[Dick]

As some of you know, I’ve spent the past 18 months visiting various manufacturers and documenting much of my experiences and have taken the tact of a pure newbie…which I am.

Whether it’s Tiffin or any of the major Class A manufacturers, it seems the elephant is the room can be summed up in two words: Quality Control. I’ll add to that another issue that seems to be the root cause…low quality components.

As we know the recession triggered a consolidation of the manufacturers and suppliers and basically two companies (Thor and Berkshire Hathaway) currently control 80%+ of the industry. Add Winnebago to the mix and that number rises to 90%. As we know, the recession was not limited to the motorhome industry and took its toll on bus converters as well.

When the economy entered the recovery stage and consumer confidence levels started to rise, interest rate and gas prices were at record lows and the pent up demand from potential owners who delayed purchases, placed unprecedented pressure on the remaining manufacturers to extend manufacturing to maximum capacity. This created the perfect storm for this industry and has resulted in record sales at all levels of the food chain.

However, when a factory is operating at full capacity, unless procedures are put in place in advance, from what I’ve seen, it seems there’s little room on the floor to correct defects before a coach leaves the floor and that burden is now placed on the dealer. As we’ve learned, dealers that perform PDI’s prior to delivery to the end user are few and far between and places the burden of locating the defects on the user. Many times these defects aren’t immediately apparent. Add to the equation that many buyers are first timers who don’t know what to look for during delivery and the it’s a good chance new units are leaving the lots with various defects and return visits will be required. This in turn places the strain of repairing the defects on the service departments which did not expand at the same pace of sales and results in long waits and a lot of frustration. Yes, the motorhome industry has become a victim of its own success. If you have some time, stop by and hang out at a super dealer’s service department and talk to some of the customers who are waiting for a coach to be repaired. It’s just sad.

How does this relate to the recent Tiffin decision?

Yes, Bob Tiffin has developed a strong reputation for delivering a quality product and a positive customer service experience. But it seems that even Bob was not prepared for the spike in consumer demand. I can only guess that limiting factory support is the only way for his company to take care of current coaches as even the factory service center has capacity limitations. Tiffin has stated it has has expanded its dealer tech training program, but it appears it’s nearly impossible to keep up with the demand.

Somewhat related is a conversation I had with a major manufacturer’s PR manager a few months ago. I asked a simple question: When new coaches are being transported across the country from the factory to the various dealers, shouldn’t the driver have a checklist that can identify the issues that were spotted during the drive so the issues can be addressed prior to purchase? I wasn’t prepared for the answer. It seems that’s not the job of the drivers.

In July, the Editor of the RV Daily Report released an eight part investigative piece that looked into the problems of the RV industry. If you’re interested in this topic, it’s a well researched piece of Journalism. Here’s a link:

http://rvdailyreport.com/opinion/opinion-the-rv-industry-death-spiral-part-1/

[Cody]

Jon wrote: why some people won’t consider a used Prevost in the price range of a new conventional RV.

I have wondered the very same thing. When I’ve been on the other RV forums I have seen posts from people who have bought two or three or four brand new “conventional RV’s” over the years. The depreciation they have experienced must be stunning.

With the price of a “new convenional RV” (as Jon refers to them) now apparently just moving over $1 million dollars, I would think that spending $600,000 to $700,000 on a clean, reasonably maintained, preowned Prevost and then spending $50,000 to $100,000 to redo the interior and another $50,000 with Jeff Rowe to really, really zero it out would make make much more economic sense in the long run.

I’ve read stories about owners of “new convenional RV’s” who spend three to six month with the dealer and/or back to factory to get issues taken care of. Is this par for the course with a “new convenional RV”? Or are these relatively isolated situations that are not indicative of how things work with “new convenional RV’s”? I hope its probably “not indicative” … especially for the sake of the owners and their familes.

So why then does it appear RVs are reluctant to look at a preowned Prevost vs dropping what used to be extremely high six figures and now seven figures on a “new convenional RV”?

