[Bob]

I read many of the posts that talk of cost of ownership and I don’t see it. Of course I’ve owned a yacht before and there’s just no comparison. Fuel alone for a boat makes the cost owning a Prevost a fraction of boat ownership. Whether your choice of yacht is land or sea based, I hope no one ever bought either as an investment. We own them for our pleasure and all pleasures have their price.

[Bob]

Hey, Jon, We have been busy getting the place in the Colorado mts. squared away. For what it is worth, You can get new cruisair units (air cooled) from T K Alley in Ft. Lauderdale. ph. 954 920 0300. Ask for Tom. By the by, are you and Di going to Daytona next week? If so, hope to see you there.

[Bob]

We have touched on the cost of ownership on these threads, but I’m not sure it has been pulled together into one easily accessible spot. Maybe an article would help however when we talk about costs some things are kind of universal such as budgeting for tires and batteries. We cannot ignore the cost of insurance, licensing, and providing shelter for the coach and those are not universal in the sense those costs vary widely.

But the greatest variable is routine maintenance. Some owners do 100% of their own. Some do none of their own. Some turn the keys over to Prevost or their converter or Detroit Diesel and say “take care of it” and others manage the service using qualified mechanics but with much lower costs. As a result I will often try to put out the costs for part and the hours I would guess a job would take.

But to a person considering a coach they are going to have a hard time trying to put together a budget because they likely will need a little experience before they can determine if they want an agressive preventive maintenance program in which they replace parts and perform service in advance of the need, or if they will wait for a failure such as a brake chamber or air bag before they service those items.

And then there is fuel. Based on current prices it is probably reasonable to assume for every mile the coach rolls it is going to burn $.60 to $.80 worth of fuel give or take a few cents either way. If a person knows how many miles they will drive each year they can then guess how much to set aside for that.

But as regular readers of this forum know I point out regularly that no matter what the annual cost of fueling and maintaining a coach is, on average depreciation is going to exceed all other costs combined yet almost nobody ever thinks of that when buying a coach. Obviously a coach that is dirt cheap will not have a high depreciation, but in exchange for shelter from depreciation owners of those coaches could be most at risk of high cost unplanned repairs such as on an engine or transmission so the bottom line is we all have to be prepared for a serious bill like on an engine replacement, with the risk increasing as coaches get older and especially if they haven’t been well maintained.

But if Bob thinks building his own bus doesn’t make sense, he can extend that to say owning a bus also doesn’t make sense. Not financially anyway.

[Bob]

If he is using off road fuel, and mixing with old oils, he could wind up in trouble with the law. Off road is a no-no for on highway vehicles, and mixing old oils etc. can get you a visit from the tax people.

We used to blend our used motor oil with our fuel for trucks and had to pay tax on the gallons of oil we put in the fuel tanks. We did it primarily to get rid of the old oil without having to haul it away. It did NOT burn as clean as regular fuel, and with the advent of electronic injectors we decided to quit doing it.

It isn’t worth the hassle or problems it can cause.

[Bob]

My breaker along with a time delay relay is in the engine compartment over the engine in the long box you turn the thumb screws to get in to has good labeling in side dont forget it is time delayed about two minutes

[Bob]

Jim it would help if you could offer a thumbnail description of what the safety system is, how it works, what it protects, what is involved in installing it and the scope of what it covers.

Also recognize that few of us own multiplex systems so while the system may be able to communicate via the multiplex communications system it is likely those few are unlikely to be your market because Prevost is offering a fire suppression system on later model coaches.

I suspect your real market is on the older coaches so that’s who you need to address. Then if folks want to follow up with you they will have a better idea of if you are selling smoke detectors or sprinkler systems or something more sophisticated. So far I know Bob and I are victims of fires and you likely have our attention.

[Bob]

As someone without a bus and looking to have one as some
point, this topic caught my eye. I have
enjoyed reading this board and the other boards as I to try to get as much
information as possible about buses. A
year into reading, I think that I am way more educated than I was, but nearly
as educated as I would like to be.

I do not mind it when someone states an opinion. After reading for awhile, I have a sense of
whose opinion to trust, and whose opinion to verify with more research. The important thing is that there be a
discussion so we are exposed to the many different viewpoints. All in all, I would rather have someone “stick
their nose” in my business and tell me something that I already know than to
have someone be silent and have me make a mistake because I was acting on
incomplete or erroneous information.

With that being said, I would like to put out some suggestions
for evaluation.

