[glen]

We have dealt with Brandon Blythe at Legacy Coach and he is a really
good guy. He deals only in top quality coaches. He sold our coach for us in the past. We liked
dealing with him so much that when it came time to buy our latest coach we also
bought from him. Your friend should have no trouble contacting Brandon.

[Archived]

Talk to Brandon at Legacy and Randy, Rex or Mike at Panterra. All are forthcomming and straight up guys. Royale is a very basic conversion and shines in its simplicity. CC will have few more bells and whistles including their version of bus a/c. A Royale will likely have a wood interior and an Aqua Hot which in that vintage can be troublesome and very expensive to replace, while the CC will have a Wabasto with water heaters. Both will have roof top a/c.

[Bernie]

Personally, maintenance is critical, the paperwork supporting it not so much so. I know all you former pilots are going, is he nuts? Not everyone values keeping historical data, even though they may be very good at keeping their coach maintained. Regardless of paperwork or the fact that the coach has well maintained I still say the best maintenance records are the ones that come from the PDI.

Don’t get me wrong, past records are great. I’m just suggesting they shouldn’t be as big a deal as some make them out to be. Even records don’t tell everything. Was the shop or individual that did the work qualified and certified to do the work done. Again, these aren’t planes where certifications and documentation are critical and typically govered by some set of standards. If Billy Bob did all of his own maintenance and documents it are you better off than the owner that makes their annual pilgrimage to Prevost for their level 3 service and has everything fix that was found but never keeps a receipt? Maybe, maybe not. It’s possible that Billy Bob was a mechanical engineer and form Detroit/Allison, suspension engineer that decided to go it on his own. How do you know?

The great thing about buying a Royale, Country Coach, American or a few others is that you will likely get a great deal. There’s been so much uninformed bashing of orphan coaches that the prices have been driven down. Our coaches are complex, regardless of the converter, and its that complexity that had fearing an orphan. The fact of the matter is that most coaches have very little outside of cabinetery that was their own creation. Systems do become obsolete, regardless of who the converter is. When this happens it’s important to have an upgrade path to whatever will replace the obsolete widget or system.

The top two things I’d worry about on a 2002 coach, presumalbly a XL-II is delamination and any non-Crestron modifications that were done to the Crestron system. The one thing I would look closely at is repairablity. Some converters did a great job making their systems accessible others did not.

[AL]

Is there a crestron system in a 2002 country coach? If so is it supported by anyone? Is the glass dash in a country coach a concern?

[Archived]

Gil,

Are
you nuts! Hey you said it and us pilots are all over that deal. I for
one think my maintenance records with accompanying receipts were very
valuable to each owner that I sold a bus to. I did not get any
meaningful maintenance log when I was buying any of the buses, except
for Brain E (a pilot) and his log looked like it came from an A&P
and not a bus owner. I got some receipts on the other buses, but no
written log to follow. Even the ones that claimed to have been
meticulously maintained, was a stretch at best.

So
give me a maintenance log and receipts anytime rather than hot air
about how well the bus was maintained. The proof is in the paperwork my man..

[AL]

Gil said: “The great thing about buying a Royale, Country Coach, American or a few others is that you will likely get a great deal. “

When you’re able to buy one of these wonderful buses at a phenomenal price, then it’s easy to simply take a chance on whether the seller is blowing hot air or on the lack of written maintenance records. Most of us can look at a bus, it’s storage environment, interior wear and tear, whether most things basically work, etc, and get an immediate feel as to whether the bus has been reasonably well cared for by its previous owners. If the story adds up and feels right, and if the price is great, take a chance! Sometimes prices are so good even worst case scenarios pan out.

[Archived]

No Crestron in my CC. Brandon Blythe at Legacy Coach and Randy and Rex at Panterra will shoot straight with you.

[Dick]

Doug, I’m pretty sure the 02s have a Crestron system. There are some that can maintain these. Some implementations of that time had custom nodes developed that spoke Crestron for 12V switching. Getting support for these, if they fail, may be a challenge.

