I've never changed a motherboard before.
SPEAKER_00Key word was you never did, so you did change it.
SPEAKER_03Yep.
SPEAKER_00There you go.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, she does a lot of her own maintenance. And when I first met Ashley, I think she was actually under her rig looking at something. What do you think, Jeff, are like weekend warrior type jobs? Jobs are good for somebody that doesn't have tons of experience that wants a weekend project.
SPEAKER_00Get up on that roof, check it all out. I use air instead of water to check for the leaks because water causes more damage. But then again, the average Joe doesn't have a compressor. A lot of them, though, can get a hold of these little handheld units. So constantly check your systems, is what I tell them. But yeah, get up on that roof is the number one. Um, tires. We all know there's some lower quality tires, but I don't put them on my rig, and I don't put them on my cars. But that's the other thing we have to worry about, too, is the owner's budget. And I come right out and say it to them, where's your budget at on this?
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Just the RV sitting there between insurance and the RV itself setting out back, that rig cost me five grand a year. So it's a house on wheels. And some of them are waking up to that. The better they do their checks, the less they have to spend later.
SPEAKER_03So, what's the most common mistake people do before they call somebody?
SPEAKER_01Oh, uh batteries.
SPEAKER_00Let's just talk about batteries. When's the last time you checked your water and your batteries? I just tell them, get rid of that, go to AGM. Then again, that's a different money bracket for batteries. But we all know they don't check their batteries. You know, this just yeah, they well, it's out there all winter. Yeah, did you go out? Do you have it hooked to a little two-amp charger? Did you check the water level? Uh they no, okay. Thank you for being honest. Let's let's go look at the batteries first. Uh that's not the thing you're talking about, like the roof, batteries. The two go together. R and B. It's a little joke of mine, R and B music, but roof and batteries. Yep.
SPEAKER_03But but that's so true.
SPEAKER_04What would you say is like the number one thing people overlook the most and that you want them to check before they give you a call?
SPEAKER_01It depends what they're asking me that's wrong.
SPEAKER_00They all go, yeah, I got 50 amp. Then you find out after years ago, you find out it was reduced down to a 15-amp adapter. And they didn't program their inverter-converter combination unit to reflect that. So you you you learn to ask qualifying questions first. Yeah, I understand your 50 amp. Yep. What are you really plugged into? Oh, uh my next door neighbor's garage 15 amp service. Well, we really can't get much done today.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So and then you have a generator. If they do, when's the last time you actually rented every month? So my folks are coming around. They understand it. They're better at doing what they're supposed to do because they learnt that it saves them a lot of money. And how I tell them that is you got more money to go camping.
SPEAKER_03That's true, especially with fuel prices right now.
SPEAKER_01That's all right.
SPEAKER_03So, calling a shop, here's one thing. I've written blogs on this. I think you have to almost like interview your RV tech. So, when do you think's the best time to call a professional?
SPEAKER_00When I see them getting very uncomfortable, remember, I take people out of their zone. That's that's an old soldier. You know, if you ask a soldier the number one thing he's afraid of is dying. Once you get them past that, yeah, a good bar fight never stopped a good soldier. But um, for RVers, you got time for a little bit of a story? There was a 76-year-old lady. Her husband died. So she got a hold of me on Facebook Messenger and we did all that. So she goes, Well, I have a little bit of a problem. I said, What is it? She said, Well, I gotta wire my RV. I said, Well, come on, let's go inside. Show me what you got. She ripped everything out. All there was was wires hanging over at 120. Everything was gone. And her goal was to put this thing back together and go camping and relive the memories. Her husband had passed away. So some people got on me later about it because I posted it. I probably spent 120 hours with that girl. And at the end, she knew what to do. It was amazing just to see her. And and the way she did it, her uh testimonial was about the little train that could, you know, that little story. And then some people go, Well, you didn't make no money. I says, Not everybody do you gotta make money on. I said, the word of mouth is more than any advertisement I could buy. Absolutely. She got it together. She went out there and did what she wanted to do. And as a matter of fact, I might try to get a hold of her today just to see what's going on.
