We love our Lance 1995 travel trailer. Everything on it has worked well except for one component. It’s not that it doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work very long. I’m talking about the wind sensor in our Carefree Latitude awning. It has a motion sensor in it that detects awning movements caused by the wind and is there to protect the awning from wind damage by automatically retracting the awning. It is powered by two hearing aid batteries and they only last for about 6 weeks or so. It’s maddening. The sensor connects back to the awning controls via Bluetooth and when the batteries in the sensor go dead, of course it stops communicating. When it stops communicating with the awning controls the awning will retract half way, and then beep every 30 seconds. If you put the awning back out, it will again retract half way, and of course the beeping will continue as long as there is power to the awning. Even if you retract it all the way!

The workaround is to extend your awning and then turn the power off. Voilà! No more beeping. Of course if it gets windy the awning will not retract and could be damaged by the wind. Well, for about the 10th time since I’ve owned the trailer my awning started it’s beeping routine again. I removed the wind sensor from the awning (it’s under the front end cap) and opened it up.

Changing the batteries were not going to do any good as water had intruded through the screw holes and corroded the circuit board.

I called Carefree and after waiting on hold for 40 minutes was told that they would send me a new wind sensor for a little under $90 US. I did some research on the Lance Owners of America website and found that many people had received an updated sensor that takes AAA batteries and had received it for free. I decided to try their automated DIY warranty process on their website. I put in all the requested info an uploaded the above picture to them. I then received an email from them:

This was very good news to me. Not only are they sending me a new wind sensor but an entire Bluetooth kit! Free of charge. I was starting to wonder about Carefree’s customer service after having no luck getting hold of anyone the first time I called (6 months ago) and then told I would have to pay this time. I’ll post an update after I receive the kit and install the new sensor.