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RETAINED VALUE
On another thread the discussion morphed into one of older coaches being undervalued considering miles of life left in them. We all take the position our Prevost chassis life expectancy is at the least in the high 6 figures. That is not unreasonable when some seated coaches have mileage significantly over a million miles, and entertainer coaches can easily have a million miles when they are retired.
Who exactly is it in our little section of the bus world that has the greatest impact on driving values down, based more on age rather than remaining life? It could be converters who want to sell new conversions, and thus need to create a perceived need by suggesting the coach value somehow represents its remaining life, probability of problems and lack of the latest features. Or is it the owners who always want that new coach smell, and therefore aren’t too concerned about what they get for a trade. Or is it the buying public that is used to conventional RVs, their lack of longevity and ever increasing age related problems?
It is crystal clear some features have a great deal of value. Let’s pretend we currently own a well maintained 40 foot conversion with an 8V92 DDEC II engine. Regardless of what we think its value is to buyers we do know that to upgrade we are going to spend some money. As long as we are pretending let’s say the 40 foot coach has 250,000 miles, and that represents 25% of its useful life.
Since we want to upgrade, we have a lot of options. First we want 45 feet. How much is that worth? We want to replace the 8V92 that gets 5.0 MPG, and drinks oil, with a Series 60 that gets 7.5 MPG and uses no oil between changes. That is a real value, but what is that worth?
We can get the upgrades mentioned above and it is likely the technology will not be much different than the 40 footer. No Crestron, nothing but switches, relays, and circuit breakers. Maybe the inverters will be a little bigger, but that is about it. Can anyone justify maybe as much as $50,000 greater value for a different engine and 5 feet more length?
Let’s keep pretending. We also want slides. Prevost slides. Now we have to step up to a H or XLII from the original rivet coach. Technology now starts to become evident. A greater number of coaches are going to have a converter installed control system like a Crestron, the chassis will be more complex, and the slides are going to make it seem like a huge step up. Are slides going to be worth perhaps another $50,000 to $100,000? Or is it likely part of the jump in value is the coach is going to have only about 125,000 miles or 12% of its useful life used up?
Continuing on up the list of coaches, their features, and technology we realize Prevost is greatly increasing chassis features. The brakes are all disc, multiplex wiring is introduced, and the slides have been improved to become “pinless”. But is there anyone buying these coaches deciding to replace its older counterpart to get these feature? As nice as some of the features are, such as fire suppression, a better message center, adaptive braking, etc now the conversion is more technical, but not a lot different than what was available in the 40 footer, yet everyday one of us spends maybe a couple hundred thousand to get a newer coach. Why? Has the older one lost any capabilities? Is it becoming a used up maintenance nightmare? We all brag about ours being million mile coaches, yet we dump them when the odometer passes 99,999.9.
Maybe the answer is we have to accept how our coach values change over time, because no converter is going to sell a new coach unless someone buys the new buyer’s old coach, and his old coach is likely to be bought by someone upgrading from a older coach, etc.
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10 Replies
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I am there with you, Jon. It does, however, put a crimp in my desire to have that ’96 Elegant Lady that I spoke with you about. And, now to make matters worse for me, I like a H-35, interior re-done front to back, at the same dealer.
I am primarily focused on solid front axle, series 60 pre-egr, and service history.
Otherwise, I like my old girl.
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OK, to help us understand why we (me included) want to move up, besides 5 feet of length what exactly are you planning to get that you do not have in terms of performance, utility, reliability, etc?
I can recite all the excuses I made for making changes, but if I step back and attempt to apply logic, I come up short. I just know I valued the coach I had way less than the one I wanted making me guilty of driving down values.
1999 XLV X-6872, liberty #440 -
The late ’90s coaches are a bargain in my opinion. You get say 70% of the experience for 20% of the acquisition cost.
We have been reluctant to move up. No doubt there are some nice additional features as you move from our ’99 Marathon to a 2008+-. The value proposition just never worked out for us. We’d have to “invest” another $400-500k to get a somewhat younger coach. It would have slides but it also would have potential delamination and an engine with all the EPA “features” (EGR, DPF,…) and quite a bit more complexity. The slides themselves take away some storage. The newer coach would likely need a lot maintenance (batteries, tires, fluids, shocks, bags, brakes…). Our current one is pretty much up to date on maintenance. All in all, I just don’t see another 500k in value. So we bought a boat instead…..again.
