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Radiator Hose blew
Guys,
On 65 North on the way home from Branson Mo and Blew a lower radiator Hose. Fluid everywhere. Noticed something was leaking pulled over right as got check engine and shut down on dash. I have called Prevost service. They are going to try and send someone to help.
Any suggestions?
Bill
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23 Replies
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Update,
It’s just not my weekend…. Prevost suggested Mobile tech struck out… couldn’t find replacement hose. Option B Getting towd… to a walmart or someplace off the road until we can find someone who can fix it.
I guess were paying our dues from 30,000 miles and 49 states and hardly an issue.. Should have listened to Peter who never travels on holidays or weekends.
It will end up being a $30 hose.
Bill
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Bill
Where are you? Branson? Don’t put the hook on it, hang on.
BA is not far from you.
Later
bv -
Bernie,
Might not have any options….
I will keep you posted.
Bill -
Call me Bill
310 242 7880
Later
bv
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Bernie ,contacted me this evening. Bill and I spoke couple of times. We are about 4 + hrs. apart.
Bill, is making arrangments for towing and repair. Family I understand has been taken to motel.
If part he needs is in KC….. I’ll pick up and bring it to him.
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Bill wish I was closer or my guys where , or I would send somebody but I am in Kamloops BC you have being there before , hope you get it fixed right
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Sorry I did not see this till late….Branson Motor Coach in Branson has service truck and would surely come to get you….417-336-5935…..services tremendous amount of Tour buses in/out of Branson…has towing connections, Owner Ken Irwin….good luck, sorry I did not see this sooner, Al to the rescue..
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Thanks guys… for all the help. We opted out of the tow tonight after the operator got here we have the part off and they Central States Power will be sending someone out in the morning to hopefully get us going.
So were going to spend our first night on the side of the road… after 10.5 hours whats a few more
Thanks to Al and Bernie for all the help.
Bill -
Rodger
I hope you know Ken at Branson Motorcoach. If I owned the place and I knew my employee talked to customers like he spoke to me, I would want to know.
They advertise all the good stuff, 24 hours, mobile, service everything.When I talked to them Prevost already called them for Bill and when I called I guess I interupted whatever the guy on call was doing. He told me they were closed until 8am tomorrow, not once, twice and that he thought maybe they could get him in tomorrow afternoon but they were very busy. I said he can’t move do you have a hose for it we can pick up and was told again that I can find out at 8am in the morning if they have a hose and if it was a 90 degree hose it would probably have to be ordered.
All this time I am thinking of firing off on this guy for his shortness, unhelpfull additude and why are you advertising 24 hour service. I didn’t want to burn a bridge for Bill if he needed them so I politelty said goodbye.
If you don’t work Holidays, don’t advertise 24 hour service. I’m still pissed off about this guys tude and I wouldn’t go there on a last resort.
Later
bv -
Good luck with everything. This can happen to any of us at any time.
An Entertainer Driver I have become friends with keeps a full set of hoses and belts on the Star’s coach he drives.
Where can we order the exact set of hoses as a back up to keep on our coaches? I have attempted to do this a few times with no luck. My preference would be factory or DD hoses. I have a full set of belts but not hoses.
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That is the question. Was thinking about adding a set of hoses to the spares list for my as-yet non-existent coach, then I thought, why not change them out as part of the zeroing process and have done with it? How likely is a new hose going to blow? Then perhaps change them every five years or so. Thoughts anyone?
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Hoses definitely are life limited by time.
The DD hoses are very high quality and have a long life, but can fail. I think the best course of action is to pick an age at which hoses will be replaced, including hoses for the house which are of a lesser quality. I replace hoses at a coolant change interval since the system is drained anyway.
But in between changes hoses are part of the list of things to inspect when I am under the coach. The quickest way to convert a perfectly good engine to a boat anchor is to let it get hot, and a sudden loss of coolant will do that.
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So guys here is the happy update on the happenings over the past 24 hours.
We broke down at 1:30 on Monday afternoon. Prevost helped me locate a mobile tech who removed the hose and tried to find a replacement but wasn’t successfull. Coach Net arranged for a tow that was supposed to arrive at 10pm I found Central power sytems in Springfield and they suggested a different company given the bus. So I cancelled coachnet and waited until almost 11pm for the other tow. It was raining like crazy and less than ideal to try and tow this so I called it off. I was postive something was going to get massively screwed up or someone injured so we kept the flashers on and did our best to get some sleep.
