bbnuttmann

rrlowther - You need to drive a couple of coaches with Comfort Drive and decide for yourself if is what you want. We have had our current motorhome for nine years now, bought it used, and we (wife and I) went to test out a number of rigs. There were significant differences in the way they handled. We bought the one that drove the best. When we were looking 9 years ago I got a CD from the RV Consumer group that had all the coaches they had rated for about a ten year period. One of the things they rated was handling. Most of the coaches we test drove that they said would drive well did. One of our close friends has a 2013 Newmar 38' with comfort drive he likes it. But we have an older higher end coach than my friend and I like the way ours drives too. We also have a tag and he does not. That is a big deal. And we weigh 10,000 more lbs. I have not driven a coach with comfort drive and so cannot comment on how good it is. However, it is worth noting that a few very high end car makers like BMW have in the past ten years come out with electronic steering assist and almost to a man all the auto journalists who have driven it do not like it. If it was an actual sensor system that sensed the lines in the road or worked to center your vehicle in the lane like Tesla does that would be another matter. I think those auto centering systems are coming very quickly now and have seen a few of the high end motorhomes offer some of them. I have owned a car with adaptive cruise control and however and in the end did not use it but used standard cruise as the computer brain kept getting confused. To me steering is best if precise and you can feel this precision through the wheel and "sense" the road. Your brain learns to work with your other senses to keep the bus where it should be. To put something artificial between the wheels of the coach and the wheel in your hands might make it worse and not better depending on the system. To really know if it is right for you drive a couple close to the time you drive a couple without. That should be the proof.

Depreciation is not one of the fun things you get from RVing. I love RVing but hate wasting money. The way you buy a coach greatly affects how much depreciation will cost you. I went out and bought our rig at the bottom of the financial meltdown in 2009 from a formerly rich person who was near broke. I also was very careful to get a coach that almost everyone that posted on several forums said good things about. And I read and re-read through hundreds of listing in the RVCG information on what was a good coach and what was not. I paid under 30% of new price on a 6 1/2 year old coach. So our depreciation on our rig is not so much. People that go out today without doing their homework and buy a brand new rig from an unreliable maker might suffer lots. There is no substitute for learning before you buy. There are huge huge differences in motorhomes.

All coaches have problems. The key is to try and get one that has less than average. After reading this short thread I would be scared to death buying a Thor Palazzo. I spent a couple of years reading thousands of posts on several RV forums before I bought the coach in our signature line. I also bought many many information disks and books from the RVCG on what they recommend. By the time we finally bought a coach I was very good at spotting quality RV construction on my own. I would research your possible Palazzo purchase before doing it by reading as much as you can about it. If our coach burned to the ground today I would go out and look for a coach like the one we have used to replace it. Maybe a few years newer.

Rewillia, It all depends on the numbers. Here is what I did. Bought a used Country Coach Affinity in 2009 when the coach was almost 7 years old. When we bought it I put about 30% down and financed it with a simple interest bank loan and no early payment penalties. The loan at that time was 7%. A year later I refinanced our house at 3.25% interest and paid off the 7% loan. I had/have the cash to pay off the loan, but my estimate of earnings from leaving my money invested was more than the 3.25%. And of course the 3.25% was interest I could deduct from our taxes. Things have gotten much worse since 2009 for investors who want bonds or other fixed income investments. Today you are lucky to get bonds of good quality that pay over 2% unless you pay a big premium. The only market paying much is equities. But of course equities can go down and so that comes into play. In my humble opinion, and this is a personal opinion, I am not a qualified investment person, today you would be better off to either 1. Pay cash. 2. Refinance your house or get a house credit line to pay for the motorhome. You should be able to get a house refinance for 4%. If it were me, I would pay cash.

Speck, When we were looking at motorhomes 6 1/2 years ago my wife and I both liked mid entry. We ended up with front entry. Basically we just bought the coach both of us loved, but I still see some benefits from mid entry. The main one being that you can go directly to the middle part of the coach where the kitchen usually is or to the bathroom and that way not track dirt and so on into the coach. The biggest downside we saw was that you give up some space and access to the basement storage. When we were looking at coaches (2009) ones we liked with mid entries were Bluebird SP36, Beaver Contessa, Alpine 40'. Many of our friends still have 34' 36' mid entry coaches that are gas and made by Fleetwood and National. But you said you wanted diesel. Good luck with your looking. BTW this is a good time of the year to look at used coaches in AZ. Lots of snowbirds headed home and people selling coaches to move into condos and so on in AZ. So lots of used coaches there in April. Also if you buy used from a private party in AZ there is no sales tax. Of course if you register in CO you will have to go by their rules.

