-
– Our Total Prevost Cost$ for Last 10+ Years
We’re most of the way thru our 11th yr of 1996 Prevost/Liberty XL40′ Classic ownership. We purchased it (cash) in Dec 2013 from a converter/reseller in Florida. It had 66,000 miles. I drove it to our TX home Jan 2014 where it has always lived in its covered busport 50′ from my lazyboy at our TX house when we’re not traveling in it. Today it has 120,000 mile on it. That’s 54,000 wonderful miles.When purchased bus had all new tires, refrigerator/freezer, and chassis and house batteries, no mx records, but it did come with paper Prevost parts & mx manuals.I’m a DIYer. 99% of labor has been FREE. I try to be proactive, not reactive. We don’t like mx surprises when traveling. Only twice have I paid someone to come to the house to help me work on it, and that was at home conveniently scheduled between trips. Total labor cost for the 2 visits was $600.While traveling we have not had any bad mx issue(s) requiring a tow or a mechanic. There have been some minor issues that I’ve been able to quickly tackle myself.Total = $62,500.This $ amount DOES include about $4,000 of spare parts I have on hand.This $ amount does NOT include: 1) diesel fuel, or 2) overnite camping/parking fees.Bus averages 7.5 mpg @ 65 mph.The single highest annual cost included has been “full agreed value insurance”, averaging about $1300/yr. Second = tires, and third HAS BEEN batteries. But I switched to LiFePO4 house batteries and should never (in my lifetime) need to replace them again.Upgrades that I installed and are included in the cost amount = 1) Gil Johnson LED tail light setups, 2) Matthew Valentine LED head light setups, 3) 2 new MagnumEnergy inverter/chargers.Of course there are many many more upgrades, updates, and mx items at a lesser $ cost but often required a lot of MY FREE labor.If I was NOT a DIYer, I think I would have easily doubled (maybe tripled) this $ amount, not to mention the travel cost & time going across the state/country to get work done.Your results may vary -
4 Replies
-
Beautiful bus!
DIY is “rewarding” in many ways!
-
Yes beautiful Bus Don!
Totally agree with the DIY motto, I love getting my hands dirty. I’m starting my third year with my 93 Marathon and love every minute of it! All maintenance is done for free as your’s I’ve only had a couple major maintenance items that I had to replace so far, which was a water pump in 2022 and starter earlier this year…right now I’m working on removing the paint on all my bay doors to make it all polished stainless from end of the paint line just above my bay doors. Had to replace the scraped lower panels on both my water bay doors and I liked the look of polished stainless so gonna go that route all around. Then next will be a Tropi-cool or Bus-Kote on the roof later this month.
Haven’t actually sat down and tabulated costs yet but I do have them all documented in my maintenance and navigation logs.
Now that I’m retired look forward to 2025 for some great travels!
-
spot on. my story would be real close to yours. do my own work. owned about 7 years.i have done bags,valves, cruiseaire, washer dryer, 3 tvs, roof coating, and lot more on my never ending lists. If get to the point that I cannot do the labor the coach will have to go to some one else. happy hobby most of the time. no better built coach to own in my opinion.
-
Same. Another excellent commentary (and always great pics) from Don. Mike
Log in to reply.