-
Picking up our new bus!!
SOMEONE was too excited to sleep, because we’re leaving to head to S. California early this morning to pick up our new to us 2006 Marathon. We stay on the lot Saturday & Sunday, and then Monday & Tuesday we get educated with an extensive walk through. We’ve owned coaches for years, the last being an 06 Country Coach Intrigue, but as I understand it, a Prevost is an entirely different experience. After 2 days of our walk through, we’re on our own, so I’m certain I will be online asking way too many questions. 🙂
-
20 Replies
-
Congratulations, enjoy the ride.
-
Ask as many as you can think of. On occasion you might even get a correct answer.
Sounds like you are doing it right with actual hands on inspection and training. If you have read some of the threads you will see the areas most new owners question are the electrical systems, both the 120 and the 12 or 24 volt DC. Spend time with learning the inverters, how they are set up, what loads run through them, how to adjust charging current and how to bypass one or both if required.
How do you monitor the electric loads and manage it if on shore power? In general try to understand as much as possible about both the AC and DC electric systems and how to monitor loads and battery condition. The way even one bad battery in the house system can screw with your mind is amazing so you want to know how you can get a sense of the well being of your batteries and electrical systems. You don’t have to learn enough to be a mechanic, but enough to know when something is starting to not be right.
The house air conditioning system(s) need to be understood. Can they run through inverters. Where are the fitlers and how are they accessed. What AC is available while driving? Are they heat pumps? Operation of the house air conditioning systems ties into power management so you need to understand the loads, what circuits they are on, what other devices are on those circuits and how to power what you need so you are comfortable but not exceeding the shore power limits.
If the coach has slides learn how to operate them. Obviously there is not much skill or training needed to press a button, but do you have to do anything before you press the button? But more importantly you need to understand the emergency slide operations. Learn how to bring the slides in when pushing the button doesn’t do it, or how to over ride the safety features if you know everything is OK for driving but the system thinks there is a problem.
Generally I found the best way to learn was to start in one spot and move in a definite direction learning and operating every system, button, switch and knob as I came to it, not moving on until I had learned those devices or systems.
What will be different from your previous coaches is this time you have two products to learn. One is the Prevost chassis, and the other is the Marathon house. Learn how to differentiate between the two because the expert answers on chassis questions are going to come from Prevost, and the expert answers on the house will come from Marathon.
Congratulations. You are in for a great experience.
-
Congratulations and welcome to PC. Take your time and stay as long as it takes for you to be comfortable with all the systems and components. Once you get some miles under your belt, you’ll understand why we say, “There is NO comparison between a Prevost and a fiberglass coach”.
Have fun and there are lots of Marathon owners here to help you out.
-
You’re gonna love your new coach. I got rid of my ’06 Intrigue a little over a year ago too. You’ll find that the Prevost is a much better driving/handling rig. Hopefully you’ll have a lot less problems too!! This site has some great people and lots of good valuable information.
-
Congratulations!
-
Welcome!
we got a new to us 07 marathon in December and you will find this board is the best resource for any kind of question…
Congratulations!
Bill
-
Congratulations! You are in for the ride of your life:)
-
We came out of a Country Coach Affinity. After 3 months the Prevost gods were at our door. Against all logical thinking and advice on May 3, 2010 we owned a 2005 Marathon XLII .
As you post we all learn from your questions and there are no dumb questions here.
A short piece of advice…..
Starting today get a 3 ring note book and record / log EVERYTHING you do on your bus. As time goes by this will be a valuable reference.
Another important thing when you do this is when for sale time comes this record book tells how you have taken care of your bus.
Welcome and congratulations……AL
-
Congrat’s you have entered the Prevost zone, This is an addictive place, it brings pleasure, nail bitting, an occasional headache, but you will be hooked forever because of the enjoyment of ownership! enjoy the ride Gary
-
Thank you everyone for your encouraging posts. We’ve spent the last few days at Signature Coachworks in Beaumont, CA. They did an excellent walk through for us over 2 days, took us for a drive to gas up so John could get the feel of the coach with an experienced driver with him, and even did some quick upgrades we decided we’d like. We just navigated our way to our first park, and settled in.
I have to say, Roger Beauchemin and his crew at Signature Coachworks were terrific. Very knowledgable, helpful, and when it came down to paying for the upgrades we’d ordered a month ago and the new ones we decided to do, there were zero surprises with the invoice.
One question for co-pilots — is there any way to adjust your seat so your feet rest on a floor?! The pneumatic floor that comes out is well below my feet. I may be a little short (5′ 4″) but the dangling feet thing for hours at a stretch is not terribly comfortable. The only solution I found was to use the foot rest — not a bad solution, but I wondered if anyone had found another one.
Thanks! 🙂
-
Welcome Cathy & John, and congratultions. On behalf of all of So.Cal. I apologize for the very unusual rain today and yesterday. I hope it did not spot the stainless on your new coach. (Don’t worry, the spots wipe right off.)
Even though you are new to the board, I’ll welcome you by asking a favor. Can you share more information about Signature Coachworks? I could not find anything about them online. Are they affiliated with Marathon? I’m looking for a local company to do some upgrades and light remodel of my bus. I am in L.A.
Enjoy your first night on your own. Where did you end up for the night?
-
Signature Coachworks is at 101 S. California Ave. in Beaumont, CA. They are actually located where Marathon used to have a facility. Their techs are extremely knowledgeable, and they really seem to care about their customers. We have a cat, and they were careful about keeping us hooked up with AC’s running even while in the garage. They let their customers remain with the coach, and have an open door policy. We felt very comfortable asking questions of them as they worked on the bus, and never got that feeling you often get at shops when you feel like you’re really annoying them. Their website is under development, but in the meantime you can reach Roger Beauchemin via phone at (951) 845-8056 or email at roger@signaturecoachworks.com. They have full hook ups for you at their facility as well, and it is a gated lot.
They went through our bus with a fine toothed comb and picked up every little thing that needed to be repaired prior to us taking posession of it. They also did an amazing upgrade with our TV in the bedroom, and put a 40″ TV over the window (the bottom of the window is still vented and the blinds still operate). The TV looks like it was always there (see photo). They reprogramed the Crestron system for us to fit our specific requests, and also added the auto dump feature for us. At the last minute as we were hooking up our dingy to leave, we realized we didn’t have the correct electrical hook ups. Within 15 minutes they had wired the correct end to our cable (John would know the real names but hey, I’m a science teacher!) and had us on our way.
-
Ran your question by co-pilot Mary Ellen,
Has experienced the same thing with her 5′ 5′ frame. Uses the calf rest most of the time, as the foot rest places her lower legs at non comfort angle.
On long haul interstate travel just piling on the miles …. I have noticed some co-pilot naping.
Enjoy your Marathon..
-
I thought I recognized your name. There ought to be a support group for previous Country Coach owners. 🙂 We are absolutely thrilled with our Marathon. We’re both so happy with this move!!
-
I like the new TV placement. As the old location to the right held the original TV what was the re-model there ? Did you have the glass door in front of the screen ?
If the old TV is in working condition keep it.
During our first year of ownership we had an electrical component called a AV-2 box malfunction that surged the bedroom TV to the junk pile. I found the same TV on e-bay which had been removed during an RV remodel.
AL
Log in to reply.