SPEAKER_04So I've had multiple things happen when like I've been on the road for a little over five years now, and the first thing, it was our first day on the road. And of course we were driving in to San Diego, and we had a blowout on the five. And it, of course, it's double axle, triple axle, double axle. And um, as we took the turn to get onto the interstate, that's when our tire blew out and it almost hit the car next to us. And at this point, I still didn't know we had a blowout. I just assume maybe I took the turn a little sharp and the trailer swung over. So then the car drives up next to me and they're like yelling at me, and I'm like freaking out because I'm like, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. And then they start pointing back. So then I pull over and we see that the tires just shredded. Like we just came down this huge mountain way and everything before that, and we didn't have a jack that was strong enough to lift our trailer. Like we just had the little like 2,000 like bottle jack that we bought. But our trailer's 8,000 pounds, and that's on the lighter end for a 35-foot trailer.
SPEAKER_02Yes, it is.
SPEAKER_04What are some things that you would say is like the number one tool that somebody who's brand new starting out should have?
SPEAKER_00You gotta remember, I go from people, don't laugh at this, I go from people with tents. They call you up about their stove, a little Pullman stove not working or whatever, all the way up to 45 footers. So anything that has an axle, I would definitely get a healthy jack. Now, us diesel guys are lucky because we got a little air compressor built into the engine, so we can get one in bottle jacks that has air. Far as your bumper pulls or fifth-wheelers, I just call them pullers. That's what they are. Yeah, they make a tool out there, it's pretty neat. It's an acronym, or it's like a quarter of a circle. You put it up under the axle, you move it forward, and it lifts that axle up.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So you better have good parking brakes, you better have chalk blocks. You can't be safe enough. That's what I say when it comes to that work. And the quality, we brought this up before, the quality of the tire. I think since 2008, I've seen a uh I don't know how they get away with it, but uh a cheapness. I got a friend here, and he's got a saying, I apply it every day. Cheap ain't good and good ain't cheap. Tires, the best tires is what you need. That's a bottom line, that's the best tool. Preventive maintenance is the best tool. So your basic sockets, uh heck now you can go to what's that store? Harbor Freight. Man, you know, I I'm a professional, so I beat them up every day. But I have a few. So buy those, the electric impact, a half inch, have that, make your life easier on the side of the road. Um and nationwide. That's another one you have to like snap on. I mean, when I first started doing my videos, troubleshooting and all that, I'm thinking to myself, they're right, they can't go out and buy a $700 multimeter. They're already got an RV. So I went to Lowe's Home Depot and bought all those meters. Uh I guess I'll say it, I bought a bunch of them and gave like 80 of them out free once they all joined up and whatever, right? And they all right. If you give me a comment here and I'm gonna put you in a raffle, and I made a video on that, but so you have to understand they have tools that are not quality at all. As a tech would.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So in the world of AI, I know a lot of people are going to AI for information. For our company, a lot of times AI does not give them the right answer. It gives them the answer they think they should get. But I also have friends that have built apps and stuff and they use their information in the tech industry to use these apps. The fact that you talk to people makes you so very different. What would you say is the difference in terms of what you get out of talking to you and troubleshooting with you versus going to an AI platform?
SPEAKER_00Let's go back to the military. So I spent 12 straight years on the east-west German border and arrest in the and arrest in a Godforsaken desert, but didn't lose mountain over there the first time, but I was over there trying to find it. So each room, you had a couple soldiers. So we we'll call each room a neighborhood. You had certain music, you had certain, you know, you had your Texas, you had your Oklahoma boys, you had your Detroit, you had uh even their alcohol you learned.
SPEAKER_01So you use that to help them learn.
SPEAKER_00So I always ask, what you do for a living? You have to find out what they did for a living, know something about it, and help, you know, this math formula y'all use to figure out taxes. Yeah, that's what we're gonna use today. A little bit of math, just a little. Because you can't say the word physics. Right there, people run. They ran in high school from it. So I'll use what they did for a living to help them learn. Uh so guess what I'm doing? I'm learning more about what people did for a living to help me use that for them to be successful. I keep my stuff. People go, oh, you must have a lot of money. I said, no, I can afford to fix mine.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So that's what I'm trying to help them do. Balance between the two. Um, God bless y'all. I'm not getting rid of my sticks and bricks. Yeah, I gotta give y'all credit, right? But not me.
SPEAKER_01Now, so my wife retires this Black Friday.
