WINDOW SHADES or BLINDS for privacy and heat or cold mitigation.
SKIP TO BOTTOM TO SEE kit installation information and pictures.
There are many solutions on the market for RV shades/blinds. This thread provides information on a REMIS brand of privacy shades/blinds that come in a kit for the front windshield and the two front driver & passenger roll up windows.
This kit is actually a new Class B RV option for 2019 through current RAM Promaster based Travato's. It is currently a kit, listed as Option 28D for $300. You can also order this same kit through a WINNEBAGO authorized dealer's parts department if you know the right part number. This is a kit, meaning it positively includes the front windshield and driver and passenger door shades. Read on. I will emphasis our fun in getting a dealer to order this.
First, this kit may be used on other standard, full size RAM Promasters or RV motorhome converted RAM Promasters of these same years. Likely any brand Class B or C motorhome in a RAM Promaster unless the RV conversion messed around with the A pillars. It can be used in a 2014 or later but there are some differences in the earliest PM's re how the side A Pillar molded covers are shaped. James from FITRV has an excellent video re his installation of this kit into what he describes as his 2015/2016 Travato 59G he and his wife had until recently; they have a WB Ekko on a FORD Transit now. Back to the full size ProMaster, this kit was designed to truly fit in at least 2018 and newer, so far, have the same shaped plastic cover and part number for these covers on the front A pillars. Again, see that it can be done on an older PM via the FITRV video which is on YouTube at
Ok - so the reason why I installed this kit was to get rid of the somewhat bulky, WINNEBAGO pair of folding front windshield covers as well as the side driver and passenger covers made of the same stuff. These actually work pretty well and do provide some limited amount of cold/heat resistance. Even though this REMIS kit may not seem as resistive to heat and cold, they actually seem to do fairly well. In part because they actually fit better and are super easy to use. Not awkward to unfold and orient as the original WB shades. Sort of nit pickin, the WB's aren't so bad. But storing them takes up precious room.
So here is the fun part. Even though James/FITRV clearly defines the correct WINNEBAGO part number for this shade "kit", that will supply you all three shades, this was a barrel of fun to get our local dealer to order. First however, I personally wanted to make sure this WB pn -
326054-01-01a was for my own satisfaction, correct. So I called WINNEBAGO and they verified this was the complete REMIS kit that James noted in his video. IN fact, this s the only pn you can order this by. Meaning, you can't just get the front shade; your going to get all three. Thats fine; I was after this anyway. So with the WB over the telephone confirmation, I then decided to do a Google search on the number, as well as Google REMIS. I did this very which way from Sunday. Unless something changes when you might do this search, your basically going to come up with nothing under REMIS that zeros in on this particular kit, or even this front shade only. At least in my search. You might hit it from BING or other search engines. In any case, I found limited results that pointed to the WB pn so I continued down that road. Contacted a few dealers but ultimately found same or nearly same price so why not order it from our local WB dealer. In case the order got delivered damaged or missing something. Seemed practical, right?
I should have just ordered it from LICHTZEN in Iowa. At least from another order, it was smooth and right. Nice folks to work with too.
All dealers by the way, order for you with the caveat that shipping will be extra, but charged after arrival since its not estimated by WB beforehand. Ok. I don't like dealing with unknown $$ but seemed it was standard procedure with LICHTZEN and our local dealer so we proceeded to order the 326054-01-01a. Easy as pie. Paid for it and wait for the dealer Parts Dept to call us when it arrived, estimated to be about a week. And it was about a week when we got the call. And now the trouble began.
Dealer parts person puts a 68" x 6" x 6" carton on the counter. Hmmm, I know the side window shades fold up but not thinking this 6 inch square box contains the front windshield shade assembly and the albeit compact side driver & passenger shades. We open the box which I note has a pn label indicating Qty 1: 10066585. More mental Hmm.
Summary: 15 minutes later, the parts person is insisting this is our 326054-01-01a. Even after I indicate my confirming source was a phone call to WB before this order, another dealer I checked for pricing and potential ordering, and the FITRV video. Oh, and the $90 (wife has the exact $) shipping charge for an 18 lb delivery. This box in my estimation, was less than 18. I asked (again) if there wasn't another smaller box containing the other two pieces which the parts person still didn't want to acknowledge, came with. We left the dealer with the front shade, agreeing that the parts person would call WB the next morning (diff time zone).
We began our 23 mile to home trip and about a mile away, got a call from the dealer. I think the Parts Manager who was involved in the latter part of our discussion, learned that this box came inside a larger box with packing material and gosh, our other two shades. Now the story might be tweaked a bit but the end result is all three items were there, except that larger box was already on its way to the dumpster when they discovered a smaller box. We went back to the dealer and wala, our kit was complete, and seemed in my guesstimation to be close to 18 lbs alltogether. I also guessed that UPS charged Dimensional weight and later, determined that was the case. My rough guessing of total physical size in a single, larger carton came to about the $90 we had to pay extra. I can't argue foul on that; its just still shocking that today this costs that much to ship 18 lbs for that much. But fuel costs and higher labor wages adds up.
We got what we ordered but it took a bit to get the parts person to look deeper into this and realize my facts were good. Granted they are faced with issues every day where the customer is, well, wrong. Hence I didn't get nuts on the parts person. As long as it could be worked out, even with two round tripos so far and was heading for a third round trip. 46 miles rt x 3 = some fuel usage at todays prices, plus time. All good in the end. How was it to install? And how does it look? One picture included here, if I did it correctly. The rest will be included in Part 2. The URL to the FITRV video noted above along with the pictures in Part 2 will show this was very simple to install the windshield shade with a minimum of simple tools.
REMIS Front Shades Kit acquisition story - Part 1
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