[Archived]

Double K, sounds like you’re kinda leaning towards a Liberty. I would check out Jim and Kingsley’s bus. It was thouroughly gone over by Dave Wall and Liberty this spring and single slide Libertys of that vintage have probably the best floor plan. I know that everything on that bus is 100%, but I don’t know if it was checked by Jacksonville for de-lam. A simple phone call to Kingsley will get you an answer. Geo.

[Archived]

Jon nailed it. The systems far outweigh decor. I’d add that of the house systems the electrics are easily the most important – the electrics touch everything! This is why I went with an H3 and why I chose Vantare, an H3 because the basement affords plenty of room for the systems especially for slide equipped coaches, and Vantare because the electrics are a masterpiece. Another bonus is that Vantare made schematics and documentation available with every coach sold. The last point can’t be overemphasized. If you’re hands-on, you’ll quickly grow frustrated with a converter who doesn’t share schematics. Concerning the electrics, I want to be able to seemlessly switch between all power sources: genny, shore, and batteries via pure sinewave inverters; I want to easily be able to manage loads, I want to be able to choose what my inverters are powering, and I want to be able to manage my inverter’s power delivery, battery charging performance, and generator start capability in detail. Concerning cruisairs and their performance, there seems to be a lot of performance variation as reported by owners of various coaches. I’m with CarGuy. Mine work great and I wonder if it’s due to the implemention within an H3. The H has a front cowl which draws in copious amounts of cooling air to the two front mounted cruisairs, the two mid mounted cruisairs have a dedictated louvered basement door to draw air into. All four expell air out large vents in the basement floor. Nothing’s cramped; there’s plenty of air, space, and ventilation. All are on trays for easy access and service. I imagine some implementations/installations simply work better than others.

[Andy]

Some comments, kind of pulling some things together from my perspective.

On my XLII it would be a crime to have awning arms hanging down to break up the clean lines of the coach., but if I had to have arms hanging down I would prefer the old style manually operated original style ZipDees for their reliability.

One big system debate that is endless is the heating and air conditioning of the coach. If I did not have OTR (that ain’t ever going to happen) I would insist on roof airs. And not just three of them for a 45 foot coach with slides, but at least 4 of them. With 3 roof airs on a 45 foot coach you have no back up if one fails, and on some days even 3 may be inadequate. That all depends on your idea of a comfortable interior temp.

But with OTR I want my Cruiseairs. 4 of them. For the same reason I want 3 roof airs. I like the relative quiet of the Cruiseairs, and it was the sound level of roof airs that convinced me my choice of Cruiseairs was the right one. And by now the converters that have been using Cruiseairs got it right. They do work as long as their air flow is not blocked as David said.

As to the electric system every single one I have seen has been reliable up to a point. Each one has drawbacks making it hard for me to look at any one of them and say this one’s the best. There are so many factors that come into play that is one system I would not list or define on my wants and needs. David’s Vantare does have a great system, but if I go by my experience with all my Liberty coaches the reliability of those has been outstanding. With the exception of some relays my problems or issues have been zero over 24 years.

Do I like limiting what I can run off the inverter? Don’t know. I am not a dry camping guy. I am either plugged in, or driving, or running the generator so the number of times I need to run solely off of my batteries and inverters is minimal. The bad news is with only 4 house batteries, if I do have to run off inverters I cannot last long. The good news is I only have 4 house batteries. I wish I only had 4 tires for the same reason. It gets expensive to change a big set of batteries for the small benefit I would realize.

And that is why buyers need to make their own list of what is important. A person that dry camps a lot, or a person that uses a bus primarily as a second home in an RV resort is going to have a completely different coach that someone that goes from power pole to power pole, or spends a lot of time driving the coach. They all will work for almost any application, it is just that some will be a whole lot better than some others for a given usage.

[Andy]

All due respect to you tech gurus the only thing a new bus owner is going to understand about power management is not plugging in a hair dryer on the same side as 2 A/C’s.

Later

bv

[Archived]

Not the case with a Vantare. Right David?

[Archived]

Jon, it helps to have a couple degrees in electrical engineering but I hope nobody holds that against me! 🙂 I’ll do my best to blend, but there are no promises! Ha! 🙂

[Gerard]

We need guys like you David to keep the answers accurate.

[Archived]

Bernie, I was talking to Al and he said you didn’t have enough hair to justify a hair dryer.

[Ronald]

That’s right driver, you know I got hair but that’s how I solved my power management. I sport a #2 all around and the wife wears wigs. I threw the hair dryer out.

Later

bv