[Archived]

Excellent questions, and because you appear to be really thinking this out we may have to break our rules and actually give you accurate answers. Welcome aboard.

Your budget is on target. In fact one of our members has a great Liberty he just posted for sale. He can give you the particulars as to the specific status of the maintenance, but let me generalize.

If you do not have a documented service history then you have to be honest with yourself and determine how important reliability is to you. Without proof of service I would at the very least plan on having the coach inspected, with the following focus. I would want to have the history of the engine and the status of the Allison checked by a Detroit Diesel dealer who can connect to computers to review historical code information and even provide a detailed Allison condition report.

Then I would get someone who knows the conversion and that specific model coach do a pre-purchase inspection. You can even do it if you can get the coach in the air or over a pit. You want to determine if there are any leaks such as hub seals, age and condition of tires and batteries, you want to know if the air bags, brake chambers, or susspension valving is original or has had recent replacement. If you can you want to list the immediate needs, and the potential future needs.

A 15 or 20 year old coach can have all the original stuff on it, or it could have been refreshed underneath. That is where you make the decisions regarding whether to refresh the underside by zeroing out those items that age, or address them on an as needed basis. We are all different so what may be OK for you may not be for someone else and vice versa.

The amount of repairs you will face will be determined by condition, age of components and your pre-purchase inspection. If previous owners believed in preventive maintenance and changed things to a schedule rather than waiting for an air bag to blow, or a valve to fail you are unlikely to need much more than to continue the program and do the routine stuff like fluids, filters, belts, etc. If on the other hand the coach already has some needed repairs you are likely to spend time and money catching all it needs and working to get caught up.

A coach in the age range you describe is going to have limited depreciation, but it is still going to depreciate. It is my opinion the market value of a Series 60 coach is going to hold OK especially if the coach has shown a lot of continuing care. Trash it or ignore it and it won’t take long to be worth scrap value.

The absolute best way to store a coach is in an enclosed building protected from the weather with the inverters left on and maybe a little heat or AC. You can easily store a coach with 20 amp power if it is not a GFCI circuit which will be tripped by a coach every tiem. 20 amps will handle the inverters, phantom loads and maybe a small heater.

My personal opinion is there is no alternative, regardless of price that is built as robust or in which the family is safer. A conventional RV is nothing but splinters and scattered insulation in even the simplest of accidents. Get the best Prevost you can afford, even if the same dollars will get you into a much newer conventional RV.

[glen]

thanks for the great advice Jon. I have read several articles in the archives and feel better prepared for making a basic inspection. Once purchased, My approach will be to care for the coach, and as items start failing, to repair them. It would be cost prohibitive for me to try to zero time a coach of this size. Of course when it comes to tires, I will replace those immediately if age/cracking is starting to occur. But slow air leaks, minor electrical system, etc. I will deal with over time. I just want to avoid a money pit, and get a reasonable return on my investment (small loss) when I move on to my next Prevost a few years down the road. My American Eagle has been wonderful, but really looking forward to moving on to stainless steel…Alain

[Davy]

Alain, if you’ve read some archived posts and even some recent ones, you probably know why I think ’97-00 XL’s are very good first busses. Check out the 99 CC that Steve at California Coaches just got. Geo.

[Andy]

I can certainly understand spreading the cost to zero out a coach over time, but it is very important you do two things. First make sure you do deal with the items that go far beyond just annoying. For example you mention tires (assuming the coach needs them) and that is a very good example because of safety. Pretty high on my list would be air bags, not only because leakers make the leans a fact of life, but if an aging air bag pops, your options to deal with that problem could be expensive.

The second thing is to consider the practicality of what work you do, I believe it is far more worthwhile to make sure the coach and its systems are in very good reliable condition before I consider cosmetics. A reupholstered sofa is very nice, but it ranks way behind a new roof air or suspension valves. I admit to shaking my head when I read posts from new owners who place a greater priority on a new HD satellite dish and TVs than they do the items that have the potential to shut you down.

[Dick]

Amen to that. Our recent mis-adventure certainly bears that out. The service call alone would have bought half the brake chambers plus a day and half lost travel time. I’m still trying to figure out how that got by me and maybe even Jeff as he knows we don’t hesitate being pro-active when it comes to doing anything to minamize the chances of being on the side of the road. It won’t happen again. Geo.

[Bill]

I may regret saying this, but so far an agressive program of maintenance has prevented a lot of problems that could have gotten expensive if they popped up on the road. I will freely admit there is a great deal of luck associated with my experience so far.When I have been lucky I took the lesson to heart because I know the next time luck might not be a factor.

Spending a lot of time inspecting the underside every 5000 miles has resulted in very early detection of things that could have ultimately required roadside service. I know Jeff does that and despite his excessive cost of oil it is the cheapest and most valuable maintenance you can do or have someone with Jeff’s skills do. I have been lucky beyond description. I walked into the garage one morning to hear the house water pump running and a dry water tank. An internal failure caused it to kick on bypassing the pressure switch and fortunately the broken water line was in the bay and not the house. That made me aware how important a back up pump wouild be, as well as showing me a runaway water pump can create enough pressure to blow fittings or lines.

A tire pressure check prior to a trip revealed a tire on the inside dual had a fist size chunk cut out of it, and it failed in the garage, not on the road. Another time a tire was down some pressure and a detailed inspection showed a nail in the sidewall, not the tread on the inside dual.Makes me want a Pressure Pro.

An air bag failed 1 mile from home on our first bus at 10 years of age. That created my 10 year replacement plan. If we were a greated distance away I would have been on the back of a trailer because I also learned the protection valve between the secondary brake tank and the accessory tank had failed so I was able to nurse the coach into our garage despite a pneimatic system that was barely holding air. Now I check their operation. Every problem is a lesson.