Zepher is a high end coach from a maker that is one of the biggest makers of motorhomes. I have watched this and other forums for years. Tiffin had a spike of issues back a couple of years ago, but that has died down. 2010 might be one of the first motors with the new smog control features. So you may have to add urea. If it were me doing the looking I would get the RVCG to send me their evaluation of this make, model, year, coach. I suppose if I were looking to change coaches this might be a model I would consider, but I am quite happy with what I have.

In my humble opinion Michelin has been and is now the benchmark standard for tires on motor homes, RVs, and cars. If Michelin tires are the same price I am always going to take them. That said, I think that there are a number of good makers of tires for our rigs. I have not purchased any Hankooks, but have had good luck with BF Goodrich, Firestone, Good Year, Michelin, and Dunlop tires for motor homes that I have owned. What I do pay attention to is when the tires are made - newer is better, and I also only buy tires made in the USA. They are better. And even if they are only as good I have helped keep people in this country working.

I bought the "bible" from the RVCG group 3 years ago when I was looking for a motor home. I had belonged to the group for 6-7 years prior to that. I wrote to them a number of times by email and always had a prompt answer. I consider the information I got from them over the 7 years I belonged to the group the best information available and helped me tremendously when I was looking. I still have my 3 year old disks and have loaned them to two of my friends. The disks worked on both their computers. I suspect the issue is MAC compatibility. I still use Windows computers because a lot of software does not work on MACs, that I use. That does not excuse the fact they told you it would work. But I have to tell you I am irritated when I see the words "scam" written on this forum. The RVCG is not a scam. To say so is ill considered. RVers, especially members of the FMCA are supposed to be good natured and friendly. This is not the sort of language I expect to see on this forum unless true.

I replied to the other similar topic. I wrote down why I think CC's are a great coach. You can read what I wrote at this link on our blog http://bbbrving.blogspot.com/2012/03/10-reasons-why-i-think-our-country.html

We have a 2002 Country Coach Affinity. It is 42' with tag. 505 hp Cat. We bought it three years ago. I bought it after several years of study and would make the same choice if I had to do it again today. The original Country Coach founded by the Lee family of Junction City OR did sell to National RV in the early 2000's. National then sold to investors a few years later. For whatever reason they closed in 2010. The Lee family bought the Intellectual property at auction. They still owned the buildings CC's were built in and so began working on existing coaches in those facilities. The Lee Brother's went their separate ways and now there are two companies in the Eugene area of Oregon you can call for help or go to for work. I have personally been to the Country Coach Inc facility and had work done. I ordered a part from them in the last couple of weeks. They have said they are going to begin building coaches again. Whatever happens I think Country Coaches are a very well engineered product. High quality components are used. And I have had very good luck with service. We like our Affinity. It is like a Ritz Carlton suite rolling down the road. However, IMHO all CC's are great coaches. If it were not for the difficulties they have had you would pay a lot more for the used ones. We have close friends that have a Foretravel. Of the coaches I have seen I think only Foretravel is in the same class as Country Coach. I am talking about production coaches here not limited build coaches like Newell, Liberty, and so on. Monaco coaches are very similar to Country Coaches. Not surprising since they were built down the street from CC. From the information I have seen CC has a better repair record than Monaco.

Everything else being equal a longer wheelbase vehicle of any type, car, truck, motor home will handle more "easily" on a freeway. What I mean by "easily" is that hour after hour of driving will tend to be less work on the longer wheelbase chassis. Of course there are variations depending on how a coach is engineered. The bottom line is how it feels to you when you are driving. If you like the handling and are happy, then your set. When I was shopping 2 1/2 years ago I found 40-42' coaches to be a "sweat spot" and drove several that handled well. I would recommend you go for the longer coach.

The Safari Simba is made by the same folks, now, that also own your HR brand. A whole bunch were sold early on and then the brand bought Beaver, and subsequently Monaco bought them, Monaco reorganized, and so on. When I was really active looking at coaches about 2 1/2 years ago Safari Simabas were maybe a notch below your current Holiday Rambler. As I remember some models had good chassis length and weight capacity and some did not. If it were me I would check with the RVCG to easily get a rating on the one you are interested in. And I guess if it were me I would stick with HR. We have several friends with HR's and they are quite good coaches. Some very close RV friends of ours just bought a Monaco Kinght 2005 40'. This is a close relative of HR and Safari. They bought an extremely nice rig at a good price. And that is my 2 cents worth.

We have XtraRide extended warranty. We have been very happy with them.

