READER OPINIONS AND COMMENTS

During the course of our own research on purchasing a new diesel pusher we invited -- and received -- a many emails from our readers offering comments and suggestions. The volume is far to great to reprint all of them here. However we wanted to publish some of them, or portions thereof, so all our readers can share in this unique "information resource". The items which follow are unedited excerpts...

Would strongly recommend that you look at the Newmar Dutchstar and Mountain Aire. I feel that the Dutchstar is the best buy on the market at this time. Just took delivery on a new Dutchstar in December. Really like it.  Good Luck.

I realize your parameters do not move you far from your neutral place of
residence and stop at 36' . I feel however if possible you should take a look
at the Tradewinds by National or even the New Renegade by Harney Coach Works
in Hines, OR. We are fters' in an older (95) Dolphin Pusher (230 Cummins) and
have been satisfied with the National quality, have spoken to Tradewinds and
Renegade owners they express great satisfaction with these newer coaches. Will
be following your search, best wishes.

I am now on my second Foretravel motorhome I have been well pleased with the
guality . the service has and parts availablity has been outstanding. I use
the factory store in Knoxville,Tn. My next motorhome will also be a
Forettravel.

The ergonometrics of the drivers position are very important to me.  I don't know about you, but I like lots of instrumentation so I can keep track of how things are operating.  I look back on my test drive in the Alpine Coach . Idiot lights etc and very limited instrumentation. They take the same approach concerning brakes.  Make them hydraulic like a car.  Well cars don't weight 30,000 lbs plus.  Find a way to get in the cockpit of a Kenworth, Peterbuilt or a Freightliner truck so you can see what over the road drivers look at and are responsible to monitor.  Companies expect the drivers to monitor the operation of the trucks because that's the way they last millions of miles.  The dash of the Alpine Coach, leaves me very dissapointed.  A motorhome is not a car, and people should learn how to drive this complicated house on wheels so as to be a safe and reliable as possible. 

Read with interest your test drive report. We started the process last fall
and just placed the order for our new Alpine a few weeks ago.

I being a woman who has been too nervous to drive our ten year old Class A
except when absolutely necessary was very eager to drive the Country Coach,
Monaco and the Alpine.

After driving the Country Coach and the Monaco I was reaching the point where
I began to doubt if I was even destined to take the helm of our retirement
home, and thinking that perhaps I should suggest we investigate buying a
Class C just so I could do some of the driving which I love. Then we drove
the Alpine and before the end of the first mile I knew I was home!

We also struggled with the fact that Alpine is such a new entry into the
Motor Coach business but after meeting with the staff in Yakima and talking
with people both at the factory someone who was trading up to a larger unit
we decided that the customer service was there.

I liked the interior of the coach, in fact I did not feel comfortable with
the overly decorated coaches. Buying one would be like buying a fully
furnished model home. Beautiful to look at yes, but where is the room for
our personal touches!

I am looking forward to decorating our new home in a manner that will make us
feel at home where ever we lite.

A support club of our own would be a aspect worth pursuing.

We wish you all the luck with your new purchase.

In my mind, the purchase of any RV should be focused on the following four primary issues:
 
1. Price vs.performance.  A 500 HP megacoach might be nice to have, but does the purchase and operational cost fit with other plans?    What, exactly do you want the coach to do?  Will you primarily be hauling a heavy toad up western grades or will you primarily be cruising eastern slabs?  What are your climate related requirements?  What is the coldest, and hottest temperatures you expect to encounter and is the product warranted for these conditions?   What environmental testing has been done to insure that the product will perform well , and be comfortable, in the conditions ?  Make any manufacturer give you any fitness for use information in writing.  This may cause some amazing changes in verbiage and terms from what any salesman may say.  Remember, if it isn't in writing, it isn't.
 
2. Customer service.  You will very likely have at least some small, but annoying, problems with any new coach.  Higher end coaches typically only have a very few, and widely scattered, dealers, so it will be a rare event when you can just drive a short distance to get to a dealer.  Given this, how does the manufacturer handle field warranty work?  Are the warranty bills paid directly by the RV manufacturer, or, do you pay and then get reimbursed?  Does the manufacturer  maintain a customer list that is available to prospective customers?  Does the manufacturer offer a single source warranty or must you try to referee amongst engine, transmission, and chassis manufacturers if there are problems?
 
3. Product longevity.  This is important even if you do not plan long term ownership because it strongly affects trade in value.  The streaks you mention from the roof are due to the rubber roof material breaking down.  These streaks get much worse with age and preventing them involves frequent maintenance and scrubbing of the roof. Is this something you want to do?  If not, do not consider any product with a rubber roof.   Examine and drive some older models to see how they have held up.  Most likely, the model you are looking at will look, and drive, the same, or worse at the same age.
 
