[Corey]

I realize one comparison is not a reliable indicator of all the products in an industry, but I have a friend that bought a very nice high end motor home and he ended up spending his first winter in it at the dealer’s trying to get all the glitches repaired.

He dedicated three months of the time he could have been enjoying it to having it in the shop every day trying to get stuff fixed.

My reaction is twofold. The first is wondering how it is possible for that much to be wrong with a relatively new motor home? My second reaction is why isn’t the dealer getting the job done instead of nibbling away at the problems a little at a time?

I admit to being spoiled. On those occasions when someone else has worked on or repaired my coach I was in and out quickly and the repairs were correct. That is the experience most on this forum have. Since I have been doing my own repairs and maintenance I can say with confidence that a proactive maintenance program in which items are replaced prior to failure (such as batteries, tires, air bags, etc ) will make a coach not only much more trouble free, but will result in almost zero unanticipated repairs.

Every trip we take I end up with a list of stuff I need to pay attention to or fix. In almost every instance it is a burned out bulb, a loose cabinet hinge, or maybe a broken plastic latch. Simple things that mirror the same type of repairs I make in my house. But from time to time something that involves more effort will fail. I have had an alternator fail. I have had to chase an air leak on more than one occasion. I had an engine compartment fire. But these have taken place in over 25 years of ownership of Prevost coaches (3) and approaching 400,000 miles of use.

But keep in mind one very important thing……….mechanically whether it is a Prevost or a comparable size motor home there is going to be similar problems with the chassis, but likely a whole lot more with the house on a motor home because of the vast differences in build quality.

The motor home may use the same components, such as the inverters you mention, but the key is not necessarily the device, but how it was installed and used. I would be comfortable saying I cannot think of any weak point on any conversion that would steer me away from considering it. When you read of repairs and problems on this forum consider that we are almost at 1900 members now, and the coaches owned by our members range in age from very new to almost 30 years old. Our collective annual miles of use has to be a big number and there is no way anyone can point to problems attributable to their reasons such as premature failure, neglect, abuse, age, etc.

[Archived]

OK. My two cents worth.

I’m not new to the RV world. I’ve been involved in the RV scene since I was ten years old when my father, mother and I built our first camping trailer after an encounter with a bear in the middle of the night while camping in a tent in the Smokey mountains. Not long after, we upgraded to a factory built travel trailer. Not long after that my family opened a travel trailer dealership handling the Shasta and Airstream brands. We were in business a number of years and I have a lot of fond, and a few not so fond, memories. I’ve had an RV of some sort for most of the years of my adult life. I’ve owned several motor coaches including a Barth, a Blue Bird Wanderlodge (both top quality coaches) and now a Prevost Country Coach. Obviously all of the converters have their own philosophies having to do with the conversions, but they all use for the most part an assembly of vendor supplied components. The common denominator is the Prevost Coach base. The big thing that the Prevost has going for it, as far as I’m concerned, is that it first of all is designed as a commercial carrier vehicle in compliance with very stringent government regulations concerning safety and is designed to last virtually forever. Second, and very importantly, it is designed to be reliable and to be maintained/repaired easily. It’s not a good thing to have a bus load of people who have bought a ticket from point A to point B sitting on the side of the road just the same as it’s not good to have airliners making forced landings. And, to add to that advantage, Prevost Car has twenty four seven factory support on the other end of a phone line that is probably not bettered by any other manufacturer of any product and factory service centers where owners are treated like royalty. What could make the “Motorcoach Lifestyle” any better? Obviously, here lies the most bang for the buck.