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Considering 2005 Prevost Legendary Coach
My family and I currently own a 1996 Prevost Marathon XLV non slide which we have been very pleased with. We are considering upgrading our coach to something newer and for the past year, have looked at many early to mid 2000’s model coaches. We are seriously considering purchasing a 2005 Prevost XLII Legendary coach with 2 Prevost slides. I am unfamiliar with Legendary but I do know that the coach is an “orphan” ( the converter is out of business). Does anyone on Prevost Community own a Legendary coach and if so, have you been pleased? Are there any common issues with Legendary conversions that I should be aware of? I have heard that Legendary was at one time a subsidiary of Marathon Coach? How complicated is the conversion to work on and find parts for? The interior fit and finish and the overall quality of the conversion appears to be very good but the fact the Legendary is no longer in business concerns us. Marathon Coach has excellent customer support and has been extremely helpfull everytime I have called them to chase an issue with our coach or taken the coach to Marathon in San Antonio for service. The coach did have a problem with delamination but was reskinned and re painted at Prevost Jax. Have any other XLII owners experienced delamintion issues? If so, has the fix that Prevost does for the XLII held up well? On our current coach, we have Prevost OTR A/C as well as 3 cruise air units. The OTR AC is priceless on a hot summer day. We live in FL and often drive the coach in 95 degree heat during the summer, so being able to cool the entire coach while driving down the road is very important to us. The Legendary has a cooling system I am totally unfamiliar with: it is a coleman basement central AC system and the coach also has drivers AC ( no OTR). Does anyone else have this system in their coach and if so, does it keep the coach cool in hot weather? How does it perform while driving compared to Prevost OTR? We spent several hours looking at the coach but have not yet driven it. How does the driving experience of the XLII compare with the XLV? Any insight you all can provide me from an owner’s perspective would greatly help us in our decision. Thank you in advance!
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12 Replies
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Legendary was the result of a principal leaving Country Coach and building his own coach. They are very similar. I believe 20 some were built before a lawsuit stopped production. If you think OTR is priceless, you will probably not be happy.The XLII chassis is a very nice improvment from the XLV. Geo.
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I have a 2008 Legendary XL-II. It has been a good coach. It does NOT have bus air, so if that is on your list of things you have to have…move on to something else.
Mine has been very good as far as quality of the interior goes. It has many of the same things in use to this day…Crestron, Headhunter water pump and toilet, Trace 4000 watt inverters and the Kohler generator. I would say that most of the issues I have had were with the chassis more than the house side. I have roof airs, so I can not say how the basement air will work. Dave Rousey from Styleworks RV is available to help if you have questions..he used to work for Legendary. He also has wiring diagrams etc. if they are not in the coach. Also Jeff Rowe can do pretty much whatever you would need as well.
I have also had the Prevost delamination repair. No panel issues like before. I like the slides, but I have a newer version than the 2005 will have. Even so, I think that year would be ok.
You should drive it to see if you like it. I don’t think you have IFS, and the XL-II will. I think mine handles very well.
I think someone here at PC has a Coleman basement air unit for sale…they had one. Maybe they will resond as to how well it worked.
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It’s on the Flea Market.
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I apologize in advance if I offend any Legendary owners with my comments. They are nice coaches, their fit and finish, and floor plans are more like a fiberglass mid range coach. But they are a price point coach. I had a country coach with the same ac units. This coach will NOT compare to the OTR ac. If that is important, this will not be the same. I had one ac unit that stopped working while on the road and having just one was unbearable to say the least, we actually had to cut our trip short and go back home, because it was too hot inside the coach and not everyone can work on these basement units. I had to find a specialist to fix mine and it took several weeks to get it resolved. Also they recommend while driving the coach, that you only run the passenger side ac and not the driver side ac. The front slide covers the upper vents and creates high pressure on the ac unit and can cause it to trip a breaker. So if you are driving with only one ac it gets warm. I live in Florida as well and ac is important.