While I was exposed to Prevosts in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s by a close friend, went on race trips with him in his Liberty Prevost, attended the Liberty Daytona 500 rallys at Bulow Campground near Flagler Beach as his guest, met the entire Konigseder family and Bill Dohety, and went through the Liberty factory in North Chicago with him two or three times … when we started looking for a motorhome a Prevost was not on any short list. I expected that given what I wanted to spend on a “motorhome” of any type would leave my with a much older Prevost than we would be happy with (no offense to anyone with an older Prevost). I was concerned that a really older Prevost would have maintenance issues I didn’t want to deal with and of course while I owned it … it would get older.

But then I started to notice Prevosts for sale in the vintages I would consider (before I understood when the engine switch to S-60 took place, or when IFS became available, or when 45′ became available, etc.) that were in my arbitrary price range.

I thought, “Huh. Maybe a Prevost is attainable.”

I figured there probably was a website for Prevost owners and first found POG. Paid my money, signed up, and started to learn. Then we went to a race at Road America and paddocked two or three cars over was George Prentice with his Country Coach XLV. I’d met George a few years before that through racing, but didn’t know he was a Prevost owner. He helped educate me. He also pointed me to the PC Forum which is where I really increased my knowledge about Prevosts. Then we went to Jamie’s first All Prevost Show in Tampa which really convinced us that (1) we wanted a Prevost and (2) there would very good coaches available in our price range.

So we bought a coach. Did we spend more money that I originally expected to? A little. Did the zero out cost more than I expected? Yes, but pretty much what Jeff Rowe prepared me for. Have we had some unexpected expenses? Yes. Some self-inflicted, some things just got old on our 1999 coach (OTR compressor, refrigerator, water heater, etc.). Have we had trips cancelled because of “coach problems”? Yes, two short ones (five month old battery with dead cell and the Vanner Equalizer Monitor “burned up”).

Are we happy with our coach and our experience? Of course we are.

When I read about the issues that RVers are having with their “new[er] convenional RV’s” and compare those to what we’ve had with our now 18 year old Prevost … I am very happy (actually “giddy”) with the decision that we made.

So back to Jon’s original question: “why some people won’t consider a used Prevost in the price range of a new conventional RV?”

I think that ignorance plays a significant role in this. The development of the two Prevost dedicated web sites and forum plus the growing number of Prevost orientated Facebook pages are making great strides in lifting the veil on what buying, owning, maintaining, and enjoying a Prevost is all about. I think too many non-Prevost owners think a Prevost is too expensive to buy and too expensive to own and operate … neither of which is true if all factors are taken into account over the long term period of ownership and compared to a “conventional RV”.

I think a Prevost motorhome is superior to “new [or pre-owned] conventional RV” for a number of reasons:

1. The Prevost chassis. Built to last a million miles, bullet proof, its systems are tried and true. After seated coaches and entertainer coaches, motorhomes are a small percentage of chassis built … so motorhomes ride on the coat tails of seated and entertainer coaches as far as engineering and R&D. The same holds true for the Prevost owned service centers scattered across the country.

2. I’ve come to the conclusion from reading what very knowledgeable and experienced people have posted, pretty much all the Prevost converters did from very good to outstanding jobs doing their conversions.

3. I’ve also come to the conclusion from reading what very knowledgeable and experienced people have posted, most of the shops specializing in Prevost motorcoach repair, maintenance, and refurbishing are very competent, have knowledge and skilled technicians, and treat their customers fairly.

Put that all together …. I really wonder “why some people won’t consider a used Prevost in the price range of a new [or late model] conventional RV?”

This topic would make a really good thread all on its own.

[Mike]

If we want to help ourselves understand why some people shy away from a used Prevost but will spend serious money on a conventional RV we should look at our forums.

A substantial part of our discussions relate to service issues. To an observer it might be concluded all of our coaches are unreliable money pits. We create the impression stuff breaks, we have trouble getting parts, and we don’t have a lot of places in a short distance that can fix our coaches.

But let’s try to put this in perspective. We have as of this writing about 2870 members, most of whom own a Prevost. Now look at the actual number of problems that are discussed in a thread over the last month. As a percentage of the number of coaches represented here there are not many problems. If we want to consider this further, look at the age of some of the coaches that are being discussed when we are talking about problems. How many 15 or 20 year old motorhomes are even on the road, yet here we are as owners discussing details about keeping a 15 or 20 year old Prevost conversion running reliably.

