[Archived]

When I first brought my XL45 to my house, tight isn’t the word, it took me 45 miutes plus with two people guiding me to get it in the drivway. Upon leaving, realized the sweet spot travel and have not had any trouble since. Raising the tag wheels makes a great difference with the turning radius. Store the bus at a yard close by, bring home to load and do some maint.

[Will]

I’d be okay storing it at another yard, but I still would need to get it into my driveway to load/unload and, more importantly, do maintenance (which I plan to do as much of as I can).

So is the 43′ quoted turning radius (assuming accurate) with tag up or down? I don’t know what is involved in raising, lowering the tag, but if I raised it how much does that trim the quoted 43′, if at all?

[Andre]

Charlie, there may be a few among us who have worked out a parking diagram on paper, but all of us eyeball the situation and either decide to give it a try, or we just know it isn’t going to work and don’t even try.

If your situation is as described my gut tells me it will not work. If you assume a 40 foot coach you literally will have half its length in the driveway while the other half still completely occupies the road, and to get that front half in the driveway you have to be parallel to the driveway and perpendicular to the road. To get to that position you have to start with the driver’s side wheels at the driveway curb cut. In other words you will be on the wrong side of the street. Then you have to have the steering wheel cut full left, and back until your wheels on the passenger side are about ready to drop off the driveway pavement. At that point you have to pull forward and hard to the right, repeating the process. The fly in the ointment is the driveway paving is about 6″ wider than the coach and each time the wheels are at the edge of the blacktop or concrete the chances of breaking the pavement are substantial unless you have a better grade of pavement than normal.

And then there is some reality at play. The production of 40 foot coaches dropped significantly when the 45 foot coaches were produced. Add to that the sharpest turn radius is when the coaches came equipped with IFS and your ideal coach to make this work is a rare one relatively speaking.

[Billy]

Silly question then: how does everyone else do this? Wider driveways? Wider main roads?

[Bryan]

If the driveway is skinny you need a wide road. If the road is not wide you need a wide opening at the mouth of the driveway or be prepared to drive on the lawn, flowers, shrubs, etc .

My driveway goes up a steep hill so it is a one way driveway. I leave to the right, and back in from the right. The road is about 17 to 18 feet wide and has a guard rail so I cannot allow the RH front to hang over as I back in.

As wide as the mouth of the driveway is and as shallow as the angle relative to the road is almost the entire bus is in the driveway before the driver’s side is parallel to the upper edge and about 12 to 18″ from the edge. In other words I need a lot of real estate either in the road or in the driveway. I have backed off the road in a 40 foot solid axle, and a 45 foot solid axle and a 45 foot IFS. The sharper turn radius of the IFS coach makes no difference because of the narrow road.

[Archived]

For the first 2 years I had this 45′ bus, I had to back it into a driveway that had at most had 4 inches of clearence on each side. But, the entry to the driveway was faned out quite a bit. Once I got the drive tires on the driveway, I had to carefully get the bus a straight as possible before backing up 200′ to the rear of the house. It is possible to get these buses into very tight spots, as long as you have the swing room for the front of the bus. The bus more or less pivots on the drive tires, and then the front swings wide. And GO SLOW.

[Andy]

I very much appreciate all this advice. Hearing that they basically follow the rear wheels and then the nose swings is what I needed to understand for my primitive modeling.

Jon, I am also thankful for your articles which have given me some courage to go down this path. As to your comment about most people just eyeballing it and going for it or giving up, I’m a go for it kind of guy and have started to swoon over this idea so much that, as I noted above, I’m not above repaving my driveway to make it wider and “mouthier” simply to solve this equation. I bought the house expecting to add a “car garage” but never thought ahead 17 years ago to making it a bus depot, too…

[Archived]

Are you sure 43 feet is the turn radius of the XL40? Mine was definitely more than that. I had a solid front axle, not IFS. My current bus with steerable tag turns in about 42.5, much tighter than what my XL 40 could do. I assume an XL 40 with IFS will turn tighter than the solid axle, but still, check that spec.

