[Archived]

That’s an easy answer Flydude…..

I can’t count the number of times over the years that some wants to know how to adjust the pressure for his framulator, then we spend two days trying to figure out what conversion and year they have. There are distinct differences as we all know, so having the info in the signature is most helpful.

It would be like me asking you where the C02 gear emergency bottle is located on my Aztec and you give me the poop from your Seneca.

[Archived]

Tom nailed it. In fact there are times I wish the information in the signature line could even be more specific. To cite an example one of our members and I speak on the phone and email each other often. In one of our conversations we got on the topic of slides and hearing air escape.

Even though our coaches are only about 50 numbers apart, his slide configuration is different than mine and we never realized it until we swapped photos of the differences.

We have seen many times owners offer advice that was well intended, but way off the mark because they were answering in the context of their coach which was different from the one owned by the questioner.

[Archived]

Guys,

I understand that part of the equation but I also understand that one might even be better served by the converters serial number vice year model. Tom’s coach 475 to a Liberty expert means everything, same goess for nearly every conversion.

My issue is with the hype that has been generated for most of my life time by the terms, new and improved, the exciting brand new whatever, and so on! That is pure advertising and demographics, an encouragement to make the consumer consume even more. To cite another example, probably a more contemporary answer, look at the amount of people who spent hours, even days outside of the Apple Store’s to be the first to have the “all new”, “new and improved”, “”completely re designed” I-Phone 5S; gimme a break, a telephone, check that, “a device”.

I think a few of us may still remember Motorama, an annual event put on by GM in larger markets designed to target the consumer with that….”All new, completely redesigned 1959 Buick Electra 225″. And so it went, a three year old car was an old car, even if had no miles. We were and still are swallowing the hook that just maybe somehow, someway my life will be better if I get an “All new for 1962 Chrysler Imperial”.

Now the bait may have changed, no more are automobiles, even broader,motor vehicles the target, now its telephones, televisions, all manner of electronic crap and gawd knows what else.

So about now you ask, just what am I saying? I am stating that the lions share of this group probably lived through the Motorama era and old conditionings die hard! We come from that era where year models were the most important thing for ego’s, prestige (real and imagined), for identities as well. Deep in the back of your mind you still believe that anything with 100K miles on it is junk, you really love “fins” on everything and Ethyl gasoline will make your new car run better.

[Archived]

I disagree. I want to see the signature line include the model year, the type chassis and the converter. If I post that I have Liberty #346 that doesn’t tell anything about the Prevost where a model year tells me not only the information I need about the Liberty conversion, but it also is a clue about the chassis.

If you provide the CC number for your coach I have no idea if your coach is a 40 or 45, if it has IFS or a solid axle, or for that matter if it is an XL or XLII.

[Archived]

Jon had a girlfriend named Ethyl and she sort of had “fins.”

[Paul]

Fly U, I’m not saying I disagree, but you are really swimming upstream when you take on our culture’s demand for newer, bigger, brighter, better, etc. I guess if our culture valued a more zen-like existence we would all be swapping info about our class-B Roadteks or, heaven forbid, our gigantic 24 foot Sprinter based Winnebagos.

Given the level of erudition exhibited on this site, I think this group is among those best able to withstand the wiles of Madison Avenue. In fact, I believe most advertising is focused on influencing the unthinking masses. Exhibit A is the label on this washer fluid I bought this weekend, which, by the way, contains NO anti-freeze:

[John]

Jon,

I think we are talking apples and oranges here! While you address specific issues with a particular make/model/converter from a technical point of view, I am talking about a broader issue, about the automotive culture to which many of us belong. Should it provide any solice, with some small exception, this culture will mostly disappear when we do. Deep down we all still hope that each September Detroit will roll out a completely restyled must have, we cannot help it, that was how we were conditioned. Unfortunately Detroit has not responded to us and very few can physically identify an automobiles year model without a score card. they all look the same! Think maybe the Hummer was the last iteration of something truly different.

That said, we were conditioned by the best that Madison Avenue had to offer with some assistance from unmatched designers. Where the hell are the Harley Earl’s, the DeLoreans? They have all been replaced by Auto-Cad (no pun intended) and molded plastic, air pumps, EGR’s, catalytic converters, unleaded fuel, ecm’s, acm’s, chips, then there are the robots that build them; the paint applied so thinly that it can only be done by machine under precise conditions. The end result, automobiles that are just a little less attractive than a pair of corrective shoes with about the same functionality.

When I started this thread I was only commenting on the fact that everyone posts the year of their coaches and there tow cars as well. I mentioned airplanes because no where will you find or will you be told that today you are flying on a 1977 Boeing 737-400. By contrast do you happen to know the year of say your garbage disposal, or your range, or even your bicycle? Do you know the age of the hoses on your washing machine? How about the age of say your table saw, your floor jack, your broom? Of course this is ridiculous but it does show that we respond to our by conditioning by Madison Ave, you sure as hell know the age of your motorized vehicles and are proud of it!

There was certainly a time when newer was better, I give you a 57 Chevrolet say over a 1954! I do not necessarily think newer is better is valid today, on almost anything.

[Archived]

We will have to disagree.

I seriously doubt when folks post the year of their coach and toad that they are trying to impress the troops. Most of our forum is dedicated to answering questions and trading ideas and nothing allows someone to zero in on a problem better than knowing what specific model of anything we are talking about.

If this site and the forum was about gardening and we were posing the model years then I would change my posture on this.

We learned a long time ago, well before our Prevost days that the minute we think because we own a newer or bigger car or house that we are somehow “special” we quickly come face to face with reality which is nobody cares.

[Gerald]

Jon,

I did not say that, what I said is that we all do it because the behaviour is learned. It’s most certainly not for bragging rights, it is something that we all do! The lions share of us are “tuned in” on motor vehicles and since time began, at least for me, I always discuss the year model; I happen to be a fan of the 57 Chevrolet and I let people know. I do have difficulty with many of the newer cars because they all look the same, something that would never have happened even a few years ago. I will guarantee that you can spot a early 50’s Nash from nearly a mile, try that on a Toyota, or Ford, or Chevy today…ain’t gonna happen.

To add to that you owned a Cessna 210, and if people asked that is what you told them. Should you have become technical about it you would have then added the year model but that would probbly be long after you disclosed strutless or not, pressurizeed or not. I have a forked tailed doctor killer, a Bonanza, older than time, circa 1965, That airplane was designed in the late 30’s and was made until 1982 w/o any significant changes, in fact they still make it today, sans v-tail.

As for newer being not necessarily better, go out and buy a pair of Levi’s. San Francisco, their home, long gone….now made offshore in some no name country out a material that is not the denim that it was! They even removed the rivits that used to scratch your bud’s car when you sat on the hood.