Of course a Prevost can have issues with wheel hub seals, or need to replace air bags. But so does a motorhome. Our “houses” are very robust but as well built as they are we do need to upgrade things like inverters because we need to have pure sine wave output because of the progress in technology. But nobody has ever had an issue with a frame failure around a slide, nobody has ever discussed a structural issue with the chassis. Nobody has ever complained about how the chassis or the interior was falling apart or no longer safe or roadworthy.

What we have to do is let owners of conventional motor homes understand how robust and strong our coaches are, and that its design for commercial service is why it lasts so long, why if it rolls over it will not disassemble itself, and how it meets certification standards no motorhome can meet.

[Mike]

Well said everyone.

– honestly nearly every problem post I have read here is probably 60% revolving around a air systems. IF, older conventional RV’s had full air leveling suspensions I am confident that they would have more issues than us. Of course they technically trade those for hydraulic jack issues. Anyone know someone who drove off and ripped a jack off their coach? I know at least 2 and I’ve not been in this hobby nearly as long as 90% of you.

I think in this case it’s just a matter of the number of and complexity of the various systems that are different than what the traditional Rv’s and Rv buyers are used to seeing and thinking about having to maintain.

Guru – I totally appreciated your videos as I shopped for my new Prevost. Informative & well produced.

What is extremely hard to demonstrate or quantify is the difference of the quality of what is beneath the pretty new cabinetry. John preaches not to get to “taken” by the aesthetics of a bus…. I think this is even more pronounced with a traditional rv. Why else would you cut a 30′ hole in the side of your motorhome and call it a benefit? Wow – no way!

i think a very very big item that looks past by buyers is the stainless steel frame of our buses. Regular steel underneath a conventional rv takes a beating and rusts. I’ve heard of a friend who’s grandparents had a section of their cargo area frame break free while driving out west . – boy that can’t be fun!

[Jim/Chris]

Okay where do I start. We owned a 2013 Tiffin Zephyr on the Spartan K2 chassis. It was the best RV we ever owned or drove till we got the 2016 Liberty Prevost. We had been to Red Bay twice the people at Tiffin and the community we’re so nice!! We loved visiting. The service center is on an old airport. The service building has 80 service bays, painting bays, mechanical bays with lifts and ceramic tile bays. The building has two way truck traffic down the center of the building. It’s first come first serve, but newer units get some preference. Last time we visited we were number 267 of the year. We got their early in February we were their two weeks and number 780 pulled in next to me. Liberty builds 14 new coaches a year and Tiffin builds 1,300 or 1,400 of the Phaeton’s alone!!! So Tiffin has grown dramatically. We feel so blessed to be able to own our Liberty and if I can help it we won’t ever go back!! The two biggest issues in moving from a plastic RV’s. One the price. Two is features the high end plastic RV’S have really great space, features and technology!!! The large residential type shower was an issue for the big boss. We saw some spotless like new 8 – 12 year Prevost at Liberty that would be excellent coaches, but they had curved showers. Anyone interested in RVing and if they ask my advice. I tell them skip the plastic junk and go straight to the Prevost and buy what you can afford. Okay!!

[Archived]

One thing we all have to keep in perspective is conventional motorhomes are designed and built as motor homes. If the engineers and designers begin with a clean sheet of paper they don’t have to compromise very much. A conventional motor home can have features and advantages we might not be able to have.

Our converters begin with a disadvantage because Prevost has designed our buses to be seated coaches and the shells for conversion are variations of the seated coach shell. Considering the converters have to work around the structure of the shell and bays they have their work cut out for them. They not only have to meet the demands of the buyers of their conversions regarding features, they have to work around demands of the chassis such as weight and balance issues. Conventional motor home builders can design the chassis and the house simultaneously so if they need to locate a generator in a certain spot, they can move a structural member that might have been in the way.