I RV because it is in my blood. I have wanted to own and travel in motor homes since I was a young adult. I have owned two motor homes so far. One was cheap and lots of fun. Our 1975 GMC. And our current one is expensive and lots of fun. My point here is that for me RVing in a motor home is fun if I spent a little or a lot. My only regret is that I did not keep the GMC I had fixed up. I sold it about three years ago and sorely would like it back. So then I would have two.

I personally, and my family in general seem bitten by the travel bug. RVing is one type of travel. By the time I had taken my first long motor home trip in 1980 I had already spent 18 months living in Australia. My first motor home trip in 1980 was for 5,000 miles. A very good maiden voyage. And we have made many many motor home trips over the years in some rented and some purchased motor homes. The RV trip were intermingled with over 3,000,000 miles of business air travel. When I go back over the last 32 years and think of the highlights of my life a number of them have been enjoyed making RV trips. Many of the best vacations included other family. Either visiting family or meeting up somewhere at a campground. But a number of the vacation highlights included other types of travel besides RVing. Some places it is just more appropriate to fly, rent car, hotel than motor home. Or even drive car, hotel trips. For example. The first time my wife and I went to Glacier National Park we flew, went on Red Bus Tour, and stayed in antique hotels in park. Without a doubt this is one of our travel highlights of the last 20 years. We have been back to the area by RV since. But one does not replace the other. And of course there is travel to way far away places like Europe and Australia. Better to make these trips by air. The other pleasure involved in motor homing is the "machine" aspect of it. I like machines / vehicles. I enjoy tinkering with the motor home and figuring out it's illnesses and resolving them or living with them. I owned a GMC before my Country Coach. I worked on and fixed it up for four years. Much of the pleasure I got out of it was the fixing and getter the old thing to work. Now I greatly wish I had kept her. I spent $35,000 on the GMC and fixing it up. I only sold it for $17,000. I should have kept it. Our Country Coach was a rich man's play toy when I bought her 2 1/2 years ago. After all that time and much money she now operates pretty well. She is a complex beast and there are always fiddles to keep everything running right. But with this coach the basics were so well done that I feel like I am buffing a gem when dealing with the problems on our motor home as opposed to duct tapping design flaw chronic errors from the maker. We bought our current coach from a rich guy who got burned in the bust. He paid over half a million. We paid him $135,000 for the coach when she was about 7 years old. We got a bargain. But we have had to through about 20 grand at her plus the extended warranty people another 20. Now she operates like a well oiled machine. As long as I can afford her she is priceless to me. The fact that any time my wife and I want to we can jump into her and take off for an extended time and have every thing you need. It is much much harder to do that on a fly, hotel, rental car type trip. Nuff said. I am writing this from our RV comfortabley sitting in bed sipping morning coffee. Ahhhhh life is good.

X2 on Extra Ride

Class A motor homes in my experience tend to wander more than cars. There are several reasons but I can tell you that if you buy one that does it will be tiring to drive. My previous motor home did that and I spent countless thousands and countless hours trying to improve it. I was only partially successful. My advise to you is to buy a motor home that steers well to start with.

Our very cute Airdale Terrier is a real ice breaker. I walk her all over the place when we are camping. I really love camping, travel, and motor homes, so I just smile big and say a kind word to anyone I meet. I think my enthusiasm for the things about our lifestyle just promotes friends frequently. It does seem to run in steaks though. Sometimes when their is a cloud over my head I don't meet a soul. My wife hates doing things like I do to meet people. But each to his own.

I used the RVCG information when looking for a motor home two years ago. They recommended to get a motor home without a tag. Cheaper. I test drove many DPs. When I first drove ours it was the first DP with a tag I had driven and to me the drive was more stable than the other motor homes I drove. We bought our current motor home with tag because we loved it. Here is what I think today after two years and about 12,000 miles. Having a tag virtually eliminates wander from truck wash Having a tag means you have to buy two more tires Going down a steep hill in rain or snow on a coach with a tag means you can use the engine brake without fear. Make sure if you buy a motor home with a tag you get two full pass through storage areas. Having an auto lift on the tag is very usefull

Spen01ce - When I was buying a motor home two years ago NADA wholesale was roughly 13% less than low retail. I got that information from my lender and verified it at that time. If I was in your situation I would consider doing a bit of research to see what motor homes similar to your have sold for recently. PPL Motorhomes in Texas has recently solds on their web site. And you can look up the solds in ebay. You might also consider trying to sell your motor home yourself. I sold my last one. Or you could list yours with a consignment place like PPL or one near you. Or list on ebay. Hope that helps.