My point is do whatever you can to insure mechanical reliability, and if your efforts are successful you have a significant chance you will never need a tow truck or service call. It helps if you have a little luck also.

---

2005 XL Thompson Coach

Rarely tow anything behind us.

Sold: 1993 Liberty that we loved for 12 years.

[Bill]

I hear you guys load and clear. I appreciate the experience you folks have with these coaches. I by no means think a 20 year old coach would be trouble free, but hoping I can find one that has been well cared for, and when problems arrise, I wont be stranded or pennyless. Lots of good reading material here, especially in the emergency forum, learned alot. Thanks again for the good advice…Alain

[AL]

We bought a 1999 conversion in 2014. Price was a touch north of your $125K target. Batteries and tires were beyond replacement dates ($10K) and it had no maintenance records so we did a Jeff Rowe “zero-out” with a $20K cap; Jeff said most of what he replaced looked original. We’ve had a few unexpected expenses after the zero-out … refrigerator ($3,000 including install), new OTR compressor ($3,500), and 3 axles alignment, shocks, tie rods, trans seal, U-joint ($3,000 or so at Prevost).

You stated in your second post: “My approach will be to care for the coach, and as items start failing, to repair them.”

This approach could be “good” or “bad” … depending on what “fails”. As Jon points out if an air bag fails, that could be catastrophic to a trip plus the solution is likely to be expensive. Think about George Prentice’s failed parking brake chamber.

Don’t get me wrong, there are some things on the bus that you can wait until they fail to deal with them. Like roof airs. If the coach has four working ones, and you aren’t running the coach in TX, NM, AZ, and southern CA in the summer … you should be able to have one (maybe two) fail without ruining a trip. We have four Cruise-Airs on our coach. Right now I have problems with two of them. One I won’t use period and the other I could use. I discovered the problems late this summer. I’m going to have Jeff Rowe look at them on our way to Florida … along with having him change the oil.

When our refrigerator failed we had just returned from spending Memorial Day weekend at Indy. Hindsight being 20/20 my advice to anyone with the popular Amana refrigerator in a coach that is more than say 10 to 15 years old: think about replacing it in advance of failing. I’ve seen posts about them failing at 10 and 12 years, 15 years, and come still running at 17 and 18 years. Perfect example of rolling the dice.

Hoses and belts are probably something that many prospective Prevost owners would not necessarily think of. There are a TON of hoses and belts on a Prevost, especially hoses. In the vintage you’re looking at they could be more than 15 years old. If you don’t know how old they are, the solution is very simple: replace them ALL!

Given today’s market, if you find a mid to late 90’s coach south of $125K, with maintenance records that prove the various parts and pieces with limited lives have been replaced on a proactive schedule … jump all over it.

Depreciation: I haven’t investigated the market for late 80’s/extremely early 90’s Prevosts in depth. But from the prices I see, it appears the drop in value as coaches age seems to stop in the high to very high five figures. Exceptions to this are obviously going to be ratty, neglected, abused coaches.

Good luck with your search. Keep us posted.

[Larry & Diane]

Alain, depending on the conversion, you can probably store an early to mid 90s Prevost without power. I had a 1990 XL Country Coach that I stored unplugged all the time with no issues at all. Like your American Eagle, you will need to pull all the disconnects, but unless you have installed a disconnect at the batteries on your AE, it will likely be easier to do that on a converted Prevost.

My 1990 had no phantom draws and both the house and start batteries would not discharge significantly while in storage. Most conversions later than about 2000, and many earlier ones, will have electronics that simply don’t like to be shut down, so if unpowered storage is your only option you should check out the simpler conversions. I can shut down all power in my current bus without issues if I need to. My house electrical system is similar to Vantare. I believe the Vantare and Country Coach conversions of the vintage you are considering will be more comfortable in storage without power than perhaps a Marathon or Liberty. Whatever you buy, you will also want to make sure that you have the ability either boost the chassis (start) batteries from the house batts (which can, in turn, be charged by the generator) or to charge the chassis batteries directly off the generator. Good luck!

[Andy]

So a quick update. Looking at this coach, and spoke with Terry at Mr. Olivers in Texas. She seems like a very nice lady and honest too. Can anyone give me their opinions on this coach, or if any previous owners are on this forum? I live in the suburbs of Chicago and wont have a chance to look at this coach until possibly beginning of January. It does not have otr but 4 roof mounts. I like the double sofas so my children can sleep without air mattresses. Does Royale build a good coach? I rrealize its almost 20 years old, but what kind of offer should I make if it passes a pre-buy? Very interested in this particular coach…Thanks…Alain

http://www.starlightmotors.com/inventory/view/8844573/1996-Prevost-Royale-XL-45-Aubrey-TX

[Deleted User]

Royale makes a very good coach and simple for a new to prevost to learn , I owned one and it was a great coach, it will be a SFA coach very easy to work on and less parts for the front end .

[Bill]

thanks Pete, but wondering what an SFA coach means? I’m unfamiliar

[Bryan]

It means solid front axle ,after about year late 1996 they will be independent front axle more parts to replace , if that bus has a old toilet it may have to be replaced with a new one ,I did that to mine and put in a tecma toilet about 2000 dollars worth , there will be some other things you will need to do to it also

[Peter]

Depends on the VIN. Somewhere in the mid 96 chassis production run they switched to IFS. I think somewhere around VIN T-5875?

[Chas]

You are right Jon , I was thinking conversion year not prevost year late 1996 and up. Sorry my fault

I edited my first post and changed the year to 1996 from 1997