SPEAKER_00And so our life is going to change. So we had Miramoir Beach deaths in Florida for the first month of January. Well, you know what happened. Just, yeah. So I called down. I said, How y'all doing? Uh, 12-foot waves wiped us out, but we'll hope to be back up. I'm thinking, man, I need to know so I can schedule enough. So we're going out for our first three to four months. So I understand what it is to be on the road all the time from the army, because I was out in the middle of nowhere. There was no help from nobody but my crew and me. As far as identifying other people, people catch on when you help them learn. Um, have you seen the series MECP video? M-E-C-H-P.
SPEAKER_03No. But we'll have to look it up now.
SPEAKER_00Yes. You'll you'll be amazed at it. I've taken years and years and years. I always say this to people I don't need you to engineer it. There's an engineer that already did that. Um now, me, I could say, hmm, they did that. It always works good on paper. There you go. Now get it out in the real world. Like you say, your tire. When you blew that tire, Ashley, what type of tire was it? Was it a good one? Was it a knockoff? Uh do you remember?
SPEAKER_04I don't remember because the first thing we did after we got settled in Escondido is I took two tires at a time in to get replaced, and it cost us about fourteen hundred dollars to replace all four tires and the spare. And that was three trips back and forth because I could only take two tires at a time.
SPEAKER_00Damn it. But it was the end of getting a good tire. At that price, I would hope so.
SPEAKER_04Yep, they're good tires. I think they're they're eight or ten ply.
SPEAKER_00Um there you go.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00There you go.
SPEAKER_03Ply.
SPEAKER_00Yep.
SPEAKER_03Well, and that's just it. People don't realize that you're supposed to, like, when you blow one tire, you should replace two tires, one from each side. And so people don't realize that that's what they should do. So all those horror stories where they blew a second tire three hours down the road or the next travel day on the other side. Well, it's because they didn't replace both tires. So a lot of people just don't know that information. And I feel like that's what Learn to R V is here to help with, because we don't want to pass judgment on anybody that doesn't know that information, but we want to give them a place to come and listen and learn. And that's why we're doing these tech talks with RV Techs, because it's important that we get it from the source, right? I think that there's a lot of us that go to Facebook for our information and then make the mistake over and over again. And what we're trying to avoid at Linda RV is bringing in the experts, right? And so the people that know what they're talking about that have been doing this for a hot minute. But that's what I love about conversations like this: learning it before you need it, you know, knowing your rig, knowing your limits, knowing your budget, and knowing who to call when it happens.
SPEAKER_00You you brought up with something you called me an expert. I'll learn every day. And that's why I tell people it's okay to say you don't know. Uh let's let's let's move on. Let's find out. Back when I was a young man, you had books, and some greasy handed tech would mess up the pages, and I'm like, oh. So information is very important. So today's people, especially full timers, you can get online and boom-ba-doomba boom, find all kinds of stuff. But um, the other one's verbiage. People don't understand like FHU. Every time I would put that full hookups, what's FHU? I'm like, oh, that's right. They don't know. So I just say the word full hookups, and they go, Well, what's that? And then you have to, it's okay. Everybody learns even us master text. That's that's what keeps us a master. Just keep learning.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, absolutely. What is something that you learned when you were working on tanks that you still use when you're working on somebody's RV today?
SPEAKER_01Patience.
SPEAKER_00You would get soldiers in and I passed a course, like a survival course, and they give you a mirror. It's a signal bear. You always keep around your neck. I put it under their nose and said, now breathe. And it would fog it. I said, Okay, we got a chance today to learn something. Because some of them they were either a prisoner, they had to escape. Two, mom and dad kicked them out of the house. Or three, they really wanted to back up their country. So, and then you took them from there. You know why they call you a private in the army? Because there is no privacy. I was raised by the old Vietnam vets. So when they taught you something, they were extreme. God bless them. They yeah, they've been there. And I thank them every day now for when I had to go because they taught me some stuff that's not in a book. There you go. So the people, they will learn if they really want to. That's that's what you're about. I remember seeing you. I said, Well, let me check out what she's doing. And Ashley, I'm glad to I'm glad I'd meet you. How many years have you been full-time?
SPEAKER_04Uh, five years.
SPEAKER_00Who was the furthest you went?