Silver Strand is right on the sand in San Diego. Just a parking lot, but on the water. If you are lucky enough to be active or retired military there is a great park on the north edge of Camp Pendleton that is right on the beach. We were parked there last March the day of the tsunami. Not kidding. The only time in 20 years we are on the water and there is a tsunami. A non event as it turned out. In Carlsbad there is a park on a cliff over looking the ocean. And a very nice State park on the beach up a cliff in San Clemente.

Hi Robrert - I also am Robert and have used wifi since first available. Up until recently I have been working a lot on the road when we take our motor home. We have a motosat dish. We have two android phones that we tether sometimes. And when available we us wifi from the RV park. We have added no boosters or antenna of any kind for wifi. I have thought about it, but for the most park the wifi works fine without anything. When it does not I just get closer to the source. Sometimes this means I have to sit in a clubhouse. That is a good thing. I interact with the folks doing the same thing in the club house.

airstreamlife - Country Camper is the original name of Country Coach. The current company named Country Coach Corp is in the same facility as the old factory and is run by Ron Lee the brother of Bob Lee. Bob Lee currently runs OMC in the same general area in the Eugene OR vicinity. Bob Lee also was one of the founders of Monaco, which was down the street basically from Country Coach. I am not sure of Ron Lee's involvement if any with Monaco. Beaver was a long time maker also from Oregon that made very high quality motor homes for many years and competed directly with Country Coach and Monaco. Safari was another Oregon maker that built good but lower priced motor homes. And that is the short history from what I know. I was at the Country Coach Corp facility two months ago so I can tell you they are in business. Are they the same as 2006. No. But neither is General Motors. The General is a new corp with less than half the divisions / brands of the former corp. I know I am a stockholder of the new GM. I also lost money on the old GM. Monaco is also currently in business similar to CC, but Monaco has continued to make the Monaco line with little interruption. Again, they are a different corp. In my humble opinion Beaver, Country Coach, and Monaco all produced products of somewhat similar quality. In the opinion of the most thorough Consumer Reports type organization rating motor homes the RVCG Country Coach makes a far superior product than either Beaver or Monaco. As the owner of a Country Coach Affinity I can tell you that the quality of our motor home is as good as it gets in production type motor homes. We looked at a lot of Country Coach motor homes two years ago when we bought ours and it seems that regardless of year or model the quality and performance standards of CC is all good. When we were looking at motor homes two years ago our second favorite brand was Beaver. We loved the beautiful interiors of Beavers. When you look behind the glitz of these high end RVs Country Coach is more consistent with making sure their chassis was long enough to give you a good freeway driving experience and CCCs were large enough so you could take all your stuff. Beaver and Monaco have plenty of models with chassis long enough and CCCs great enough, but you have to check to make sure. CC almost without exception checked this for you. Lots of people focus on companies that "survived". And yes that is part of the equation for comparing motor homes. But when looking at used ones over a couple of years old it is of little significance. Motor homes are not at all like cars. Motor homes are mostly bought parts such as motors, transmissions, axles, wheels, and so on. 95% of the focus should be on what is in front of you in THAT coach. Does the floor plan work for your needs? Does it have enough CCCs to carry all your things? Does it drive well for you? Do you like the looks? Do you love it? If the answer is yes to these questions than this is a very good candidate for your purchase. In the bloodbath of motor home and 5th wheels starting in 2008 mostly the cheaper lower quality products drove the really good ones out of business. People had less money and bought cheaper machines. That is a generalization, but relatively true. Blue Bird, Country Coach, Travel Supreme, Alpine, Monaco, Teton, Beaver, all went broke or had to reorganize. It is try National, Alfa, and Fleetwood also went bust, but it seems like the higher end got the worse end of it. Conclusion. Concentrate on the Beaver, Monaco, or Country Coach in front of you. If it fits your needs you will have no worries about getting parts or service. None of those need many repairs anyway. For years I have a 30+ year old motor home that had not been made for years. I never had an issue with parts or service.

HemiSuperBee - great car if you have one. The Damon and the American coaches are not in the same class. The American coaches were far more expensive new and one look inside any of the three you mention should make this obvious. What you are comparing is a Plymouth with a Chrysler. We have a Country Coach, but when we were looking two years ago I was very impressed with several American coaches. As far as Monaco. Look at a few more of those. They are also great coaches. And, by the way, I am not dissing Damon at all, but the Escaper is in a way different price range new than the American lines.

I drove gas coaches for many many years before being lucky enough to get a big diesel. It is just my opinion, but I would not let the gas motor you have keep you from crossing the USA. Thousands do that every year. BTW you likely have a Ford V10. If you really do have a V6 gas then you should buy a diesel.