[Cody]

We do not have an H, we have an XII. When we were looking at busses, the 3 A/C’s on a Royale bothered me. If one failed, in my mind, the 2 remaining AC’s would not keep the bus cool in Texas heat.. We have 4 A/Cs. We run 3 most of the time when sitting in Texas in the heat. When traveling and running Genny, I may crank the 4th A/C to excersie it.

Just my thoughts.

[Archived]

I know that has been raised as big concern, Royale has 3 15k where most of the others have 4 13.5 as I understand. If one breaks I understand Im screwed. Maybe only visit the grandkids in Texas when the weather is good.

[Gary]

I don’t have a Prevost yet, but I have a 45′ AMerican Coach Eagle with 3 15K roof airs and we have no issue even on 2 (yes even in TX). We full time and are everywhere. There are days when we use the 3rd unit, but usually only if we let the coach heat up. I can easily keep the front half cool with one unit and I can keep the bedroom like a meat locker with just that one unit.

I know, its not a Prevost, but it is the same ac units and I have 4 slides, so I have a ton of space to cool down.

[Peter]

The discussion seems to be as if one would drive around with a non working a/c on their coach if it fails. We live in Texas and three units are very, very satisfactory. If one fails, it takes about three days to get it arranged to be replaced. At night, even in 100 degree days and 80 degree nights, basically only two of the units carry the weight of cooling the coach.

If a coach has three or four units… to me, it makes little difference.

I offer this as a thought to the acquisition of what might otherwise be a fine coach. More clearly spoken, I do not think whether or not a coach has four units versus three is a deal killer or maker.

Just my thoughts.

Pres

[Archived]

Thanks for the updates so far, appreciated, I am really hoping someone might know something about the H3 at Olympia. http://www.olympialuxuarycoaches.com/–2002-Prevost-H3-45-featherlite-vantare , or their experience dealing with them.

gdub

[Archived]

Gdub, I wish I knew about the Olympia coach that are looking at. It looks so nice in the pics.

I wish that the new coaches had the bay doors that swing up that hug the side of the coach like the Olympia. Ours swing out at the top sticking out almost as much as the slide-out. I have to be careful pulling into my storage garage to swing more on the passenger side so that when I go to open my electric bay door, that it doesn’t hit the side of my garage wall.

And, I’ve never seen a Prevost with side-sliding bay doors. Reminds me of a Foretravel.

All of us have to be careful when using the ‘4th’ air unit. We have four 13,500 btu units where 3 of them work perfectly to cool our coach. Liberty has designed the venting to not have any severe bends so the air flow is not restricted. It will blow your hat off walking under a ceiling vent!

Electric is electric…. we only have 100 amps to work with (50 on each leg). If you are charging batteries or heating the water tank, washing or drying clothes, that 4th air might not be available until you lower the electrical load.

Good luck, hope everything works out for you!

Safe travels,

Mark

[Archived]

We all have real and potential issues we must recognize. When all is working as intended any coach is going to be comfortable. But when we make a buying decision we have to consider how we use our coaches and how or if our use of the coach is going to be compromised is something fails. When were were newbies we had no clue, but we have learned some failures or some designs can be problems and now our purchase decisions are based on if we also can use the coach if something breaks.

Every converter has a coach or systems with weak points.While any buying decision should not be based on potential failures or poor design those should at least be known. My previous Liberty had black privacy shades and when they were down and facing the sun if the forward AC failed or it was hot out we could barely stand the heat in the front of the coach unless we also had one of the middle ACs on at the same time. If the forward AC failed we would have been unable to keep the front of the coach at a tolerable temperature. Our current coach now has light colored privacy shades which makes that issue go away.

I know of a conversion in which an inverter failure is going to make a lot of electrical circuits inop because there is no provision to by-pass the inverter. In this instance discussions have centered around two coaches, one with three AC units, and one with an RVAC and two conventional AC units. Look hard at both, not only considering how well they work to keep the coach comfortable, but how the coach is affected if while in the middle of a vacation trip, and there is a failure. We all rarely look at the warts, but it does not take a long period of ownerhship to find out shortcomings.

My free advice (worth every cent you pay for it) is do a broad review of the coaches you especially like. Don’t focus on the specific coach, but do focus on the conversion or model or floor plan or systems. If the responses to questions about the converter or model are positive then shift the discussion to the specific coach. Some shortcomings can easily be resolved. By making sure I had light colored privacy shades I solved a problem I know a lot of other owners are dealing with. I have added an inverter by-pass capability on a coach that did not have that. I added a back up water pump to supplement my single water pump. But there are some design features we have to live with. If three AC units prove insufficient for how the coach is used, adding a fourth is not an easy thing. If an RVAC is not supported or repairable that creates a big problem. If an inverter failure can cripple a coach that becomes a very expensive problem to resolve.

The good news is that our coaches are generally very robust and failures are not very common.

[Brett]

What is just as important as AC capacity is air distribution. We had three 15k roofs ACs on our last coach, and we rarely needed more than two, except for days with 122 degrees in Las Vegas. And that was with single pane windows. If the air distribution on the Royale is good, and the ACs work as they should, you will not have a problem. Our friends have a Featherlite with a single slide, and they have yet to get the RVAC working right. He has replaced the RVAC boards several times, but the unit does not work on automatic. Only control he has is on or off with the circuit breaker. Also, the RVAC air outlets are all on the curb side, so it cools that side, but the driver’s side does not cool off very well at all. Also, you may want to check weight on the coaches. Several Prevost conversions are overweight–our friend’s coach is more than 3,000 pounds over gross weight with one slide.