4. Attention to detail.  I think this is what really separates the manufacturers in terms of both design and production.  This item is also the most difficult to objectively evaluate, especially if you are smitten and in love with a particular model and or floorplan.  Take some time to really look around at features such as under counter plumbing, dash wiring, storage bay construction, insulation, cabinet construction etc.  A quality manufacturer is just exactly that, and is one whom will take the time to do the design and construction right.   You will know right when you see it.

Hi Tom,  Leveling systems are a very important part of camping anywhere it is not very close to level.  Coaches that use the Air Bags have a maximum leveling differential front to back and side to side of less than 4 inches, so unless you plan to camp on level spots they are of little use.  Hydraulic jacks, if you let the air out of the suspension before leveling, can compensate for up to 12 inches differnece front to back and side to side.  With some boards, you can compensate for up to 18 inches, but that takes some effort.  Once leveled there is very little use of air assuming there is not leak, but it always requires more time for air recovery before you get on way in the morning.  The compressor is engine driven, so once the air that is in the tanks is used up, air levelers can not function without starting the engine to build up the air pressure again.    
 
Three point vs Four point.  The only thing Huck Bolts do different from regularl Class 8 blots is remove the uncertainty of tightening torque from the manufacturing process. Huck Bolts add not more rigidity and frame rail chassis are a lot more susceptible to torqueing than any semi-monocoque.  Three points make a plane in geometry, four points may not, so it is much more likely to put less stress using 3 points on any chassis.  It is difficult to locate the middle jack in the front of a frame rail chassis bucause it must be put on a cross member, so that is why all frame rail chassis that I know of use 4 point jacks.  HWH four point jacks try to do 3 point leveling with 4 jacks by activating both jacks front and back together, or both jacks on one side.  I do not favor the new automatic controllers because they just can not do as good a job as a person with a level bubble.  Every new computer added to a coach that has limited function, in my opinion is just one more thing to fail and pay for initially.  I think we go overboard with computer this and computer that.  This computer is however more useful with four point jacks than 3 point jacks. 

One small, but frustrating, item on any of the coaches is the 2 burner cook top.  The problem is not that there are only two burners, but that the center to center distance of these burners is only about 8".  Whatever idiot designed that has never done much cooking because almost all standard, normally used pots and pans are 9 - 10" in diameter.  You can not fit two such pots over the center of the burners at the same time. Very annoying.

Our opinion of Country Coach, their product and their support is still very
positive. We have 30,000 miles on our coach. A very few minor problems that
they have taken care of. The factory even upgraded a couple of items while
we were there. No charge. While at the factory we did see a few coaches
that were experiencing entry door problems on the models with the curved
side walls.

We still would not have a slideout. But have not heard any negative
comments about the CC slides.

Good Hunting.

I had exactly the same experience and feelings that you expressed when I first drove a big coach.  Mine was a 38' Beaver from Carl North Country in Lake City, WA.  The road out of Lake City was torn up for renovation and there were large concrete dividers in place, which formed lanes that were only 1 foot wider than the coach.  The pucker factor for me was 9+ and I almost decided to stay with our narrow body 28' Bounder because of the early stress of driving the monstrous Beaver in heavy traffic.

The Alpine Coach removed all of these problems and is actually easier to drive than a car because you sit up high and can see much better in traffic.  I only mention this because I hope that your choice of length is not driven by any sense of insecurity.  This goes away fairly quickly and I can not determine any difference at all beteween driving a 36' and a 40' coach in anything but the sharpest of turns.   It seems to me that there is never enough room.  I will say, however, that I can not quite imagine me driving a 45' coach, but, you never know.  Maybe I will win the lottery!  Thanks again for the good articles. 

Hi Tom, In a factory I look for (1) Atitude of the workers, (2) How Clean
the environment is, and (3) The actual construction techniques. For
example, at the Monaco Factory, you will see two sheets of real plywood used
on the floor, Vacumm bonded side walls, Custom made wiring harnesses for
each coach, and a lot of QC people checking up on each process. Applicances, etc are almost always from the same suppliers. So you have to
look underneath. Monaco Coaches are undercoated after everything is
installed. Others are not undercoated at all. In each factory tour keep a
mental note as to how long it takes to get through the whole process. Look
at how things are fastened down. Coaches bounce down the road and if
everything is not fastened down, you get failures of wiring and plumbing.
Country Coach and Monaco will provide you with the manufacturing techniques
that are representative of how it should be.

We have just completed the long and arduous process of selecting and purchasing a Diesel Pusher. Thanks to people like you, we got a lot of good information prior to our purchase.
 
I have climbed up and down the steps of coaches until my legs felt as if they would fall off. We listened to salespersons extol the virtues of the coach they wanted to sell, and then heard them mumble as we asked them about some of the things they really didn't want to talk about in detail. Soon all the coaches and all the salespersons all started to look alike.  The more we looked the more difficult it became. It was impossible to remember the details of any single coach.
 