6 am this morning I drove the car into town with the blown hose and went to Central Power Systems. Terry one of the office guys spent the next hour or so driving all around town to find something that would work. We finally found a gates hose that was available that we thought would work. Returned to the shop and had the field service guy look it over and he was confident he could make it work. Loaded up 15 gallons of coolant and off we went. Got it all back together and burped in another gallon after it warmed up and off we went. Cody followed me in the service truck for 20 miles and then we pulled off and checked it again. All was well and off we went to home base…. So… a $70 dollar hose really put the damper on things…. As you all know…I am fairly new to the group… and God knows have been lucky to travel 49 states and nearly 40K miles with hardly an issue… but this whole deal was a wake up call and this is what I have learned for what it’s worth. Hope this might help some others….
1) Listen to Peter don’t travel on weekends or holidays if you can avoid it… Had I left today this would have been so so much easier
2) Like Jon suggested in a previous post, I will now change all hoses when I change coolant… system is empty and it just makes sense. Like BA told me today… can’t always tell if a hose is going to blow from the outside… mine exploaded from the inside… they all had been visually checked by several people.
3) DD guys indicated that our buses are not configured like standard trucks and it would be difficult to get a DD replacement for what I had issues with…. So going forward I am also going to try and figure out what non standard hoses I have… anything other than straight and attempt to get them to carry with me… had i had the $70 hose this would have been a non issue and off I went… There are a bunch of hoses from what I can see but most are straight so carrying a couple of straight and then all the weird stuff would be good insurance.
4) another big lesson I learned and potentially the most dangerous for me was think about where emergency equipment is stored in the bus… In my case all my stuff safety triangles, backup fluids, hoses etc are in bay three drivers side. only reason I can say for having them there is that where the previous owner had them…. I have never needed them in an emergency but getting to them with lawn chairs in front of then when your 18″ off the white like with 18 wheelers flying by really really sucked… They are all getting relocated to the curb side.
5) Final thing… I knew this before but just have to say it again.. PC is the best and it’s members are the best. within a very short time… on a holiday PC members… some that I haven’t even met were on the phone making calls for me… offering suggestions and providing very good feedback. Owning and driving a prevost has been a life long dream of mine and they are amazing machines…. I am postive my first Prevost expereince would have been very different were it not for the input from all the great folks here…. So again cudos to Jon and Tom for putting it all together and for my most recent misadventure special thanks to Bernie, AL and Jeff for all jumping in and offering to lend a hand. Al called me this morning and was going to try and find the hose in KC and drive it to me…. Unbelievable…. but most appreciated.
Happy to report that the bus has been washed an put back in it’s garage and is resting comfortablly… and I am not far behind it.
Bill
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This is on the bus…. Not sure how to rotate it inside the forum….
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I may be wrong on this, but my experiences suggest not.
The blue hoses with a fabric type texture on the outer surface are what I consider to be DD quality and I believe their life to be exceptional. I have never had an issue with any of them nor have I ever replaced one. But I look very hard at them and at my next coolant change the coach will be 10 years old and the lower short hose sections will be replaced because I need to redo the clamps in that area anyway.
The red hoses with a smooth outer surface are used in several places associated with the Webasto inside the house. They are getting changed at 10 years. I think their life span is longer than 10 years but because they are hidden I just don’t need the grief of a failed hose.
Black hoses of automotive quality as shown in the photos above are of the lousiest quality and I do whatever I can to get rid of them. Right now I have none on the coach. I do have short sections of small diameter hose such as used in cars and those might be OK for the long term, but I have been replacing them about 5 or 6 years and when I can do it, I replace them with hose the quality of the blue engine hose.
Hoses are cheap. Clamps are cheap. Sometimes the labor to replace even a short hose section is a lot, but when less than $100 worth of hose eliminates a very expensive problem the effort to replace hoses is well worth it especially if the task is combined with coolant changes. I was luckier than Bill because I had a failure of a short hose section on our first coach and the loss of coolant was at a relatively slow rate and I was near a truck repair shop that had a piece of hose. And I had looked at the failed section of hose often and saw no indication it was going to fail. That was an eye opener.
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