-
Side panel delamination on XLII models
-
Sid: There are days where I would like to have no stainless too, but when it is clean, it sure is nice looking.
-
I have the same thought Sid, everytime I wash the bus, which is often. At least with an H, you could wash without DI water and probably not notice the water spots. I also think of an H when I don’t have room for anything else in the bay. Everytime I watch Mango unload the Honda Scooter from his H and there is still space left over for his entire house, it makes me think!!!!
-
All us old farts need the exercise from drying our stainless panels to avoid water spotting. If that wasn’t the case Prevost and the converters would be using brushed finish stainless steel and we know how ugly that looks.
-
Stainless or not. If you are lucky enough to live in a region where highway crews squirt the nasty liquid on icy/snow covered roadways to melt frozen moisture called MAG-CHLORIDE, an H would be your coach of choice. Now owning stainless again, and our previous coach was an H, we wonder what was this thought process. Oh ya, we wanted a 40 footer.
Lets just say, placing your stainless clad coach in an environment of mag-chloride, increases your bus exterior maintenance by a 1,000,000 fold. It only takes nano-seconds for the imperfections of the polished metal surface to succumb to mag-chloride corrosion and you have a beautiful display of brownish colored spots. Most western states use this crap to melt the highway surfaces in winter because some motorists dont “drive for conditions”. So we have wet highways like it like it just rained at zero degrees or below. Wet road surfaces below zero aren’t natural! This ice free environment just enables crazy drivers to speed as if they are in the desert. Some states using Ice Slicer: Kansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Stainless cladding maybe eye catching, but unless you are able to carry a mobile detailing operation with you on-call, your polishing workload will increase substantially. We would welcome a stainless matte finish and even explored ordering a bus unpolished. But with the “delam” we will stick with factory issued rivets or go back to an H3-45.
-
We lived in the western NY rust belt and at the time we lived there the coach was used extensively in the winter. You could drive 1/2 mile in the winter and your car or coach or bicycle would be white from the liquids they sprayed on the road and on every flat surface there would be sand, grit and unmelted rock salt.
There was nothing we could do about accumulations of the road crud until we got home from trade shows, and because I did not have a heated garage I had to wait for temps to get above 32. Yet I had no problem with washing the road crud off, but I had to do it in sections because while it was wet I dried it immediately.
The bus was no more difficult to care for than the cars. But whether the finish was painted or polished it was still a lot of work to stay ahead of the damage that road salt could do. It just doesn’t show up as readily on a painted H3 as it does on polished stainless.
Now I won’t drive in snow, and if I have the option I won’t even drive in rain.
-
I understand about the salt white layers you experienced in the rust belt. Mag-Choride far exceeds the nuisance of salt. Upon application the roads are slimy slippery and causes unnecessary skidding by unaware drivers. After you have driven thru Mag/Chloride and the stuff dries, requires another special concoction to get it off. Our automated as well as do it yourself car washes have a special goo you spray on to remove the crud. Dried on you vehicle, mag Choride has a sandpaper like texture to your touch. Our local auto repair shop says on some late model cars they literally must remove corroded tie rods with new in order to do a re-alignment. In the mountains along hi ways most of the vegetation is killed from the stuff and it causes arching in electrical lines, causing non storm related outages. The crap is horrible stuff. Far worse than plain road salt
-
PICKING UP MY BUS FRIDAY AT ELEGANCE ALL DONE. FOR AS H OVER XL2 WHEN I DIE I WANT A POLISHED STANILESS STEEL CASKET WITH NO-SEE-RIVETS
-
Yipee Darrell, it’s almost over.. Make sure to get up pictures..
-
hey david i enjoyed my thompson but this H is so much easier to keep clean.
-
Recently completed the second panel delam repair on my bus. The bus is a CC conversion titled as a 2009 on a 2007 XL11 shell. I bought it in November of 2009 and the first repair was completed in 2012 in Jacksonville. The repair was the then standard reglue, add stainless strips with flush rivets and total repainting. Last year on vacation in Colorado I noticed some panels were loose in the mid sections between the rivetted strips. When I returned home and took the bus in to Prevost Jax for service I advised them about the new problems. After a thorough inspection including leak testing, Jax Prevost staff advised me that every panel needed to be removed, replaced with new panels with new stainless strips and the flat rivets. Of course, that meant another new complete repainting as well. It took about two months to get the approval from Prevost Canada to pay for the repairs.The Jacksonville staff was instrumental in obtaining the approval and I appreciate them stepping up for the cost which was in excess of six figures. Thats right six figures plus before the decimal. The repairs are now complete, everything looks good and tight again. I certainly appreciate the crew at Prevost Jax going to bat for me with the approval, and I am convinced they have the experience to deal with the delamination issues better than any other resource.
-
Thanks for sharing this Fred. I was under the impression that once the rivet process was complete, it would never again be an issue. So when you had it done in 2012, you got the rivets like they’re doing now, but that failed? I just had mine done last year, rivets, z-molding and patch panels and was under the impression that was the final fix.
I do agree with you, the crew at Jax are the best….
-
I guess we had better keep an eye on ours to see if the “final fix” is really so. I would hate to have to get it done all over again!
-
Oh my! Not again? I’m really starting to think we made the right decision getting an H, even though we like the look of the XLII more.
-
Cory you made the right choice !! I think even Boateral is having second thoughts! Thats the way he looks to me anyway out here in 82 degree weather
-
Unfortunately, every fix is thought to be the “final” fix at the time it’s done.
Hopefully this example is an anomaly and not an indication of things to come. Thankfully Prevost did the right thing and stood behind their repairs.
Log in to reply.