[Archived]

Seems like someone needs to update and expand Wikipedia’s definition of bus:

Bus

[Bernie]

Don’t worry about being sick. You and your wife will be cured the first time you release the the parking brake on your Prevost. Every Prevost owner will guarantee that.

[Archived]

If owning a coach, Prevost or otherwise stretches a budget to the max my free advice is to not ever consider a coach.

First of all regardless of any other expenses a coach, bus, motorhome or whatever you want to call is is bleeding money in huge amounts due to depreciation. If you pay cash then you have the loss of earnings from the invested capital plus depreciation. If you pay on time you have the cost of interest plus depreciation.

Then you have the cost of ownership that goes beyond those costs, including fuel, insurance, repairs, replacement of parts that age such as tires and batteries. If you do not do your own maintenance or repairs the c ost of labor to maintain a coach can be breathtaking.

Even if you do a detailed cost analysis and schedule all maintenance and associated cost, you stilll have to recognize the cost of the unknown. Just a blowout, with no other damage, but the cost of roadside service the cost approaches $2000, less if the tire is a commmon size, but still substantial. Lose a motor and the cost of replacement will buy a nice car or fuel for 5 years.

[Archived]

Jon, i have owned a 45′ coachfor over 10 years and fivers prior to that. I am well aware of bleeding expenses…lol. I have no idea how much maintenance is on a BUS compared to my eagle, but we both ave 500 hp engines, eight tires, tons of electrical, a big chassis, hydro hot systems,and a hst of household appliances….I would goso far as saying myEagle may even have more “stuff” to maintain than a Royale…if not more, I bet it is pretty close.

We have no issue making payments on this, and we know where our budget is for a bus. We are on a fixed income, but it is all govt and we know exactly what it is. We have no issue making a payment, we just don’t have a million in cash…..ok, that’s a bg stretch from our budget…lol but you get the meaning. We can put xxx down, and it is a sizeable amount, but it takes nearly that to get us out from under our Eagle….I am even ok with that. but then you run into lending agencies that don’t want to do that, or then require 20%……20% isn’t a bg deal unless you spend it on this one to get right…l.ol

we are a catch 22. I can get a bus payment lower than my current Eagle, I just can’t get there from here…lol

I don’t have a coach or a bus or anything else as an investment, this is our money sucking home.

[Brett]

On another site there have been threads and posts relating to folks who want a bus conversion, but to get one their budgets are pushed to their limit.

It doesn’t matter whether the conversation relates to a newer bus conversion, and older conversion, a motorhome, or a shell the new owner plans to convert. The loud message from almost everyone is to treat such a purchase as a hobby because the word investment should never be used in any conversation about these conversions or motorhomes.

The sad part that keeps coming through is the posts that are made by people trying to sell their beloved coach are in pain. What they doted on, what they spent a lot of time and money maintaining, improving, and making part of their lifestyle turns out is valued by the market at significantly less than they felt the value should be.

The same holds true for our Prevost conversions. To use a nearly new Prevost conversion as an example that has a retail value of $500,000 or maybe more, in 5 years is likely to have a retail value of $300,000, and as a trade in will have a value of a lot less. Bottom line is even if we ignore what we all spend to use and maintain our coaches, we lost the equivalent of at least a few hundreds of thousands of dollars. An older coach will suffer less depreciation, but offsetting that will likely be significantly greater maintenance costs as compomnents age or wear out.

Your Eagle, if maintained to the same standard Prevost describes as needed maintenance is going to be costing the same to operate. I do not know how it will depreciate, but there have been folks on our site that wanted a Prevost, but the depreciated value of their conventional motorhome made the change to a Prevost very difficult. And just to be realistic, that is not that much different than an owner of an older Prevost that wants to step up and finds it difficult to deal with depreciation.

[Archived]

Pretty much spot on Jon.

Thanks