[Alicia]

I think Jeff at ETLC keeps the Centramatics in stock… when he put on our new tires we found out that Liberty removed 4 of them when they put on the last set of tires… guess they just forgot to put them back on but luckily for us Jeff had them on hand so we now have a full set.

Diane

[Alicia]

Good Morning Everyone,

I am working on finding out what this code means and am working on correcting this issue. I will let you know when I have found what this is and how to correct it.

Thank You

Alicia

[Alicia]

Ditto on the super glue. The door to the washer/dryer on our 97 had one of those handles and super glue did the job.

[Alicia]

MM,

I agree that I, too, have been disappointed in the converter websites. I’m a website designer and owner of a site having more than a million pages. What I can offer is that great websites just don’t “happen”. They take a tremendous amount of skill to properly implement and good designers are expensive and in high demand.

What usually happens to most non-IT businesses is that someone will hire a friend-of-a-friend, a relative, or the smart kid next door to throw together a site. Some hire design consultants who will come in and for a lot of money generate a site that has some flashy graphics and a few canned “gee-whiz” features, only to disappear soon thereafter.

The problem is that a great website takes a full time effort. A great website needs one or two individuals that understand computer technology, programming, graphic arts, marketing, and human factors. Finding all of that in one person is rare, and if you do, it will cost between $50,000 to $100,000 per year. Otherwise, you can hire a couple of college kids who will have some hits-and-misses, design a few neat features, and be pretty enthusiastic for a while, but will inevitably leave before the project is done. This is typical because no IT project is ever done. Worse, the new people coming in to pick up where the last ones left off will not want to maintain what their predecessors implemented and will surely propose a redesign. They too, will leave when they’re done or your budget is exhausted. The cycle never ends.

What you see when you go to the manufacturer’s current website is usually a design that was implemented a couple of years ago by people who are now long gone. Nobody on staff knows how to extend the site or to add new features, and the limitations that it exhibits have become the signature behavior of the site. It’s business as usual with a ho-hum web experience.

From what I’ve seen, none of the current manufacturers of low volume products (i.e. our coaches), are willing to spend the kind of money it takes to create that great web experience. But can you blame them? Consider for a moment that you’re selling multimillion dollar vehicles to mature, wealthy people. Now look at the buyer demographic and ask some simple questions like:

1) Are our customers internet savvy? Is this the Facebook crowd? Chances are, they’re not. Just because you’re reading this internet posting, don’t assume that they are. Cances are you did not buy a new coach and are thus not in this demographic. Yes, even in this day, some folks don’t use computers at all. What percentage of new coach buyers are savvy internet users?

2) Does the manufacturer’s web site influence the final buying decision? Again, a well heeled customer will shop around a bit. Before plunking down that big check, they’re going to want to SEE the final product. Making the decision based solely on the website doesn’t happen. The final decision decision on a purchase of this size will always involve some personal, one-on-one interaction between buyer and seller.

3) What parts of the selling process are the most useful in getting people to part with $2 million bucks? Imagine being a new coach salesman. Which would you rather spend a $200,000 marketing budget on: a lavishly appointed showroom with fine furniture, premium beverages, fine carpets, dazzling brochures, etc., or…. a flashy website? Remember, you never get that one-on-one firm handshake on a website. Warm and fuzzies go hand in hand with big purchases and you can only do that with warm bodies.

So, it’s no surprise that their websites are unremarkable. It’s a reality of business.

[Alicia]

Thanks, folks

The Loves website says the truck stop in Palestine, Arkansas has B14. Does that mean 14%?

Do all loves sell only Biodiesel or just in parts of the country where it is mandated?

Obviously for some Biodiesel is a deal breaker and for others it does not bother your bus at all. I know one thing. I do not desire to become an expert at changing fuel filters on the side of the road. It is encouraging to know that some of you have had no problems at all with Biodiesel.

DKO

[Alicia]

So there is some clarification on the reasoning behind Millennium’s 4 Inverters I thought I should step in here. We feel 4 is better than 2, kinda like two hands are better than one and 4 eyes are better than two. One goes out you have three, two go out, you’re like everyone else. We can operate all 4 roof mounted units without relying on the generator which in turn uses .9 gallons an hour. Dry camping…. we can run all 4 airs and the dryer while watching Matlock and not have the generator running for a period of 4 to 5 hours. Two A/C’s on an 80 degree night you’d be looking at 10 hours of dry camping time. Each Inverter weighs in a 61 lbs so that’s not going to really effect us and we carry 8 4D AGM batts., not allot of weight there either. As far as heat, we had a company come in with Thermal imaging cameras and helped us strategically place ventalation for our cooling system. But above all else, it’s for redundancy. Every system on our coach has a back up, and some have a back up for the back up.

