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How many coaches did you SEE before you bought?
I’m curious… My process for checking out perspective coachs has been;
• Someone will contact me and send me to a website or send me pictures.
• Some I’ll find on a website and contact the person or dealer who owns it for more information.
• Some I discount because of the way the coach is setup.
• Some I discount because they want $225,000.00 and I want to pay $70,000.00. I know, how rude!
• When I have a serious interest I’ll ask someone here on the forum what they think? If I like the coach and they like the coach, you know, technical stuff like, it has 8 tires with tread, window glass in most openings, just the basics) then its time to look more closely!
• With one coach I was interested in a forum member who lived close previewed it for me. Talking about being worth the price of the forum membership, WoW! I even considered doubling my membership fees but quickly thought better of it! We’ve already seen what greed and envy can do to the best of them. Much less us!
I was fortunate to be in a perfect situation where there was a coach I was interested in and a forum remember was close enough and kind enough to preview the coach for me. Seriously, how great is that? I’ll not give his name here on the open forum because he does have his pride! But George was and is terrific!
What I’d like to know is this… How many coaches did you actually go and see before finding the one you wanted and purchased?
HJ
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13 Replies
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I found “Olivia”, bought her and never looked back.
So the answer to your question is … all of one.
Cheers,
Ronald
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Hi Ronald,Where did you find Olivia, private owner or dealer?
HJ
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Well, when we started to consider a new coach we first looked at Newell. We toured their factory in Miami, OK, and they were interesting. I didn’t really know a lot about Prevosts at the time.
I found this site and asked a simple question about engine size up-grade since the Newell had a 600 hp engine (do not ask that question). :o)
Anyway, long story short, we decided on a new Prevost build after reading all of the information here and the quality of the Prevost shell.
Since I had never heard of Liberty at the time, we connected with Marathon to look at one of their coaches. Beautiful! When we had our Monaco Dynasty built, Marathon was right across the street in Coburg, OR. (I remember how nice they were back then looking across the street).
We then found out that Liberty was going to show one of their coaches at the same location we toured the Marathon.
ALL Prevosts are gorgeous coaches, there is no arguement there. We leaned towards Liberty as I liked some of the components better but that is just my opinion. (rose petal dispenser). :o) Marathon does not install a macerator nor were they putting a nav. screen on the passenger side.
When you have someone like Frank to show you everything technical…. well, enough said.
So, we looked at three coaches before deciding on Liberty.
Safe travels to all.
Mark
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We looked at maybe six. We chose the one we now own because of the decor, floor plan and most importantly we had all of the service records since new. Advice from this forum was key. We knew we’d have to spend money to zero it out, we took it to Jeff and it was done.
But, we would not have bought a coach without the service records.
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HJ,
I suggest you look at as many as you can, even if they aren’t exactly what you’re looking for. It will build your knowledge of the buses, the converters, the layouts, and what is taken care and what isn’t. You will see things that may change your initial criteria (which can be bad and make your seach take longer 🙂
I’m fortunate to live a short drive from Premium and as much as I try not to be a burden, Chad may be tired of seeing me, but knowledge is good :-). He knows exactly what I want and if he finds one before I do he will have a very quick and easy sale.
There is so much to learn about them, the more reps you get the better. Spend time talking to/emailing these guys that have had several of them already – they have superb insight.
Kurt
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We looked at one I saw on I-90/94 between Chicago and Milwaukee in the summer of 2012. 1981Country coach, 1996 complete refurbish. Wasn’t for us … but convinced me a Prevost was better for us than a Peterbilt 379 converted to a motorhome.
Then we went to the first All Prevost show in Tampa in January of 2013. Looked at 42 coaches at the show … many were out of price range. While in Florida we looked at four or five we found in Craiglist or saw along the side of the road. Stopped at Parliament and looked at one or two there.
I spent six out of seven nights a week combing the coaches for sale at PC, POG, Prevost Stuff, RV’s for sale, a couple of other RV for sale websites, and then started to surf Craigslist sights across the country.
I called the sellers on probably 20 to 25 coaches, asked questions, got more pictures, but nothing really got us excited (other than short-term) until we found the coach we now have. Knew from the pictures and description it checked the boxes (late 90’s, XLV, Lliberty w/OTR, stainless steel sides!, no slides, no stickin’ DEF, private toilet room, and an interior that didn’t look like it was built as the courtesy bus for a New Orleans bordello.
As the saying goes … you’ll know the right coach within 30 seconds after stepping inside. I walked from the front of the coach to the back of the coach NOT listening to the seller trying to tell me how clean and wonderful it was; for cripes sake its a Prevost, a Liberty at that, it IS wonderful … that’s why I drove a day and a half to see it! When I got halfway back through the coach I knew this was the one … if Jeff Rowe would tell me the following morning this was a good coach. Which he did, he told me what I should expect before I left his shop, and he was right and accurate.
I strongly encourage you yo look at as many Prevost coaches as possible in your general price range as reasonably possible … even if you have to drive four hours to spend an hour looking. If you haven’t found your coach by January, go to the All Prevost Show in Tampa. I will caution you that as the show has matured over the last four or five years … there are less and less coaches from the late 1990’s at the show (or at least that is what it seemed like). I think the show promoter should try to get more entrants from the mid to late 90’s.
You might look at 20 coaches before your find the right one. Or you might look at only one … if (1) it checks enough of your boxes and (2) you’re comfortable with the maintenance history/records.