SPEAKER_04So we mostly do the Midwest to the West Coast. So, like right now, we're in Las Vegas. We basically call Las Vegas like our home base, but we've previously been in Escondido, and then all our family is in Omaha, Nebraska. So we just kind of travel back and forth between those zones. We go down to Joplin, Missouri, Las Cruces, New Mexico. So we just kind of follow down that area. We haven't gone too far east. A lot of it is because I've driven over there just in a car. And uh I was like, no, that's not gonna happen.
SPEAKER_03And it doesn't help that she's hearing my horror stories that we have to drive through New York City today. So there's that.
SPEAKER_02Oh, whoa.
SPEAKER_00There you go.
SPEAKER_03All right, so let's get into your YouTube channel and how people can get a hold of you.
SPEAKER_00Hi, my name's Jeff from RV Don Oscars. I help people learn. Learning is every day. I learn every day. Now, as far as the YouTube, I started out like everybody on YouTube, messing it up. I put the phone down, the screen was blank. So you got to give me a little bit of uh a pre from the first couple. But now let's talk about how many. There's 860 plus. Um I break it down into sections. Uh they used to call it categories, if you remember when then they changed it to this magical name playlist. I guess it's the same. Categories was better for me to understand. So there's like 12 volts, there's 120. There's plumbing. For some people, like I said, uh, maybe they know what plumbing is, maybe they don't. So now I'm learning on the YouTube channel to break it down even simpler. The old KISS, keep it simple, Simon. So once again, I'm gonna say I learn every day. So there's 860 plus videos. Everything's RV Diagnostics. My paid membership website is $200 a year. That's where I help you. And folks, I will spend hours with you to get you to your goal. But at the end of it, I might ask you, please learn where everything is. Take pictures and go, okay, I took this picture of this box and it's part number one, two, three, four, five, six. Now it's your job to go on the internet, look up that part number, they'll tell you it's the toe tickler module. And then you write that down. The more you know where your stuff is, the faster I get you back up. I know you don't know how to troubleshoot because you're calling me. But I have one guy actually ask for his money back. Um, this was a long time ago, because I didn't know where a relay was. And I said, uh, do you understand? I can get the same model in, and they're all different floor plans. I says, and nothing's ever the same place. It's it's not like a Toyota car or a Honda or Chevy. The computer's over there in that one spot, and I know that, unless the year changes. But uh there's two playlists that I like people to look at. I would like them to look at all of them, but one is called From the Chair. That's me just getting up early in the morning. My wife leaves me alone. She knows this is what I love to do. I'm basically retired, but probably never gonna stop working. It's just there you go. Why quit what you love to do? Um so from the chair, it's just me talking about stuff. Then the other one's called appropriate school time. It's time to put you in school, time to get your mentality together. Um, add all that YouTube, I actually have 90-some techs following me because that's the problem with some techs. Um, God bless them. I was a young man, 1972, when I first put a wrench in my hand professionally, uh, 12 years old, or I think it was 72. Yeah, something like that. That's a long time ago. So I understand. You don't know what you're doing, and we're gonna take you on. So the YouTubes help you. I even talk about the tool, I talk about what to do with it. There's multimeter settings. Basically, the two settings you need to know is 200 volts AC, maybe 300 if you're doing a 50 amp service, and 12 volt 20 volt scale. That's it. Uh, the rest of that meter, I could tell you, I don't care if you need to know it or not. Um later. But you two, the website that guy like told you about, the relay, I I I give them the money back. Okay. If I can't satisfy you, I I don't know where everything is. They come in here, I don't know where it is. We have to look. We have to do a a general rule of thumb you learn.
SPEAKER_03But $200 a year is less than you'd pay most techs for one hour of RV tech time, like on site. So it's not an expensive buy-in if it's only for the year. So and it that gives us access to you throughout the year to get information, like when we're stumped or when we have questions, that is worth its weight in gold. So it is. Yeah, we'll link everything in the show notes, rvdiagnostics.com and your YouTube channel. Jeff, thanks so much for your time and your expertise, but don't go anywhere because if you want to hear Jeff in the lightning round, I'm gonna have to hit stop on the recording. But there's gonna be a whole lightning round where we're gonna ask Jeff for his craziest quick fire answers. And then it's a bonus recording. You can only find that recording on our YouTube channel. So that one will be video only. Until next time, keep the wheels turning. Thanks for joining us today on Learn to RB the podcast.
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