As conventional motorhomes get heavier and have more features they appear to be getting more like our Prevost coaches in terms of engines, tire size, transmissions, axles, brakes, etc. But there is a huge difference none of us ever want to have to experience and that is structural integrity. I have seen countless photos and videos of motor homes and buses that were damaged in a crash. I have seen the testing of bus structures. Our shells are fully welded cages that combine the frame and exterior walls and roof into one structure. The result is that single unit remains intact in almost all accidents. Windows may break and the structure may be deformed but it remains in one piece even after rolling over.

A motor home is usually a chassis or frame upon which a platform is built. From the platform down is the suspension and drive train. Upon that platform the motor home builder usually bolts or fastens the walls of the house portion. For all normal operations the frame structure is likely more than adequate, but it gets no strength from the house portion bolted on top of it and in a severe accident such as a roll over the entire motor home begins to disassemble itself.

Prevost has millions and millions of miles of commercial service on its chassis structures. That commercial experience has resulted in a chassis built to take years and miles of use. A low volume motor home producer cannot possibly have a frame structure as experienced or well tested as the one we all have making our coaches much safer than any motor home on the road.

[Mike]

This is my first post on Prevost Community. I’m a lifetime car guy and I’ve been fascinated by these machines for many years. My wife and I have been considering the retirement purchase of a Prevost conversion off and on for approximately 10 years. We’re both still working but we’ve visited Marathon in Florida and twice visited Lon at Florida Luxury Coach prior to his retirement from the business. We just returned from a vacation in Nashville. While there we visited Olympia Luxury Coach specifically to look at several non-slide units they have in stock. Much to our surprise we were amazed at how spacious they seemed and believe this may be the direction we’ll go when the time comes.

As to the question of “why some people won’t consider a used Prevost in the price range of a new conventional RV,” I think you’ve collectively hit the nail on the head.

The warranty on a new conventional RV appears to be a huge plus to the unknowing like us; apparently though, it’s pretty much a feel-good issue that oftentimes results in dissatisfaction when attempting to actually get warranty repairs according to what many folks have reported.

I agree that the ignorance of us wannabe owners as to how expensive a Prevost is to buy, own and operate can be reversed through membership in forums such as this one and POG. Experienced forum members are vital to us learning what we need to know to make informed decisions, and I’m looking forward to learning all I can. I very much appreciated the Gadget Guru’s motorcoach-related youtube videos, specifically his Prevost for Newbies series.

The idea that the forums give an overwhelming sense of impending doom as far as service issues are concerned is very real. I too thought that at the current price of admission these things would be much more bulletproof than what the forums seem to indicate. It all boils down to a fear of the unknown and education is the only remedy, along with the ability to resist today’s predominant thinking that newer is always better. That’s not a big issue for me as my current play toy is a correctly restored 1931 Model A Ford.

While the impressive sight of a Prevost going down the road is what originally piqued my interest, the safety factor is a huge consideration, along with what I’m told is a ride quality like none other, although I haven’t experienced that yet. As Jon stated, “a low volume motor home producer cannot possibly have a frame structure as experienced or well tested as the one we all have” and that makes perfect sense to me. Additionally, the build quality seems to be outstanding. The 14-16 year old buses we toured at Olympia had interior fit & finish that appeared as new. I paid particular attention to the alignment of the cabinet doors which was perfect. By contrast, we looked at a brand new $167,000 Forest River class A unit at another local dealer. Not only did that unit not give any immediate sense of quality upon entry but also had a piece of interior trim laying across the bed that had already fallen off! Granted, that unit was far from equivalent in price to most used XL2s, but there’s still no reason for parts to be falling off of a brand new unit while still on the dealer’s lot.

To bring this post full circle, we’ve already learned that we can be comfortable in a non-slide coach without the cost, complexity, maintenance, added weight and resultant lower fuel efficiency of a slide coach. That, combined with our intent to change locales frequently while exploring this great country has led us to a non-slide decision at this point in time. If that changes it will likely be due to something I read here… or a great buy on a single-slide coach.

My second post is already in the General Discussion area regarding overhead clearance, and I know I’ll have many more questions along the way. Thanks in advance for your assistance.