We bought ours without maintenance records/history except for a recent trip to Liberty in North Chicago, one or two trips to Buddy Gregg’s over the last couple of years, and a Freightliner service manager’s memory of the coach being in their shop over the years (changed computer systems, no records). Jeff and I took that into account. Oh … the filters had dates/milesage/hours on written on them
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HJ,
I looked on the Internet for a good bit, so had at least an idea of the layout I wanted, the converters I liked, etc.
I, too, looked at just one coach during my purchase phase (the one purchased).
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When we bought our first Prevost in 1990 there was no internet as we know it today. The only way you could look at coaches without traveling was to have the seller send photos. FMCA magazine listed them but there were no photos.
We learned of our first coach via an ad in the local newspaper. We looked at it and had never even set foot in any kind of RV so we had no perspective on how it compared with anything. We quickly realized that 27 years ago there just were not very many Prevost conversions anyway so when we learned of one about 100 miles from where we lived we looked at it and between the first one that got our interest, and the second one we really liked the first one so we bought it.
When we bought the second one, our first one was being repaired from an engine compartment fire and the second coach had just been traded to a dealer in Knoxville. I saw it before anyone had touched it, and while it was not yet cleaned up I liked it. My wife then came and looked at it and she liked it. If it could be backed into my garage and it passed my inspection we would buy it. It fit and we did buy it. It took about 20 minutes from the time my wife stepped into it to get an agreeable price and we decided to buy it.
We were sent unsolicited photos in an email of our current coach and we liked it. I wanted to fly down to look at it, but learned it had the XLII skin issues and it was off the market until repairs were made. We had all but forgotten about it until we went to a rally and found the converter brought the coach to the rally for showing, all repaired. We looked at it and agreed on the spot to buy it, but were concerned its height was going to prevent us from getting it into the garage. I took careful measurements and thought it might fit.
Liberty (the seller) sent the coach from Stuart FL to Knoxville just to see if it would fit. Turned out we had some gyrations using the level low system to raise the front and drop the rear to do it, but we got it into the garage with 1/2″ of clearance. As soon as it was sitting in the garage we made the committment to buy it.
With the exception of the first coach when we looked at a second one for comparison we bought the coaches we looked at. But that needs to be put in perspective. We were not buying our first coach so we did not waste our time or anyone else’s looking at coaches that did not meet our criteria. We had been in a number of show coaches at rallies over the years so we knew what we wanted in a coach and did not have to look at everything out there. In fact with the last two coaches we did not set out to buy one, but as soon as we looked at them we knew they were for us and we bought them after getting what we thought was a fair price. I had always poked around on the internet and had a sense of market prices. In both cases the prices offered were far less than our expectations and in both cases we like the coaches so the decisions weren’t difficult.
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Uno. I knew the original owner. See it when it was brand new when the old fella came by my shop/yard and showed it to me back in 1992. He passed and I bought it from his wife. I’ve owned it going on 7 years.
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My answer was 8.
I had looked at 2 in Florida at Featherlite on my way back from Disney, and then 1 private owner listing in New Jersey.
Finally I picked out 5 more in Tennessee that I wanted to get a real eye one before making a decison on the one I thought I would ultimately want. ,One was at ETLC and the rest in Nashville.
I had it really down to 2 coaches when i went shoping at the end. The early visits where I thought I knew what I wanted yielded ideas of what I ultimantly ended up with.
Overall I saw 3 coaches that would have been good coaches for me. 1- 03′ Vantare, 1- 06′ Marathon , and 1-00′ Liberty.
In end for me it was about the specific coach and I tried to pick the best option for my needs based on the criteria I had built for myself. -)
So far so good.
Good luck with your search.
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I flew to Tampa twice to visit the converters and dealers within 60 miles. I flew to Nashville twice and again visited all the converters and tour companies. I flew to Atlanta once to look at a specific coach and again to the middle of who knows where in Alabama which turned out to be paradise….tried to make a downpayment on the perfect coach and the seller (his wife actually) changed his mind and wouldn’t sell. I finally found a coach that met my criteria at Marathon in Oregon…put down a deposit, flew out to Oregon and closed the deal. There were no service records so I negotiated the price down for all the fixes that were in the PDI. Total process was probably 2-3 years.
But I knew I had to get the right coach first time out or my wife would not accept the “RV lifestyle”. We have our Prevost and she loves it.
As so many have said, you need to get out and get in the coaches to see what you like and don’t like. You can’t do it from sitting behind a computer.
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Thank you one and all for your comments, I find it fascination how you guys found your coaches. I found a coach that checked all our boxes pretty quickly but my wife and I need to put things on the back burner for a little while.
One thing I here you saying is “get out and look at some coaches”! Living in a small town like I do there’s nothing around me for a couple hundred miles. But I know you’re right, just walking through some coaches, opening the bay, and engine compartment doors would be a good place for me to start.
OLYMPIA LUXURY COACHES in La Vergne, TN is about 4 hours from me and looks like the closest place I can start. They currently have 9 Prevost in inventory and three of them are 2001-2 & 3. Not the years I’m after but I think I may drive up there next week just to do as you say, “look around”!
HJ
PS. Jimmy I just read your post where you said; “But I knew I had to get the right coach first time out or my wife would not accept the “RV lifestyle”. There’s some truth in what you say! 🙂
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HJ,
Not sure how many I actually looked at. In my case there were not many options that fit my requirement of 2 bunks for the kids and two slides. After about 3 years of looking off an on. We gave up and dropped a ton of cash int our quad slide Dutch Star. Just about 2 weeks later get the call the perfect coach came available. I flew to PHX the next day talked with AL, Jon and Tom here and signed later that week and have been a happy guy ever since. Like others do your research take your time and you wil l know when you have found the ONE.
HAPPY SHOPPING
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