Chris Stroup

Millennium Luxury Coaches

Sales Manager

407.402.8344

[Alicia]

John,

I cannot speak to southern practice but in the snow belt of western New York it was customary to mark bridge clearances as 12 inches less than actual. The reason was to compensate for heavy snow build-up.

It might be a regional practice.

[Alicia]

nice work Gil. My CC uses the festoon bulbs in them so I bought LED’s with the festoon base, only thing is they are not as bright as I would like so I’ll try some like you used.

My next question is, has anyone come across the gaskets that were originally used. LMC Truck.com has plenty of light housings but their gaskets are a thin sim hard plastic and don’t fill in the curvature on the lamp base when used on our flat cargo doors.

[Alicia]

Bill, The tires do not have to be removed from the wheel. I have broken the bead and been able to get my hand in to tighten the seal on the valve stem on my coach. I wouldn’t assume the valve stems need replacement anyway until you verify that to be the case. It might be the tires don’t have Equal.

[Alicia]

I could get all giddy about mileage except on a list of things I consider when making a decision it is nowhere near the top. Part of that is caused by the fact of our multiple vehicles the combined miles we drive is 12,000 miles. Not one vehicle, but of all the licensed vehicles (6) we only add a couple of thousand miles or less to each odometer.

We do the same amount of driving in the bus as we do all vehicles combined.

But even if we put a lot of miles on a vehicle per year, we would still drive it until it wore out, and with a lot of miles of driving per year fuel economy might rise up on the list, but it would never be the sole deciding factor.

But I am working hard to get 20 MPG on the bus.

[Alicia]

Brady and Trish,

We had Prevost Country Coach at one time with the same awning, and every time after rain we had same problems like yours. ZipDee was blaming CC for pinched and broken lines etc etc etc.

Finally we went to the factory ( ZipDee ) , removed the AutoAwn and installed manual. Never been happier since then. After that experience we took a pass on many buses, with AutoAwn before we purchased our H3 Royale with manual awning.

Alek and Lucia

2000 H3-45 Royale

Click below to check our location today:

http://map.datastormusers.com/user1.cfm?user=7674

[Alicia]

The bottom line is as owners we are the last resort when it comes to verifying our coach is safe and not at risk of a preventable problem. As we keep our coach in a state that has certain devices operational our vigilance ramps up proportionately.

Using the refrigerator as a spare, or keeping an AC operating certainly makes sense but power issues should get our attention, but even beyond that we still need to be aware.

Unlike a house where power outages require almost no response on our part, a power outage on the coach instantly requires our attention. If our coach is at any level over all systems totally shut down, we need to monitor the coach. In some instances the worst that can happen is an air conditioner will shut down and the coach will get a little humid inside. But in other instances the same coach can have the power switch over to inverters and before long there can be the risk of dead batteries.

As more systems are on line, such as a refrigerator the risk can be the loss of the refrigerator contents as described above, but also permanent damage to house batteries.

Gil has a handle on his coach, inverters and how his systems work so he manages the risks by setting his coach up so a power loss is just that with no real concerns on his part. He is not relying on uninterrupted shore power. Another approach is to actually assume shore power will be unreliable and just kill all circuits, turn off all master switches and disconnect all power so the coach is “asleep”. But anything above those storage settings increases an owner’s need to understand the coach, it’s systems and inverters, and the owner’s need to monitor the coach often.

Monitoring need not be difficult either, but does require an owner to have something as a clue to if everything is all right or if something needs to be checked. On my coach I have a fan that cools the bay the inverters are in. When I enter my garage, even if I am not going in the coach the first thing I listen to is the fan noise. If I do not hear the noise, I investigate further. Simple. No noise, no power. I am sure each coach has its clues.

New owners…..pay attention because almost all of us has had to deal with all the things that can go wrong when our coach is not being used. The problems can be a minor inconvenience like Tom had, and dealt with, or it can be much more serious and expensive.

[Alicia]

All you need is the sensor and if you can mate up the one used on a Series 60 to your manifold you should be good to go. I always considered the EGT readout helpful. Although I never worried about an upper limit and had never worried when I smashed the throttle and got up to 1100 on a long hard climb, I did look for them to run about equal temps. Unequal temps when driving would be a potential indication of a problem with combustion on one side of the engine or another. The pyros were my visual clue as to the efficiency of my Jake brake. If I saw about 300 degrees when the Jake was engaged, life was good.

If you have the gauge I encourage you to get the sensors. Just don’t tighten them as tight next time.