1. What about creating a new forum entitled “Want to buy a
Prevost, start here” or something similar.
Place it at the top of the page. There are many good articles posted on
this site. The Admins could pick out the
best articles pertaining to buying and maintaining a Prevost and embed links to
them within a thread that is pinned to the top.

I would keep most of the threads in it locked. It would be like an online book. If a thread on buying pops up in another
forum, it could be allowed to run its course, locked, and then moved.

2. Gary LaBombard had a bad experience buying an Eagle. He has a CD that he put together on the
process at http://www.busconverter101.com/aboutus.html. A thread or two on problem buses and
inspections in the new forum could be
helpful. I do not know Gary and do not have the CD. I am mentioning it as a type of resouces that we could create here.

3. Speaking of the prepurchase inspection, the members of
this community could create an Excel spreadsheet pre purchase inspection checklist
(similar to the pre trip, or annual inspection checklist in the articles
section of the website). After each
item, there could be a price range to fix after it, and/or more instruction on
how to inspect.

4. Valuation. After
reading several of these websites, I still do not have a good idea on how to
value a bus. An article on valuation and source for valuation would be helpful.

5. Sources for buses.
There are many avenues for purchasing a bus: converters, advertisers on
this site, EBay, wholesalers, private party,
insurance auctions, repossessions, etc. A
discussion of the pros and cons of each along with sources might speed up the
learning curve for potential buyers. Remember, there are all types of potential buyers. From those that can drop over a million without a second thought to someone who wants to buy a cheap bus and fix it up themselves to meet their needs. As a community, we grow if we can cast a wide enough net to catch every type of potential owner.

As someone studying buses, these are a few things that might help me.

[Bob]

Since our bus had OTR air conditioning, I always kept the forward shutters closed while driving to keep dust, dirt and other crap from entering the space occupied by the CruiseAir units.

I don’t know if it actually made a meaningful difference but it me me feel like I was accomplishing something….

[Bob]

I live in Evansville Indiana about a hour away. Let me know what your looking for?? I will check around. Jan here can be 60F or -10F with snow never know! Ohio River valley. Normal is 40F. Bob

[Bob]

I live in Evansville Indiana about a hour away. Let me know what your looking for?? I will check around. Jan here can be 60F or -10F with snow never know! Ohio River valley. Normal is 40F. Bob

[Bob]

Thanks Joel.

I think I’ll have the fan speeds reprogrammed. Talking to many owners it seems their dash air is on a lot of time, especially for southern coaches. I believe it’s reasonable to think the temperatures experienced with the dash air are okay. I may try 190 for low speed and 195 for high speed.

As for the fuel mileage reduction, I’m sure it’s there. I too had to lock my fan while in the Yukon. I drove 300 miles that way and could really see a difference in mileage. Of course, that’s not a long distance. I have driven a few thousand miles with the dash air on almost the whole time. Even then, I didn’t really see much difference in mileage; maybe a 1/10th of a mile per gallon and that would include both the fan load at high speed and the dash air compressor being on.

Thanks again,

Gil

[Bob]

We got all the Prevost system air tanks, specifically the wet, primary, secondary and the aux system (or accessory) tank. The first two were over the drive axle, the second two over the steer. We also drained the ping tanks associated with each air bag.

As to a grille with screws in it the only grille I can think of is the one beneath the aux system air compressor that also provides air intake for the Cruiseairs and the house batteries. If there is a tank there I suspect that is the awning pneumatic tank but that is a guess. I was unaware ZipDee had one, but if they do it does need to be serviced (drained) at intervals and a lanyard run sideways with a loop type handle in the back wall of the first bay would be an ideal thing because it would be protected from snagging and would make draining the tank easy.

[Bob]

MICHAEL

I DON’T KNOW ABOUT A VANTARE, ON MY 2005 THOMPSON IT HAS A AUTO-LUBER IN LINE WITH REGULATOR, WORTH CHECKING TO SEE IF YOU HAVE ONE AND ADD OIL DARRELL

[Bob]

Tom do you ship house batteries to Calif ? I’m due for new house batteries in my Marathon H3 would you email me the info and the cost deliverd to Beaumont,Ca

Thanks

sidtuls@yahoo.com

[Bob]

Brady & Trish,

Welcome to PC and thanks for posting about your Liberty experience. Let us know what you have, it’s easy to add the bus to your signature and it helps with information sharing. When you leave Liberty after a PDI, there’s nothing left to do except enjoy the ride and have fun.