[Peter]

I don’t know what kind of work you do, but it is likely you will not find adequate parking facilities near your work on many occasions. Unless you are willing to do a lot of ‘dry camping’ you will be inconvenienced more than being restricted to a hotel room. Adequate parking facilities is the weak spot in the Luxury Motor Coach industry, in my opinion. Also, as Jon says, unless your driveway has 5 or 6 inches of reinforced concrete on a good base, be prepared to replace a lot of broken driveway.

I know what it is to ‘catch the bug’ to justify a coach purchase, but they generally are more trouble than they are worth outside of the recreational and personal enjoyment areas. Again, in my opinion. But opinions are like other parts of the anatomy, everyone has one.

[Walter]

Many times you can back into a space easier than going in head first.

[victor]

Maybe someone is close enough to you to come eyeball it? I’ve gotten into places that are pretty tight. I think someone who has one could eyeball it with pretty good confidence. Or even google street view it. I do a lot of street viewing of places before I go there to assess the situation so there are fewer surprises.

[Ronald]

Hugh brings up an excellent point. We used our first coach for quite a while doing seminars at our customer’s various sales and warehousing locations around the country. It was all dry camping.

The good news is that even though the locations were typically in commercial or industrial areas we had no problems parking the bus at the sales office. But if your work takes you to offices downtown or in some more residential areas you might not get close.

[Walter]

I live outside Morristown, NJ if anyone is local enough to come eyeball (or try it for yourselfs – LOL!), I welcome you and my wife makes great cookies.

There is no Google street view of my street/house. The satellite view doesn’t show you anything, either. The neighborhood is all very tall mature trees so Google, the NSA, and Prevost Community can’t see what I’m up to. Ha.

Although there may be some interesting travel with this (potential) new job (e.g., setting up a warehouse somewhere out west), for the most part it won’t be a traveling job. The location out on eastern Long Island is just too far to be commutable (took me four hours to get there one day). Which adds another wrinkle to this dream: where to camp/hookup on Long Island. Any ideas? The farther east the better, let me know. From what I can find, the pickings are slim, particularly for year-round. This looks like one option: http://www.easternlikampground.net/rates.htm but I appreciate feedback if anyone knows if this will/won’t work.

I could park at work, but I don’t think I want to.

Corporate apartment, renting a house, staying in hotels, etc., are all options, I just hope this community appreciates what I am trying to accomplish. I hear some whispers suggesting I’m crazy, maybe I am.

As for the 43′ turning radius spec, I did not find a lot of sources of information for that. I used this: http://www.coachinfo.com/All_About_Buses/Prevost_Info.html

Thanks everyone,

Charlie

[Archived]

Charlie, if you want a Prevost, get one, and if it can be used for work purposes that is even better. We had ours for a year or two before we realized its potential as a business tool. By then we knew all we needed to know about where we could fit it, what our battery capacity was, how long we could live off of the water supply and holding tanks, etc. When we started using it for business as well as personal use there was no learning curve.

Through the years our use of the coach has varied from almost 100% business to 100% personal and every combination in between.

The fact you can widen the approach angles to the driveway is a large advantage because if you get a coach, the first thing you need to do is back into the driveway. Where you tear up the lawn is where to put the blacktop. Problem solved.

The key to ownership is using the coach. It becomes a lifestyle and if you cannot find time to use it often the best option is to put the purchase on the back burner until you can find the time. If you can justify its use in your business, such as in lieu of a hotel room it makes sense because then it is also available for personal use. That is the best of all options.

I was in Hackettstown for a few days just after Labor day. If this thread was going before then I would have had the opportunity to eat cookies and tear up your lawn.

[John]

Have not had a problem if you are a traveling construction worker. Most companies have a list of local camp grounds that I never had problem getting into. Some even have yards that you can have elect/water but have to call the sucker truck. Explore the availability. Also are you even sure you can park at home due to legal/association restrictions. Passport America has a list of camp grounds. If your looking for luxury only you will prob be out of luck around many large construction sites. I have a entertainer coach XLE–the extra wheel base teaches you to drive all over again. Only advantage to it is IFS steering that cuts down turning radius–suppose to a 40 ft equilvant. I’m still learing to use the extra steering angles. some sucess-it is a lot differant that straight axle. Sure is nice to go your traveling home to your own bed and no suitcase. Bob/retired operating engineer (heavy equipment operator)