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I don’t know what Legendary you looked at, but my floor plan is virtually the same as anything from Liberty or Marathon was in the 2006 era. Granted, the finishing work is not as elaborate or grand as a Liberty, but it sure isn’t bad.
I have all roof airs, so like I said, I have no first hand experience with basement a/c. I did however, talk to a Legendary owner at a rv park one time a couple of years ago, and he said he really liked the basement a/c. Said it kept him nice and cool and ran quiet.
I still say the op should drive it and see for himself if he likes it or not. That is the only way to determine his questions.
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For potential buyers we who do own coaches should try to explain some of the terminology we tend to use to help avoid confusion.
OTR is used to mean “over the road air” and it is meant to be the Prevost installed whole coach air conditioning and heating system used when driving. As an acronym it has been abused because some owners whose coaches do not have OTR as manufactured by Prevost will claim their coach has OTR when in fact it is a much smaller system installed by the converter. If a coach does not have Prevost installed OTR, at the very least it will have “driver’s air” which will provide AC at the dash vents.
Cruise Airs are air conditioning (and sometimes heat pumps) that are split units with the condensing units located in a bay, center section or behind the front bumper. The evaporator units are then located in various places through the coach. Their AC output is typically 13,000 BTU so a 40 foot coach probably has 3 units, and a 45 foot coach, especially one with slides will have 4 units.
Roof air unitsd are as the name suggests and they are combined condenser and evaporator units located on the roof of a coach. Their output is similar to that of Cruise Airs in the 13,000 to 15,000 range. They may have heat strips or may function as heat pumps. Typically there are 3 on a 40 foot coach and 4 on a 45 foot coach. Entertainer coaches are likely to have at least five units.
Basement units are “packaged” systems and are twice the output of a roof or Cruise Air AC unit. As the name suggests they are located in the bays and a coach may have one unit combined with two roof airs or it may have two units and no other AC unit. I believe a typical basement unit has a 26,000 BTU output.
1999 XLV X-6872, liberty #440 -
Very well explanined, thank you for your insight. For us Newbies, this kind of contribution of information is most helpful. thank you again.
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There is a whole lot more to any discussion of coach environmental systems and strong opinions as to what is needed, what is best, and why how and where you use a coach influences the best compromise.
That is one reason prior to buying a coach the type of use the coach will have plays a large role in focussing on a particular type of coach and its systems.
Sellers are not going to point out the shortcomings of every option, and every single choice has its plusses and minuses.
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There is a significant difference in basement storage, depending on the installed air conditioning systems. It is something we are considering since we carry a lot of dog show “stuff”.
Aqua-Hot takes up basement space. Cruise airs take up space, OTR air conditioning takes up space, Roof air/heat pumps do not take up basement space.
The space issue is lessened with the taller H3 bays but is very real with LXII. I’m on the road currently for 6 straight weeks with all our doggie stuff and provisions. We are towing our golf cart on a trailer so we can not jump in a toad and head over to Costco. Having adequate provisions on board is a must and certainly takes up space.
Just something to consider.
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Les makes a very valid point. However as with any decision regarding your needs on a coach you always have to weigh the relative value of different needs. That is one reason why I try to encourage potential buyers to give serious consideration to how they intend to use the coach, where they intend to use the coach and how often.
For example, If the coach is used by an owner of an RV resort lot, and spends a lot of time on the site as a second home it probably does not make sense to have OTR. But if the owner wants to use it a lot for travel, especially in the southwest during August giving up OTR may not be a wise choice.
The same type of thinking can be applied to all of the decisions that have to be made regarding a coach. If an owner intends to be in a different RV park every night, after a day of driving does it make sense to have slides? Conversely if the intent is to spend a week or two at various locations, does it make sense to get a no slide coach?
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Isn’t OTR also known as “bus air”?
2025 Marathon H3 / 4th Prevost
21 Ram 1500 EcoDiesel 4x4 -
Indeed it is. All these terms can get confusing, especially for those of us already confused
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