[Ron]

On thes forums we don’t do ourselves or potential buyers any favors because a lot of our discussions are about how to repair or replace things that break.

The reality is if you have a coach that has progressive maintenance, and you take care of little things before they become a real issue we have incredible reliability. To put that in context we all have fairly sophisticated houses sitting inside a motor vehicle. We not only have the potential for issues to do with the quality of the chassis part of our conversion, we have a house with a whole lot of features and sophitication that is getting vibrated by pot holes, expansion joints and other forces never experienced in the average home.

Then to further make this meanigful we have about 3100 members, with the vast majority being owners. Yet despite the size of the fleet that is represented here and the number of miles it travels annually we have relatively few problems being discussed, and of those very few are big ticket items like engines or transmissions.

A substantial percentage of my cost of operating the coach is dedicated to routine maintenance and replacement of parts to my schedule based on what I think is their useful life, and almost zero unplanned repairs.

[Archived]

I met Jon and the Prevost Community group at a rally they were having at Lazydays in Seffner. At that time we still owned our Entegra. We were at LD for service and had been there almost 6 weeks at that time. So after much round chair conversation, my wife and I decided it was time to move on. Our coach was less than 18 mos old, we had 2 winters at LD waiting, with not much time for sightseeing on our time off, but sitting at the dealership waiting on sub-par service . And the manufacturer was of little help too.

We are self employed and use our coach for work and don’t like or want to spend all of our time off getting things looked at. We go to Florida in the winter, have our service done somewhere, and head back to Wisconsin by May. A lot more fun now that we are NOT controlled by our coach.

[Bob]

A lot of good points have been made. I just want to make a point for something that is unique to Prevost, although certainly not all Prevost conversion have the feature, and that is the OTR system. There is no other conventional/production motorhome with this feature.

[Archived]

Good point Per ,

At this point My OTR air is working great. Took the coach out for some exercise a few days ago. The tempature was around 90 and very humid. After driving for about 30 minutes I had to turn on the wipers to clear the fog off of the windshield. I know a entertainer that has a converted MCI that has to run his generator 100% of the time to run the multiple roof air units to keep it cool. And yep , He had to replace the generator after a couple of years on the road 4 days a week. Although it was used when he bought it, And undoubtedly had mega hours on it when he got it. Personally , if I were looking for another coach. One not having OTR air would be a deal breaker.

Safe travels,

Rocky

[Lars]

We don’t have OTR air as we have a four slide coach which eliminates the OTR air option.

Like most all conversions, we have four roof air units. Ours can be run WITHOUT the generator as we have four inverters and four alternators. I have not needed four airs on the hottest days while rolling down the road, generally, two are fine along with the dash air with the passenger aux on.

I know that OTR air aficionado’s would cringe at just having roof air, I just wanted to point out that the genny is not needed if you have enough inverters. But, I’ll most likely run the genny as it needs exercise anyway.

Safe travels,

Mark

[Tim]

Mark.

Our problem with running the ACs off the inverters is that the two inverters that work that way are the galley and the bedroom unit. If we want to run just two ACs, the ones we would want are the salon and the cockpit ACs, so we end up running the generator like we did in our last coach. With an older coach with ACs that sometimes act up, I just liked having the OTR as a second system. We actually run the generator with CruiseAirs most of the time, since that allows us to have AC when we stop enroute.

P.S. We are camped out at Ruidoso Motorcoach Ranch for 5 days. Have you and Craig been here yet? No polar bears here, so Craig has to come up with a black bear joke!

P.S.S. Margrit says hello to you guys!

[Bryan]

Per,

My two A/C’s I can run off the Inverters are the Salon & Bedroom; however, like you and many here (who don’t have OTR air), I turn on the generator if I turn my A/C’s on going down the road.

Only needed them once while running down the road, and that was heading into the sun in 95 degree heat.

BTW: I think this thread has drifted a little from BA’s original intent …

[robert]

Per, no, we haven’t been to the Ruidoso Motorcoach Ranch yet. I remember you mentioning it in previous posts and it sounds like a nice place to stop (it’s on our list)!

Safe travels, hi to Margrit!

Mark

PS. ‘C’ says hi too!