[Paul]

As my ole buddy Mango says: Nothing better than a New Bus! Looks great!

[Paul]

Jim/Chris,

Nope, mine was a 97. Tim has been to several of our rally’s before. Anyone looking to jump into the Prevost world, this one would be do the trick. Tim’s anal about maintenance and it shows.

[Paul]

Thanks,

I did drop the asking price to 249 today. I’ve had one offer for 200 from a dealer and he’s good at that for a few weeks so I’ll see what happens.

[Paul]

Charles (and others who think they dodged a bullet) keep in mind we are not making this stuff up.

To all who neglect to check or monitor tire pressures remember 20% less than the required pressure for the weight carried is not much of an air loss. On a steer tire it can be as little as 20 PSI. On drive or tag axles, even less. We cannot always protect ourselves from road hazards so there is always a risk of a catastrophic tire failure and the ensuing damage, but we do not need to be contributing factors by ignoring our tires or thinking we can use one that looks perfectly good.

For those buying a coach with tires which have good date codes it is a very good idea to try to get a sense of how well the tires were maintained. Seeing a Pressure Pro on the dash would be a very good thing to increase the comfort level.

My guess is Tom is willing to sell anyone that wants a Pressure Pro.

[Paul]

Kevin,

The post LED’s hung down below the light fixture and I didn’t like the look.

[Paul]

Charles, thanks. I heard it might be 12.2V. I was going to check the set voltage when I had the ECC panel open, but forgot and the joey bed is back in, so it will have to wait. Based on the way I assume it works, the set run time seems logical and 4 hours should be good, depending on the actual start trigger voltage.

[Paul]

I’m not sure driving comparisons will be very valuable because they all share the chassis. But you do get a gut feel for a conversion the minute you enter a coach. After a while just as you come up the steps you know if the coach is for you.

We had never seen a Prevost or any RV of any type before we looked at our first. After we looked at it we looked at several others, but we liked the first one we looked at better so we bought it.

It took us about 20 minutes to decide to buy the second and third. We just knew they were for us.

[Paul]

Two part comment:

First is an attempt to explain why some of the high end Monaco owners, like myself, are not particularly fond of being lumped in to the generic group of “plastic coach owners”. Years ago, Monaco bought the OTR commercial Chrysler bus chassis builder Roadmaster. The Dynasty, Executive, and Signature models use this chassis and while it has not been improved over the years to the extent that the Prevost chassis of the same era has been improved, it still has some desirable features and is know to perform better than many RV chassis.

For the record, the Roadmaster “S” chassis has ten shocks and ten airbags, mounted to the extreme outboard position, providing very good handling (again, as compared to peer non-Prevost chassis). These tag axle coaches have a reputation of good handling at the expense of an overly soft ride. In addition, these upper tier Monaco models are not a box bolted to a truck frame. The framing of the bus chassis is extended, just like the Prevost shell, in a semi-monocoque design. These upper tier coaches benefit from similar stiffness as the Prevost shell enjoys. This semi-monocoque framing is all steel, not aluminum.

All that said, and having owned both a Dynasty and a Signature, I too am interested in the “next step” – Prevost ownership. And no, I can not buy 4 or more of my current coach for the price of a Prevost conversion. The list price of my 2006 Signature was right at $750,000. Yes, I could buy two, but three would be a stretch. My point is that other than the excellent Prevost chassis and the drivability that come with it, there are very few features a Prevost conversion offers that my fully featured Signature does not have. I truly expect that the quality of construction of a Prevost conversion exceeds the “well constructed” Monaco product.

OK, I’m done defending the upper tier Monaco’s and ready to embrace the Prevost chassis and conversion quality. By quality, I don’t mean glitz and glamour or complexity that quickly becomes outdated technology. I really appreciated the engineering that has gone in to the Prevost chassis and how it has benefited from many years of commercial, high mileage use. That’s why I want one.

One thing I don’t understand is all the talk about Bentley ownership. Us Rolls-Royce owners look at Bentley owners as a curious lot. Bentley owners are in to sprited driving, rushing off the the next board meeting, where they will discuss moving production off shore. They are always in a hurry to get somewhere.

Rolls-Royce owners have already arrived…..

[Paul]

Our Monaco coach is quieter suprisingly.

Gasp, something is really wrong here… If the saleman couldn’t find the Jake Brake switch, he needs to go back to Oregon for training. By the way, it won’t have an exhaust brake, it will be a Jake (compression brake) that will out perform an exhaust brake many times over.

Thanks for the driver report…

[Paul]

Do you really want to do that????????

Except for the fact it is nice having all the A/V operated via the Crestron I would much rather having hard wired switches for everything else located where they make sense.

Other than impressing people who have never had any experience with a Prevost I cannot think of a single benefit to have one more layer of control system and the added complexity.

[Paul]

you are right Tom, spoke with royale Phoenix and they sent me a list of appliances on each leg. I was shocked to see 2 AC units, aqua hot electric element, microwave, water pump all on the same leg plus more!

I’m taking it there in May for some interior work and they said they can look into balancing it better then.

Thanks all

Jim

[Paul]

OK Bob, I’ll try that.

[Paul]

Roger except for the fireing of the noosle you can apply 12 volt power to the differnt compoenets and see if they work. Look at the manual and as to the function from the brain box apply power to that terminal. I.E. pump termial connect 12volts. if it run it is okay. That is all the tester box does.

[Paul]

it’s 11 below here. The dog’s water dish is block ice. The bus barn is 51-no supplemental heat, well insulated. Dean, congrats on your new coach. Wherever we have seen it for sale, we have lusted over it. Just can’t justify owning more than one.,-)))

[Paul]

We went to the show last year and after some really convoluted finageling we bought the coach that we saw there. Its our first Prevost and if it werent for seeing all those prevosts in one place we might still have our American tradition so I say go and bring your checkbook LOL. Seriously it was a really nice show.Goand enjoy yourselves , we will be doing it again fer sure.