Girard Awning Service

[thomasgibbens]

I will be traveling to the southeast this summer and need to find someone to work on my Girard awnings. Has anyone found someone who is dependable and reliable in the SE?

Tom Gibbens

’15 Dynasty 

[willbo777]

Talin RV/Chris Throgmartin work on Girard.

[Dick Roberts]

Angels Landing RV Park in Pineville South Carolina has great service techs. They ordered the parts needed to repair my awning and had it working in under two hours. 
It’s also a nice park right on Lake Moultrie. 

[Guest Ray Davis]

2 hours ago, willbo777 said:

Talin RV/Chris Throgmartin work on Girard.

Chris is a member here and has shown over and over that he is very approachable and willing to advise or help.   I have read that Girards are not the easiest awnings to work on.  Chris may see this and chime in or you could contact him to discuss your problem.  Here is a link to one of his sites.  http://talinrv.com/

[Tom Cherry]

I have the Carefree Girard “WANNABE”.  I finally had it adjusted properly and it has been great since.  Tom Johnson RV (Now a CW…but they have all of their great service techs) was the trick.  They have a CG. Don’t know your issues, but they fully adjusted mine and the labor was 3/4 shop time.  They are in Marion NC.  We did two great Blue Ridge Parkway days as well as Biltmore.  Drove a little, but their CG was 1/3 $$ as the Asheville ones.

Good Luck

[throgmartin]

We are a Girard dealer and specialize in all of their awning systems. Ray is correct, Girard's are not the easiest to work on so having a lot of experience servicing them is a plus. They can be a real nightmare sometimes. It is also hard finding a tech who REALLY knows Girard's. Most techs never get an in-depth knowledge of them because their service center doesn't get a lot of the big coaches coming in with these assemblies. We have done Girard work on Prevost, Newells, Foretravels and of course the higher end Monaco's, so we see a lot of Girards.

Johnny, the former owner and president of Girard was a close friend of mine. We did a lot of events and spent a lot of time together over the years. We used to smile whenever a coach owner would come up at an event and ask if John could send one of his techs to his coach to look at their awning. The next thing they said was " I just had a tech at a service center adjust it and it isn't working right or closing properly ". We see it all the time here, someone else's hands have been in the cookie jar before they came to us and many times it turns out to be an adjustment gone wrong issue.

During a very weak moment I allowed Johnny to talk me into not only being a dealer but also a factory Rep. Because it cost Girard a ton of money to attend RV rallys Johnny would keep his staff home and use me as their rep at RV events and to be their factory support person/contact. I then trained my shop manager, Dustin, and then had him work with Girard's # 1 factory field tech for additional training and to learn some of the tricks and nuances of their awning systems. He ended up with an in-depth working knowledge of their assemblies. Since then Dustin has far surpassed me and become one of the best Girard techs in the country.

Girard's are a total different animal then Carefree or Dometic's. I don't need to explain how over the top their prices are for parts not to mention their little tool you need to properly adjust limiters. The Girard awning and slide topper assemblies are such a PITA that I have known techs at other service centers who would take the day off if they knew a Girard job was coming in. But I will give them their due respect, they are the best assemblies going. They just have their little nuances. 

If you want to schedule an appointment with us call Bethany - 352-942-2653. I haven't checked our schedule lately but I know we are always heavily booked. Call her to find out what the appointment availability is for when you will be near us. If you are not going to be anywhere near us then I suggest you contact a Girard dealer/service center. Better yet, go to Girard's new factory in Red Bay, Alabama and have the work done there by factory technicians. They are right across the street from the Tiffin factory and have a service center there. That would be my choice before going to a dealership who has a tech who may or may not know Girards.

[thomasgibbens]

We ended up stopping at the Girard service center in Red Bay primarily because it was on our way from Missouri to South Carolina. We had them replace two motion sensors on the two patio awnings and they eaeplaced our entry door Carefree awning with a Girard awning with LED light in it. Also our 8’ window awning had a shorted motor so they replaced it. They did a great job and even adjusted some of the awnings so they closed properly. They found that REV techs had adjusted the height of the front patio awning to match the rear one but had forgotten to retighten all the bolts. Not a good situation!  If you are near Red Bay, I highly recommend them!