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Pressure Pro & Valve Extensions
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My numbers are based on 25 years of ownership. Three coaches and about 400,000 miles later I am of the opinion that 5 and 10 years represent expensive years because those years are when I just replace stuff regardless of need. In between those years it is mostly routine maintenance and fluid changes.
Having said that there will be major expenses from time to time. I had an 8V92 rebuilt due to a cracked head and I had a factory remanufactured Allison 6 speed installed due to worn clutches and the small difference between a repair and a rebuild. Those combined cost $30,000 and were part of my thinking whne I threw out the expense for unanticipated repairs. Divide $30,000 by 25 years and that comes to $1200 of my expense for surprises.
There are always going to be repairs or replacements. Alternators, starters, TVs, refrigerators, A/C service or replacement, etc. but when you spread those costs out over a broad time period they aren’t such a big deal.
One thing I see new owners do which I think is unnecessary is the need to gut the coach and change everything because they don’t like the color or the carpet or the upholstery. While I agree that makes the coach their own, far too often they don’t give themselves a chance to get to know the coach and after some time determine what is really important. A new floor in the salon will not make the coach run better, but zeroing out a coach for a similar amount of money is going to save a lot of money in the long run. One way to insure an owner overspends is for the owner to not take the time to undersatnd the coach. I am amazed at how a relatively simple problem can be allowed to grow into an issue that costs thousands to resolve because the initial signs were ignored.
The cheapest cost of coach ownership is preventive maintenance. Waiting for something to need a repair or replacement tends to drive up the cost and maybe even compromise safety. The best example of that is trying to squeeze every last mile out of a tire. Instead of 5 or 6 years, getting seven years saves at most a couple of hundred dollars, but a blowout can lead to an accident or tear up a coach as the tire gets banged around under the coach.
As to internal tire pressure sensors I am not going to consider any device other than Pressure Pro. It would be nice if they offered the choice so I could have the internal ones on the coach and the external on the toads, but unless or until that happens I will make the external sensors work. I want and like their Pulse system that allows me to use multiple toads.
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Being new to this, I took both Jon & Jeff’s advice. The money I spent on the coach was to basically zero out the coach. I really did nothing to the inside or upgrade the electronics. They both recommended to live in the coach over the next year and go from there. I think that’s a pretty wise suggestion.
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I, too, bought the TST sensors back in 2008 or 2009….. had them for just a couple of months. What a bunch of junk. I had them both for the coach and toad and the repeater antenna never worked for the toad. I think they have improved them but mine were nothing but trouble.
I never had to add more air to my tires than with the TST sensors. I ended up giving them away. Even if they are improved, I would never buy them, I don’t want anything hanging on the end of my tire stem.
We do have the built-in system with the new coach. It seems to work perfectly over the past year that we have owned the coach.
If there is any way to get the built-in system, that would be the way to go (to me).
Mark
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The downside for internal sensors for me is the toad is not as easily monitored. We had a blowout on the toad about 10 years ago and I heard a muffled “pop” and very slight tug at the rear of the coach. I had no tire pressure monitoring system, but my gut told me to get off the highway fast.
I did get off the road and what I heard was a tire on the toad that had a blowout. I might not be so lucky the next time so for the time being I have a device called “Tattle Trail” which monitors the toad vibrations and if something is bad, even a wheel bearing it sends a signal to a monitor at the dash.
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Mark, wondering were you offered Prevost’s tire monitoring system?
JIM
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Jim,
The built-in tire monitoring system is standard on the Prevost chassis. It monitors tire pressure and tire temperature. You can adjust set points, etc.
Mark
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To revisit the valve cap issue, I thought an experience that I had with a slow leak in a tire might be of interest. The reason that I took so long in posting is that it took me awhile to find the photo. After quite a bit of head scratching, this is what I ultimately found. How the fiber got into the tire and how it ended up in the valve core is anybody’s guess. Maybe just some more of my good luck.
I’ve ordered a box of 50 of the sealing caps.
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