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To go from a 99 to an 08 (assuming and XLII) you get slides. I went from a 97 to an 06 and that was what we got. Having said that, depending on how you use your coach they may offset all the negatives. For us the extra room has changed the entire character of the coach, making it seem expansive.
But (here it comes) there is a cost. Delamination has the potential to be an issue unless the coach has the rivet repair. The coach is heavier by about 6,000 or 7,000 pounds. In addition it is going to have a degree of emissions controls that when combined with the added weight can put mileage back in the range of an 8V92.
In addition to adding weight, slides steal space. A lot of it. We had bags full of stuff taken from the 97 that were not going to fit in the 06. We lost the equivalent of the room occupied by a pantry or full height closet due to the side space around each slide used for slide mechanism. But in addition the structure for the slides stole height in the bays beneath the slide so we also lost bay space.
The heavier weight, especially on the front axle pushed us into the 365 and 315 tire sizes, instead of a single easily sourced tire. The EGR emissions controls may possibly impact engine life and it has been reported cylinder #6 has had issues as a result of shoving dirty exhaust gases back into the engine intake manifold. The EGR certainly makes the oil black instantly after an oil change.
Slides have the potential to eat money. Some owners have had expenses associated with adjustments and control box failures, some have had issues with the pneumatic control assembly and a lot of folks have used the kid’s college fund to replace slide seals.
Despite all the doom and gloom listed above it needs to be said that there is no way we would go back to a non-slide coach because that extra space is really nice. It is worth whatever downside there is.
The money lost in depreciation by stepping up to a newer slide coach is just the price of admission.
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Logic and bus ownership. I have never been able to use those two in the same sentence.
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i always weigh coach depreciation vs. happiness and for some reason, happiness always wins out. You can’t take anything with you when you leave this earth, so just as soon be happy and get pleasure out of coach ownership and travels!!! Memories are priceless!!
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Well said Brady.
2000 Featherlite H3-45
2024 Jeep Grand Cherokee
Leesburg, FL -
Thank goodness for rapid depreciation…
Yes, there is an up side. We are not willing to pay $2M+ for a new bus but we could pay less than $400K for a beautiful XLII, put less than $100k in to upgrades, remodeling and zero’ing it out, and ending up with something exactly like we want it, dependable, and with technology approaching a current model.
With depreciation, we can have a great bus at 1/4th to 1/5th the price.
Did I mention that the bus is beautiful? SMILE
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For me it is about having a service history and knowing that the updates have been logged in a record where I can contact and discuss details. I love my old girl. She runs and rides well.
However, I do not know if it is the military background bubbling to the top, I seem to be in a constant phase of catching up. The former owner owns an excavation company and did all of the service and repairs in his own shop. Getting that history has not been the easiest of things. One good bit of documented history is I know the engine is a replacement engine from 2005.
In addition, Jon, the Elegant Lady that we emailed back and forth about, has been well maintained, interior freshly updated, and the history is well documented. I have only been in one 45′ Prevost, Eric Schwalm’s former Elegant Lady, and the space seemed considerable compared to the current space.
Ron
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Ron, there is no doubt going from a 40 to a 45, or from a non-slide to a slide provides a significant gain in useable space.
I am sure that is what drives the decision a lot of us make when we change coaches. Our use of our coach changed dramatically from when we were using it a lot doing seminars and trade shows, often moving every day or two, to our use now which is almost exclusively extended stays in one spot prompting us into a slide coach.
As far as wanting or needing a coach history, after a purchaser has had a coach for a while, such as a year, and has gone through a few maintenance cycles and maybe even zeroed out some systems, whatever previous owners have or have not done is history. By the time a coach has been owned for an extended period, and the new owner has addressed any issues that have come to light, the coach history becomes less important.
But at the time of a sale or purchase that detailed, logged, proveable history has a significant value that impacts the selling price because it shows a prospective owner what tasks do not have to be done, delaying some service events that are necessary to a schedule, but not right away.
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