[joel]

As owners of earlier model coaches with the stacked charge air coolers know they can last a long time. I am sure some charge air coolers have been replaced on early model Series 60 coaches but they can probably be counted on the fingers of one hand.

But when Prevost went with the charge air coolers mounted on the side of the radiator they opted to use a supplier that had great paperwork but a shitty product. So now we all pay the price.

Start your coach and put it on low idle. Squirt some soapy water along the top and bottom seams of the charge air cooler that is to the left of the radiator.If it blows bubbles, a lot of them, and especially big bubbles you win the prize and get to replace your CAC. I tried to stretch mine out a little assuming I could complete a 2800 mile trip before replacing it. By the halfway point I was showing codes on the message center. By the end of the trip I was crawling up hills I could ordinarily take at 60 MPH as low as 20 MPH.

The point is if your turbo boost has begun to fail to reach the upper limit of the gauge you are beginning to near the end of the CAC life. As long as your turbo boost can reach 30 PSI you likely have some life left, but the bubbles don’t lie. When the CAC is blowing bubbles at idle you are losing turbo boost.

The only one to use is Dura-brite which ironically Prevost stocks as the replacement for their lousy choice for original equipment. It has a seven year million mile warranty.

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1999 XLV X-6872,  liberty #440

[Archived]

here is mine before replacement at fast idle also the top was leaking like the bottom.

[Ronald]

I don’t know how bad this one is it is still at Liberty in Stuart going thru PDI. Troy had it on the list to be done and hopefully they will use the Dura-Brite as a replacement. I guess we have been lucky but of all the coaches we have owned we have not had a problem that we knew about.

We are taking delivery sometime next week and lookimg forward to getting it home so we can get ready to go.

I will be checking it most likely at oil changes to see if any leaks return.

[Archived]

I had to replace mine this past October at Prevost Mira Loma. Problem became evident when check engine light came on. Huge difference in performance and nice increase in fuel mpg after change. No telling how long it has been leaking. Replaced with the unit with the one Jon recommended.

[Mike]

maybe that s why we were getting poor mileage on one of our past coaches. What kind of cars are you into ?

We have a few classics and streetrods.

[Archived]

Here’s my latest after a 9 or 10 month total rebuild using everything brand new including the frame with only the body original.

[Peter]

Now that is cool!

[Peter]

What does it cost to replace the CAC?

[Sid]

Prevost Mira Loma charged me 30650 to change out mine in October.

[Peter]

I think mine cost around $1200, and doing the job by myself without the air if a fork lift I would say I took about 8 hours.

But I expanded the job to include all new flexible hoses in the air intake system, a complete coolant change (it has to be drained anyway), and a lot of cleaning in areas of the engine compartment I never have access to with the radiator and CAC in place so I probably spent twice that amount of time.

[Peter]

We had a bunch of us go thru this last year, there are 2 or 3 pages on the Duralite replacements in the archives.

The Duralite from Prevost was 9800 when I replaced it and 8.5 hours labor. I was out the door at Mira Loma for 24000. Changed the hoses too.

I don’t know why Carguy’s bill was higher.

Anybody buying or owning a DDECV will almost certainly have this to look forward to.

I would not be believing anyone doing a pressure test and telling you it is within tollerance. If you are blowing bubbles with the soap test, change it.

Later

bv

[Archived]

CAC life of the OEM was only about 1 year for me but the Dura Lite should last the life of the coach.I have had 3 failures 1 on the 2005 and 2 on the 2008,each time it was obvious with a decrease in fuel mileage as well as the ECM spewing out several codes.

[Bryan]

Here are pictures of a charge air cooler (CAC) on 2005 XLII.

This gives you a good idea of labor involved to R&R CAC, replacing hoses, refill of coolant which was replaced with new. Road test and then recheck coolant level. Took another 2 gallons before reaching full level.

With the conversations with Prevost this CAC replacement was like Jon says fancy paper work. The winning supplier of low bid on “cooling package” . With all the components in the cooling package the CAC was believed to be serviceable for years….Wrong. Cheap manufacture short service life. Thank goodness another company had a better idea, 7 years or 1 million miles warranty. That is an impressive warranty an backing up there product.

[Corey]

Since I spent most of my working life designing and building metal products, and since I work alone on my coach I got a little frustrated when I realized what had to be done to replace the CAC.

I’m almost certain the Prevost engineers are never required to service what they design. I had to when I was in product development so I am particularly sensitive to designs that create excessive work for service. The CAC is one of those things and there is no justifiable reason for having to remove both the radiator and the CAC as an assembly. With a simple design change the CAC could be removed independently so you avoid having to disturb the cooling system, so you avoid having to handle a very heavy assembly, and so you avoid all the extra labor associated with removing the radiator.

I was very tempted to redesign the assembly method so if removal of either the radiato or the CAC had to be done in the future either could be removed without affecting the other. So in addition to poking us in the eye with a sharp stick by selecting a crappy component, we get to pay additionally for the lousy choice of CAC by getting to pay for at least twice as much labor as was needed.

Prevost………..are you reading this?