We set out looking for a 34' to 36' pusher that we could live in, even though we don't plan to, that also had a reasonable price tag on it.  When you are paying $40,000 to $50,000 extra for diesel pushers there had better be something else there besides a diesel motor placed at the rear of the coach.  Many of the entry level pushers we looked at didn't seem to have all that much "stuff" beyond the company's equivalent gas rig, to justify the increased cost.
 
Bob Gummersall's article was a good help for me.  He classified diesel pushers into two basic groups, those under $150,000, and those over $150,000 and defined the characteristics he thought important. In other words. "this is what you get for your money". 

In reviewing the 1999 RV Buyers Guide I learned that the lower end pushers now have a lot of "stuff" on them that Bob reserves for the high end coaches.  Remember, my goal was to find out what else I got for the extra $40,000 to $50,000 I would have to spend to get into a diesel pusher.

I finally purchased a National "Tradewinds" Motor Coach for well under $150,000.  It has a 300hp engine, Freightliner chassis, Air Brakes, Air Suspension, propane generator, real wood cabinets, 4 Batteries, a 2000 watt inverter, and my wife thought, the best decorated and livable coach she saw.  True it only tows 5,000 pounds but we have no intention of pulling our Peterbuilt behind us, just a 4 wheel car.  It has large holding tanks, large fuel tanks, larger 22.5" tires, a 6,000 LB carrying capacity, and very high quality audio and video equipment. I don't know where lighter duty truck parts may be used, and although that is a concern, I think it's truck enough for me.

We can visit all the factories, make all the comparisons, and listen to all the salesmen we want, but in the end when your wife says, "I want the one with the beautiful curio cabinet", you are going to go home with the one with the beautiful curio cabinet. Our Tradewinds does have a beautiful curio cabinet, but I think it also has a lot more.  I think it's the best deal out there.
 

Bob [Gummersall] is doing an excellent job of "educating" even experienced RVers. I've written him to thank him for his recent series on motorhome construction.
But I also wanted to thank you for making this most useful series available
to us all.

Those of us that plan on "moving up" to other motorhomes will find this
information most enlightening. Finally someone is giving us the tools to
decipher the information available on motorhome construction. All of it can
sound impressive but as the articles indicate many times construction is a
result of "bottom line" instead of safety and durability.

I hope every owner and potential owner of a motorhome is reading this
series.

Hooray for RVers Online! ! !

I purchased a 1998 Monaco Diplomat 38 ft w/slide last October. Have
driven 4,000 miles round trip from Mass. to Branson, MO.. One
characteristic that I dislike is the location of the accelerator pedal.
To my way of thinking it is far too right of the driver so much so that
my wife who is 5' 2" could never reach the pedal even with the seat as
far forward as it can go. I'm 5' 10" and find driving it tiring due to
the akward positioning. I have been RVing since 1983 and this is my
fifth MH the last being a 1994 Holiday Rambler 36 ft diesel pusher.
Aside from this quirk, I really like the Diplomat. Maybe I should get a
body stretcher so I'd fit better. Incidently I'm 72 years old and maybe
that's the problem - I'm not too short; I'm just too old.

I suggest that you have a very candid conversation with a straight talking (is this a contradiction in terms?) sales person about the retained value of a non-slide vs. a slide equipped coach.  The word I got was that any non slide equipped coach will take a severe discount on the used market.  This is the major reason that we bought a slide equipped model, because we initially shared your concerns about reliability.
 
Now, we absolutely would not have a coach without a slide.  The livability of a slide equipped coach is so much better that this, in my opinion, outweighs any reliability considerations.   The main feature is that you are not always bumping into furniture and/or each other as you move around.  Also, the couches and chairs are far enough apart so that you are not eyeball to eyeball.   I think the galley slide offers the greatest utility because the shorter depth is much less obtrusive than the full depth types when both are retracted.  We do not extend our slide if there is any chance of snow.  I have seen minor carpet scuffing on many slide models.  This does not seem serious to me unless the pressure is high enough to really damage the carpet.  Our slide slightly tilts the "loops" back and forth as it moves in and out.

You made an excellent decision to buy the Country Coach.

We have had ours since November 1997 and have no regrets. I found that I had
a Koni Shock go bad two months ago and ordered two new ones from CC parts.
After receiving them I called Doug Rutherford to find out how to adjust them
and he told me to send the old ones in to him and he would see about
replacing them under warranty. Now this was long after the warranty had
expired and Koni had told me that they were only warranted for a year but I
should get 300,000 miles on them which I did not understand this reasoning,
since I only had 24,000 miles on them.

After the old shocks arrived at CC, Doug checked them and found one to be
defected and replaced them at no cost to me. Since I had installed them
myself, I had no out-of-pocket costs. This is the kind of company Country
Coach is; most other manufacturers would not have gone this extra mile.

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