[Jim]

If you did your homework before buying a coach, considering the importance of a pre-purchase inspection, a budget to handle the use and costs of owning a coach, you have done all you can do.

Bernie can see indicators, but so can we all if we look for them.

As to supposedly knowledgable people putting out on-line videos take 100% of them with a grain of salt. If you want information from experts look for real owners, especially long term owners who are very involved with maintenance, the costs of ownership, and who have the specific conversion you seek or own.

When they have their own money in a coach from acquisition to care and feeding you are getting the truth. Pay attention to Bernie’s opinions, just understand he is biased towards Marathon, and against one conversion in particular. We all have opinions and sometimes we cannot avoid expressing them, but Bernie’s opinions for the most part are valid/

[Jim]

The comment about Liberty going to roof airs is not a surprise. Our coaches are all about compromise. The cost to put slides in a coach is the tradeoff from floor space to bay space and upstairs storage space at a minimum. When more than 2 slides are added the additional trade off is the loss of the ability to provide OTR due to the inability to duct air flow.

Of course that is a simplistic view and there are undoubtedly many factors that come into play when deciding on systems.

Cruiseairs are rumored to be unavailable. Regardless of if that is fact or not, when a coach has 4 Cruiseairs valuable space is used for both the evaporators and the condensers compared to a roof top unit. Except for the increased height requirements usually made irrelevent when a satellite dome is installed roof airs will not require the use of any space in the bays or the living area.

So while a coach with 4 slides loses bay space, or at least the ability to easily utilize some bay space, none is taken up with Cruiseair condensers allowing the converter more design flexibility downstairs, while being able to recapture some upstainrs space previously occupied by evaporators. That is actually a huge benefit because it returns space to the living area.

The merits of roof units versus Cruiseairs can be argued until the bovines return home, but the bottom line is when slides are given a higher priority sacrifices have to be made.

[Jim]

If you want to screw up a generator run if lightly loaded. If we are limited to 12.5 KW for example then install a 12.5 KW generator.

A 20 KW generator in our coaches is working slightly above idle and when lightly loaded sooting and injector problems are likely to follow.

[Jim]

On my coach, the vent in the door is connected to a 6″ flexible duct hose which goes to an inlet on the evaporator housing located above the evaporator. Inside the inlet is a movable flap connected to a handle on the outside of the inlet to change the position of the flap. The flap itself, when closed, does not completely seal off outside air as there is a gap around the outside of the flap. I’m actually purchasing 2 6″ hose caps to attach instead of the hose to prevent any outside air intrusion.

My flap was in the closed position and my OTR performance has been fine. I opened the valve, closed up the coach and turned on the OTR with max fan speeds. It worked slicker ‘n snot! Found a stress crack at the left upper corner of my front cap.

[Jim]

I have been very aware of my hub oil, I use an air power vacum pump and very small hose to suck out the old oil. I do this on average once a year. By doing this over time my oil looks like new everytime I suck it out. I refill to the top line and install new plugs, yes it’s a little over kill but no problems, no oil being pushed out the breather hole and best of all in about 100,000 miles between 2 buses no wheel seal leaks.

I know, I just may have cost myself a wheel seal failure by saying this!!

[Jim]

Jim,

Don’t worry about making it an advertisement. If you feel the equipment is appropriate and beneficial for Prevost owners post the information. Unlike other sites whose sole purpose is commercial our objective is to provide Prevost owners with as much information as possible. We do need our advertisers because they make it possible for us to provide Prevost Community, but I don’t see you as competition to any so feel free to inform us.

We need more information, not less.

[Jim]

Bob, thanks for the mention of my system. I have closed the RV Safety Systems business, but I still sell the fire detection part of the system (a product I developed). I have written a paper on how the build the fire suppression side of the system (which the fire detection system can trigger).

I don’t want to make this an advertisement, so that is all I will mention.

Jim

[Jim]

Mark,

Really dismount and x-ray a tire to determine whether it’s servicable? That seems so extreme and possibly what someone might want to do to a fairly new tire that was run too low on air before discarding it. For normal conditions Michelin just does a visual inspection.

Tires are obviously critical and should be inspected regularly, pressures checked daily, and replaced at the first signs of fatique or of the owner’s chosen schedule. I certainly am not one that wants to scrimp on spending when it relates to safety. I also don’t want to spend needlessly. Michelin warrants RV tires for 6 years, so if they have that level of faith and more imporatntly they determine very limited risk at 6 years, I will side with them and not change a servicable tire at 5 years. My threshold for replacing good tires is 7-8 years. When I bought my coach I needed to immediately replace at least 6 tires. Six tires is all I could find within 400 miles of where I bought the coach. I’m now needing to replace what still appears to be very servicable tag tires, but they are approaching 8 years old. I’ll replace those 2 and have them moved to the steer axle. At no time do I want to take a risk on the steer axle. Even though the steer’s are less than 2 years old the few dollars it cost to have then exchanged with the new tag axle tires is well worth it, at least to me.

Again, tires are critical and I’m not suggesting anyone run them to the 10 years allowed by Michelin even if they do pass Michelin’s visual inspection.

[Jim]

I’m confident that the Dallas man really did drive with his forrward slides out. After talking with him several times on different coach systems his story couldn’t be anything but try.

Okay, for you Prevost OTR Air fans I agree that the Prevost system will freeze your side windows, unless the system uses anything other than Prevost ducts. It very well should. If not mistaken that monster compressor pulls about 30 horsepower. Given your need for COLD I bet the warehouse sized roof mounted air conditioner keeps your house cold too.

I can’t fault Prevost OTR Air, it’s just way too much capacity for a motorhome. A passenger bus has full side glass and over 50 heaters maintaing 98.6 degrees. We have half the glass, only three heaters, and our Country Coach OTR Air has maintained a very comfortable temperature in Florida. CC OTR Air is ducted into the bedroom and living area, not directly across the hot side windows. At about 3HP, I’ve saving the fuel it takes to run the 30 HP giant you enjoy.

Okay, I can think of one problem with my CC OTR Air over Prevost’s. I’m guessing the Prevost system uses an air bag to keep the compressor belt tight. If true, I have to break out two wrenches to replace or adjust by belt.