-Gramps-
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Posts posted by -Gramps-
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Here is something worth posting again from my blog here, now moved to my own blog page
Depreciation:
This subject pops up every now and then in the Internet forums, rv.net, IRV2.com, FMCA.com, where I hang about on a regular basis. It may be a post titled "Is your Class A a Money pit?" or "A motor home costs a whole lot more than you think it does!" The people who post these kinds of entries may or may not really have a problem with what a coach or any other large RV may cost. They might just be bored. It's Sunday night and the DW is watching "Real Housewives of xxx", so there is nothing better for them to do than post some sad story about how broke owning a coach is making them.
The last time I saw one of these threads, I responded to it. I said that owning a motor coach is like having kids. You make a huge financial investment, with no return, but they make lots of good memories, are good for the soul, and will greatly improve one's life if you let them.
I believe the RV lifestyle is under-appreciated by most people who are not part of it and also by some who are. Becoming a Motor Coacher has been one of the best things that has ever happened to me and my wife. Has owning one depleted my bank account? I suppose it has, but then, maybe not.
I might have put away the money that I spend each month paying for my coach. I might have put away the money I spend on trips, including gas and food and camping fees, but I doubt it. I would have spent all of my trip and fuel money on airplane tickets, hotel rooms and cruise ships, or something else. The chances are that even if I did save it, a lot of the money could still have disappeared without me spending a dime of it.
The present economic situation has poked a whole lot of holes in a lot of financial balloons. I just try to take advantage of what our coach can do for us. I may have to spend money on gas, a new water pump to replace a squirting frozen one, new wiper blades to replace frozen ones, a new water filter to replace a cracked and frozen one, but considering what our coach does for us it is worth it.
I can tell you this that minus the monthly payment, the time I have spent in Florida, which included eight nights at Disney World, didn't cost us much at all. Not when compared to what two weeks would have cost staying in fancy hotels and eating out. I wish I could have stayed there a lot longer. Responsibilities called me home.
Home is a very subjective word when you own a motor coach. Home is where my coach is. I felt quite at home in Fort Wilderness. As a matter of fact, the guard who checked us in said, "Welcome home, Mr. Parker."
It was home. A few years ago we spent New Year's Eve in Saint Augustine and the next day climbed a lighthouse. My daughter was there and my son-in-law and my grandson. My wife was there and so was Teddy Bear. I had my favorite DVDs, my favorite beer, my favorite books, some of them anyway, and the things I like to eat the most. I also had great cable TV.
At night we listened to music coming from the Disney Parks. We also heard the fireworks and, if we walked a little ways from our site, could see them, just over the tops of the trees. If we wanted to ride the monorail, we did. If we wanted to take a boat ride, we did that, too. We went to one park, and saw Cirque Du Soleil, followed by sushi at Wolfgang Pucks. We pin traded, we took Teddy to the Waggin Tails Dog Park. We basked in the 70-degree sunshine. We even had the pleasure of spending time with our friends Gary and Janis. What could be better than that?
It was wonderful. It was wonderful until we had to say good-bye. We had to say good-bye to the warmth of our surroundings, our friends and our family. We said good-bye and then made our way back north. We came back to the cold, to work and to our son, daughter and grandsons, whom we missed a lot.
It won't be long before we take our motorhome back out on the road and enjoy another great trip. We will make new friends and see new places.
So, I don't worry about "depreciation" I try to appreciate the emotional and spiritual return I get from my poor financial investment. I hope that all my fellow Coachers and RVers do the same.
Derrick
aka "Gramps" -
Welcome and hope you enjoy it here.
Derrick
"Gramps"
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Now if you are starting out as a blogger, and you are a member here, why go to any other site? You would have to design and build your site most likely while FMCA.com already has that in place including photo hosting. If I have one complaint it is that Blogs does not have its own button on the navigation bar at the top of the home page. I think the pull-down causes some people to create a blog by accident when they wanted to post in these forums.
I designed my own photo-blog site (am I now a photoblogger? or is that phoblogger?) www.myrandomviews.com after learning how to write something (that someone would like to read), post pictures (that someone would like to see) here for six years. My new site was a lot of work to put together before I could even post my first word or image.
In other words...blogging at FMCA.com is a great place to get your creative feet wet.
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We also use a Smartphone as a hotspot. Works well enough to Chromecast to one of our TVs in the coach.
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Actually I blogged about the time our love affair for Motorhoming started here:
http://community.fmca.com/blog/62/entry-535-how-did-it-start-part-one/
http://community.fmca.com/blog/62/entry-536-how-did-it-start-part-two/
The affair is still going on. We are in our second coach and looking forward to full timing very soon.
That should be a story!
What love song? Well, one comes to mind right off the bat. Our coach is a Holiday Rambler and we named her Ramblin Rose:
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We made a dash cover out of neoprene comfort rugs...same stuff mouse pads are made from.
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Now if you have not been checking out the blogs here, you have missed out on some good stuff. We have a member coaching around Australia and then there is me, providing digital photography hints and tips.
Here is the first post. I am sure you can find the rest from there!
http://community.fmca.com/blog/62/entry-1378-a-bit-about-digital-photography/
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I use the zBoost YX545 with the zBoost Yx039 high gain directional dual antenna. Works great with RG-6 coax cable.
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From my blog here at FMCA.com:
I have a bunch of rules for owning a Motor Coach. We have owned a coach for nine years. I can create a new bunch of rules for buying one both used and new because I have experience at buying both.
I have no rules for full-timing it …I don't have a clue ... not yet, anyway.
We have made some serious decisions in the last few months that have told us that full-timing it could very well happen at some point in our future. That point may be sooner than later.
