BillAdams

All disconnects should be on (not disconnected) at all times when you are using the coach. Your inverter / charger or 12V converter should be charging both sets of batteries. Some older coaches like mine only charge the house battery so if I am going to sit still for more than a week then I do disconnect the engine battery to ensure I don't have issue when we are ready to go. As Brett suggests above, you can learn a lot with a digital voltage meter. Check each battery bank voltage when you are not connected to shore power. Plug in and check the voltages again. If they batteries are being charged they should head up to 13+V. If not, you need to find out why. You can also try turning the disconnect on and off and seeing if you can find the actual solenoid to see if there are issues with that unit.

We used Escapees for many years and it was OK but we were still FL residents. We moved our residence to SD and moved our mail service to Americas Mailbox. We picked them only because our travels would not take us farther W than Rapid City (Box Elder might as well have a Rapid City address) and doing it all onsite seemed easier than doing it by mail. If I was going farther W then we would have choose Alternative Resources based upon the info I have read over the internet and some personal calls to them. Americas Mailbox is doing a good job for us, however.

They all have batteries but not all have batteries that you can replace yourself. That's why you have the questions above.

The short answer is yes, you can use your furnace while driving. No worries.

I can tell you is that if there was ANY device that would allow a Cummins to get that kind of an MPG increase, Cummins would be using it. That's an absolute. If you keep that in mind, you can pretty quickly separate the wheat from the chafe. I suspect that it's simply an ad and nothing more than any of the other ads that claim magical improvements. They still suck folks in despite the fact that their claims have no basis.

Could you clarify what you mean by "DirecTV does not permit the latter option?" The DirecTV service is available with most any antenna setup in any RV without issue. As to the Slingbox option, you are going to need an internet connection to receive the programming and that's not going to work in this kind of a mobile environment. Camp ground wifi is usually setup to block streaming or kick you off if you do and cellular data limits will be exceeded in short order if you try to use that option.

Which of the 10,000 scam fuel saver devices are you referring to?

We have found the very best one to look like this It is a Lamp HC-85. The handles need to pretty close together and one part goes on each handle. When latched the doors cannot open.

You almost CAN predict the weather in Perry in March. It has rained nearly every rally that has ever been held in Perry during that time frame!

If you want it painted by the folks in Bremen, IN then yes!

Check this out. http://www.rvparky.com/

First, a Class C "is" a coach and if you only change your oil every 40,000 miles you are a miracle worker! Your engineer friend says that's too often? One of you is off your nut! I know....typo!

While I know there are some crazy threads out there, I have never seen so much nonsense posted to one topic in any forum I can remember. I can only speculate that Shopper is mad at somebody about something (maybe he thinks he owns a lemon) and it just looking to stir the pot hoping to get some revenge. Otherwise, the question has been posted and answered (no they should not be avoided).

Shopper, this was the gist of your original post and I can tell you that your friend is simply wrong. What do you suppose would be considered a catastrophic failure that could happen to a Class A that could not happen to a Class C? Engine failure? Could happen to either. Transmission, A/C, tires? Could happen to either. What is it that you consider a catastrophic failure? My '88 Class A with 350,000 miles is still going strong.

Shopper, you may be misunderstanding what some are saying. You are going to have just as many problems with the units you are considering. It's simply NOT a Class issue. Some coaches will have less problems than others (again, not based upon their Class) and some will have more. If you get a "Friday" coach you may have a ton of issues whereas the exact same model built on Wednesday will have very few. It's really a crap shoot. That's why I like buying used. Someone else took care of those issues!

Investment? NO! No RV is a good investment. Not even part of this discussion. I agree that like a time share an RV (every RV) is a bad investment. Buying new makes it even worse but everyone already knows that.

for every big motorhome they see in a campground there is another one in a repair shop. This is, or course, just silly. Look at all the cars in for repairs at the 10's of thousands of dealers around the Country. Based upon that information alone, no one should ever buy a car. If you go by an RV dealer that specializes in trailers and 5th wheels, you would come to the same conclusion since there would not be one single Class A in for repairs and you could conclude that Class A's are great and trailers are the money pit. The reality is that stuff breaks, but "generally" the better made any product is, the less time it will spend in the shop.

IMHO, you are only 30 miles from Flagstaff when you get to Sedona and turning around would add over 300 miles to your trip. You won't have any issue with brake fade going up to Flagstaff and you can go as slow and you like in lower gears to prevent issues going down the other side. However, the down side from Flagstaff on 40E is really not bad at all and should not give you any reason for concern.

Everything you do will help. Visiting one or more of the major RV shows will also help. We lived in Wash. DC and drove to the PA RV show where we could actually compare the various products side by side. We discovered a product that we were not aware of and later purchased it after a bit more investigation. By this time we had already rented and spent time in 3 different coaches so we at least knew what we were looking for an could make a more informed decision. I just wanted to avoid buying something and then needing to trade it to get the things I needed.

That would be true for a used vehicle. For a new registration it would be the certificate of origin or similar paper work.

While I was never planning to go full time when I was looking for an RV, I did know that I did not know anything! I rented 3 different RV's for 7-10 days and took off. I rented a class C and 2 different versions of Class A's. Doing so make 2 things very clear to me. First was that a Class C would not work for me and the DW (please don't flame me Class C owners, this is a personal observation). Second was that not all Class A's are created equal and neither of the ones we rented had all the things we wanted. However, having done what we did, we knew what we did not want and we knew of the things that we must have. As mentioned above, it's all about the floor plan but it's also about the amenities. Once you know what you must have, the things you would like to have and what's completely unacceptable you will have a pretty good shot at getting the right RV. Unfortunately, this will not tell you whether fulltiming is right for you but I did know right away that the huge smiles on my wife's face when we were in the RV was a pretty darn indicator that this would be a lifestyle that would work for us.

Voltage may or may not decrease as appliances are turned on. If you have solid 110V power and it remains at or near 110 when you run your A/C, microwave or coffee pot then you really don't have any issues. If you see a substantial drop in voltage when you try to run these devices then you need to get yourself to another park!

I towed a van that had the exact same issue the OP is facing. I did not use any kind of battery powered braking system but in order to keep the steering unlocked I had to put the key in the ACC position. If I towed for more than about 4 hours, the battery would be dead upon arrival. I was able to resolve that with a blade type battery disconnect but that is also not a good choice for the OP based upon the LR alarm setup. Not every vehicle is a Jeep.

Yep, only the title counts. A coach can have a chassis that is nearly 2 years older than the date it's titled. RV manufacturers are even allowed to put out a 2012 and if it does not sell change it to a 2013. I don't believe a dealer can, but the manufacturer can.

I think the person giving this advice is either jealous of class A owners or simply a bit nuts! There is no reason to believe that an RV built in a Class A or Class C format would have any more or less issues. Often they are both built on very similar chassis and engine combinations so the basic premise makes no sense. There are large differences between a trailer or 5th wheel and a self-powered unit but if you are doing a heads up comparison between self-powered units you just want to ensure you buy as much quality as you can afford. They all have problems (welcome to RVing!), some have more problems than others, but it's not a "Class" issue.