[Frank]

Thank you Tim, I just left them a message and hopefully they’ll give me a call back soon.

[Frank]

I have zero experience with driving anything other than a Prevost. When I bought our first in 1990 I can say it was very easy to drive. It did not wander. I was not affected by winds to the extent a lot of other vehicles were. I was not always making steering corrections.

I thought that coach with a 1987 chassis was great, but my 97 coach (1996 chassis) was even better. It went where I pointed it and it required even fewer steering corrections.

Then I got the 2006 (2005 chassis) and it was even better. The improvements were subtle, but with each succeeding coach there was a noticeable improvement. Then I took the 2006 to Prevost for an alignment and the technician not only put all values in the center of the acceptable adjustment range, he biased the steering to the RH lane where i spend most of my time.

Just when you think the coach steers really well you find it can be even better.

I think almost every member here can share similar stories. The point however is very important. Prevost has hundreds of millions if not billions of experience building coaches for commercial service and based on that vast level of experience they have fine tuned the chassis and handling to where they are today. They are clearly influenced by feedback from commercial drivers who probably drive anything in the bus company’s fleet, from MCI, to Van Hool to Setra, etc. Those drivers who easily are racking up 100,000 miles a years pretty quickly know which buses make their life easy. If the steering and handling is not as filly developed or refined they are working harder and thus are getting tired earlier because they have to work to steer the bus.

I am not saying a Newell drives bad or makes driving a little more work, but I cannot imagine how it is possible for the subtle changes Prevost has made over the years based on so many miles of actual use can be compared to an annual production of RV’s (yes, Newell is an RV) that probably has few professional drivers offering feedback, and so many fewer miles of road experience that it cannot compare to what Prevost engineers get.

My one experience with a motor home really drove home the point about how refined the Prevost driving experience is. Prevost really sets the bar pretty high and only by spending a day of hard driving a Newell and a Prevost will anyone be able to evaluate that aspect of ownership.

[Frank]

When those old remotes stop working, you’re SOL, there is no option other than replacement according to Glendinning.

[Frank]

I would strongly urge you to pull up the service bulletin relating to the change to Mae West air bags.

The more I look at the photos the more I am beginning to understand. First, that coach was one of the ones modified to get the second set of shocks on the steer axle. I suspect the greater diameter air bags are being used and if in fact they are the “Mae Wests” someone may have failed to recognize clearance issues with the greater diameter.

Replacing the air bags again is going to produce the same results again so don’t do it unless clearance is assured.

As a side note Country Coach was one of the converters producing nose heavy coaches that forced the modifications Prevost made, via a change in parts or via a serviced bulletin. Those changes were not required on all conversions and it might be possible your VIN might be shown as requiring the larger diameter air bags. If you get the right air bags for your coach there will be no future repeats of the problem, but to get the front to raise and maintain ride height in the front you may have to put the stuff in the front bay in the trunk of your toad to get weight off that axle.