The thought of living in the coach for an extended period of time doesn’t bother me. We have done it a few times already. Just after our son Joel was graduated from college (notice my proper grammar) we took a four-week trip in our first coach. For part of that time he and his sister stayed in the coach with us. We all came out alive. At the end of the month on the road, I was not too eager to get back to work.
The idea of going full-time is entirely different. Do we move toward full-timing it slowly? Making big changes in one’s life is like running a marathon -- start out slow, conserve some strength for the end and, if you start to stumble, make sure you stumble in the right direction.
I think a long trip, say six weeks or more, should be the first thing Diane and I do. This trip would not only be the longest one we have taken, but the destination should be somewhere special like Niagara Falls or deep into the Smokey Mountains or back to Disney World. It would be a trip without looking back home. No worrying about customers. No phone calls from them either. This trip would be a time for Diane and me to get to know each other all over again.
Let’s assume that we really enjoy our two months time on the road. We take to it like ducks to water or something to that effect. Then what?
I don’t really know how to go about making the transition. Do we store some things? Do we sell our stuff? Do we give things to our kids? Do we do all the above?
Selling our house, parting with “things” we own, some for more than forty years, causes me to grieve even before it happens.
I mentioned a duck to water. I may be a duck tossed in a stream. I have to float with the flow.
Diane has been downsizing for quite a while now. She keeps telling me to carefully evaluate every non consumable item I want to buy. Her favorite phrase is:
“Do you really need it and if you do will it fit in the coach?”
She did not ask for anything for Christmas except for Kindle books.
She wants me to digitize all our slides and pictures.
I can see where her head, and more important, where her heart is headed.
I should know, after all, she is the reason we have a coach in the first place. I think she has been working toward living on the road for a lot of years.
I am not sure how to do this but I will learn.
Don't I have rule that owning a motor coach is a never ending learning experience?
Gramps
Derrick. -
I use Chrome....very few issues with it.
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I use a Trik-L-Start which comes standard on a lot of Winnies. It is easy to install and works well.
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Water can travel from the top of the motorhome windshield gasket down both sides....and it will find a path to the inside of the coach if it can't weep out of the seal. There is a channel along the windshield that allows water to move down. I can lift the molding from the frontcap just above the wipers and water will pour out, and it can be days after it has rained and it will still be in there. My point is...this leak could originate at the top of the coach not just the driver side.
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I think that is it.
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For anyone with an 08 Monaco Knight with the top main slideout seals coming loose check out this link.
http://www.rv.net/forum/index.cfm/fuseaction/thread/tid/24441768/print/true.cfm and this note from the manufacturer.
My name is Tom Dible and I am with Uni-Grip. The seals coming from us all have an automotive grade rust inhibitor in the formula for the steel we use for the spring steel clip. The problem lies when the RV manufacturer cuts the length of seal from the bulk packaging, at this point they have exposed an untreated surface where the corrosion will begin. We recommend all manufacturers to caulk the edges of the seal after it has been installed to prevent water from entering the area but very few follow our guidelines.
SacsTC, we still have the seal you're looking for. Feel free to contact me should you have any questions or need help identifying the part, I can be reached at tdible@uni-grip.com -
Contact Elkhart Service and Collision in Elkhart IND. It is staffed with former Monaco techs. I have taken my coach there and they do an excellent job.
(574) 522-9000 is the number to call.
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Exactly. I would be more concerned about tail swing and wheel cut than ratio.
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Doesn't sound like true surround sound to me if all the speaker outputs from the DVD are not wired. When you use aux rear that seems like multi channel stereo not true surround sound. What's worse, depending on the dvd/home theater setup, you could be missing parts of the audio if it is feeding sound out say to the L Rear and there is nothing connected. I take it this Dvd player does not have its own speaker amp built in? So the outputs are line outs not speaker outs?
The reason I ask is because I do a lot of home theater and background music wiring and modified my coach as well as others. What model radio and dvd player do you have?
My HR has a switch in the overhead for dash/home theater. This switch controls a large relay box that switches six speakers, including the sub from one device to the other.I have true 5.1 sound. The two bedroom speakers always stay connected to the rear speaker output of the dash radio. -
Using the cruise control improves the mileage as well. I get about a mile per gallon more when I use the cruise as much as possible even going up and down hills. I have the Allison 3000 tranny.
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I suspect low fuel....the line may not be deep enough in the tank.
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I would be interested. Most of the insurance that I have had has such a high deductible and exclusions for self-employed people as to be virtually useless with a big monthly payment.
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We have an all in one and don't need the space it uses at the moment. We have no workable space to have a stack-able combo. It all depends on whether you presently have more than enough storage space that you can give some up. If you have to sacrifice space that you need, probably not worth it in my wife's opinion.
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We are members of both. We don't attend rallys or Samborees very often, but we try to go camping with our local chapter every month, that is the case for both FMCA and Good Sam's. We have GS road side assistance as well.
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I have a Garmin....Nuvi XXX...can't remember the number, but it doesn't say street names. I also have a Delorme that I could install on my Win7 tablet. I have a Droid phone with Google Navigation. It works better than the Garmin which cost too much to upgrade.
I also have a Rand McNally 5510. Actually, I should say my wife owns it. It gave us some touch screen problems until I upgraded the firmware a few days ago...we have only had it three weeks. My wife loves it...she calls it "the Bomb" she calls our dog that too. Never called me the bomb. Anyway she has figured that thing out for everything...campground ratings, finding rv friendly gas stations, you name it.
I had no problems docking it...thought the RM software was much more intuitive than the Garmin software version I was using.
In her opinion it is worth every penny it cost.
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The original post lost the link to my blog entry....here it is. http://community.fmca.com/blog/62/entry-359-depreciation/
Full-wall Slide Does Not Extend
in Slideouts
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Who makes your slide out mechanism?