I’m not sure which glass dash was installed in 02. If it was the Windows one then it’s as much a concern as any 12 year old industrial computer. The good news is there is a drop in replacement that is purpose built like new automotive dashes. The new one is much more feature rich.

[Corey]

I agree with Tom. We just bought a 99 Liberty conversion from the second owner who had only owned it since December; kinda long story, will share at a rally some time. The original owner used the coach in his business and couldn’t produce any maintenance records; business had been sold, businesses often don’t keep anything more than seven years. The original owner, the caretaker who “baby sat” the coach for the original owner, and the second owner swore up and down that the coach had maticulous care over its 15 year life and “any time anything was a problem … it was immediately taken care of”. Had 70,000 miles on it.

But no one could produce any records. The original owner was a beer distributor, had lots of trucks, and I was finally given the name of the truck center that did all his truck work, “the bus was always taken there for service”. The service manager knew the bus well. Looked in his computer. They had done fluids/filters every year; nothing else. Last time they saw the bus was in 2008. Six years ago.

All the filters had a June 2011 date on them. I asked “what happened between 2008 and 2011?” The coach had been kept in the Knoxville area. Finally (and I mean like after asking the same question five times) the caretaker volunteered that it had been taken to Buddy Gregg’s in Knoxville (who originally sold the coach) in 2011 and that not too many miles had been put on between 2008 and 2011. I called Buddy Gregg service. The service manager I talked to wanted to be helpful … but they have had three computer systems in a short period of time. He confirmed the service in 2011 was oil changes for the engine and generator and the trans fluid with the appropriate filters. He couldn’t tell me if they had seen it prior.

Original owner volunteered that the coach was at Liberty’s North Chicago facility, but didn’t have the workorder, invoice, or receipt. Jeff Rowe was able to get that. Some work related to the conversion and bus air had been done; but the bus air wasn’t working.

Working on the date and mileage of the service in 2008, we were able to calculate about 3,000 miles were put on in just less than six years. Some of the 3,000 miles was a 1,200 mile round trip from the Knoxville area to North Chicago and a trip from SE Michigan to the Knoxville area. Take those trips out and there was barely enough mileage for a decent monthly or every two month exercise of the coach and the systems.

Jeff had the coach at East Tennesse Luxury Coach for about a month; a number of the PC members have seen it in his shop. In the end we concluded that the coach had been kept clean and inside most if not all its life when not being used. But far from being the immaculate coach as it was represented as. Lots of stuff was replaced and fixed by Jeff.

Jeff reminded me of an important concept: If the seller(s) can’t produce maintenace records, presume nothing was ever done. So we zero’d everything out.

My aviation experience is limited to single-engine light aircraft and a Beech 18 on floats. Reasonably detailed maintenance records for a Prevost coach as well as any aircraft are vitally important when it comes to selling time.

So … buyers beware if the seller “can’t find the records”.

Sellers … if you want to command a premium price for your coach, have the maintenance records readily available for review when a buyer comes a calling. A spreadsheet summarizing all the maintenance on top of the receipts and records would be very helpful. If you’ve spent the money to fix and replace things on the coach, get credit for that money spent by producing the records.

[Archived]

Gil,

You are wrong. Off the charts wrong.

Nobody that does maintainence on a coach knows whether they are on foot or horseback unless there are records available for review to determine what is needed. Nobody that owns a coach has a memory good enough to be able to know what comes next, what is due, what has been done and by whom.

I don’t care if you get a level gazillion service from Prevost. I don’t care if you bring it back to the converter. Our coaches have far too many unrelated service requirements for anyone without a paper trail to follow. If you do not have a continuing stream of receipts, detailed lists of work done, or cannot pull those pieces of information from your service provider’s records you will never remember or prove somethig was done.

If an owner pulls all the service requirements from all the contributors to the coach such as Detroit, Prevost, Allison, the generator, the AC units, refrigerator, Rockwell, etc., etc. and includes those in each maintenance event that to me is a well kept coach. Everyone says their coach is maintained, but the reality is unless they can prove it, I doubt it.

A few examples: If your air system was not routinely serviced you have no clue how much moisture and water it is carrying around. If you don’t think that is important ask someone whose service provider did not give that system specific attention. That includes those who take the coach to Prevost. You have no idea how bad a coach can get when even the simplest of things can be ignored.

Your engine can be destroyed in as little as 50,000 miles if it is rarely driven and the coolant has never been changed. When the chemistry fails there is no protection and the ultimate failure is created by cavitation. A 15 year old Vantare with 42,000 miles and the original coolant just had that failure in the last year.

For those of us who prefer to not wait until a brake chamber diaphragm fails or an air bag bursts want to know the age of those so we can determine if we need to service or replace them. Without records we have to assume they need replacement so the availability of records could be worth thousands and eliminate the need to replace those components.

Don’t even get me going on how many people on this forum have had lousy work by cheap mechanics working out of the back of a truck or who profess to know it all. Untrained mechanics can get all the certifications because Prevost, Bendix and others offer free courses, and from what I see, they do not avail themselves of those opportunities but instead get on the job training at the owner’s expense. It is one thing for an owner to do his or her own work, It raises to another whole level when unskilled people with no certifications claim they know it all and take advantage of other’s lack of knowledge.

[Archived]

And you were very kind to neglect to mention that even a converter can do bad work, as I experienced a while back. No, it wasn’t Liberty.

[Archived]

Just another nod for Brandon at Legacy. I’ve bought 6 coaches in the past and could not have been happier with Brandon’s professionality and integrity. He delivered my Royale to me in Nashville last October and spent 2 days at a campground showing me the ropes. Love, love, love, my Royale. It may not have every bell and whistle but the ease of use, and for me, the learning curve was not horrible….(still learning). Our personal preferrence is with the warmth of woods as opposed to the laminates and the fit and finish in a Royale is great.

Since I didn’t have many maintenance records, I decided to zero out the coach….Tires, batteries, belts, air bags, norgren valves, shocks, brakes, full service on the genny, aqua hot, engine and jun-aire system. It may have cost 30K to get it all done above the cost of the coach but the peace of mind was priceless!! Took our first 4 month trip last December and other than some minor things she performed like a champ.

BTW…My coach is at Panterra right now getting some mods done, they too are professionals and wouldn’t hesitate to buy a coach from Rex or Mike.

[Archived]

Jon,

As I said, and you agreed, the quality of work performed is what is critical. I never said past paperwork isn’t a good thing to have. I still hold my opinion that the paperwork is no where as important as the work accomplished.

You point on the air system maintenance. My dryer cartridge is to be replaced every 2 years. That is the only recommended maintenance item beside periodic tank draining. I drain my aux compressor tank before each use, I drain the aux system dryer/filter monthly (always dry), I have the wet, primary, and secondary tanks at least annually (always dry). These would checked more often if I found water where I didn’t before. Sure I can provide receipts for dryer cartridge replacement. I never document tank drains.

I measure house battery voltages and temperatures during inverter use or during absorbtion charge. I do this every 3-4 months. Nope, not documented. How many are checking the health of their batteries?

Paperwork only proves work was supposed to have been done. Paperwork does not prove quality of work.

[John]

Somewhere earlier in this thread – someone asked about the crestron in a 2002 CC- I had on 2003 CC with no crestron – it had a small hand held Pronto remote for window shades, windows, audio, video but no lights or door openers. Never a problem that hot batteries in the remote didn’t fix.

Glass Dash: I loved the glass Dash on the CC. I could see it day or night- unlike the Prevost Factory supplied cluster with poor lighting and small numbers. Not for my old eyes. Never had a problem with the Glass Dash.

[Chas]

I just looked at all listings and it appears the 2004 model year may have been the first with Crestron systems.