wildebill308

I like the 3D printer idea. I believe there are printers that print in metal now. But the lighter weight nylon should work for the cover. Bill

Having read the outher responses, the heat pumps do not use propane. Bill

To meet your criteria I would go there. They will take good care of your coach. You can also get it cleaned inside and out plus maintenance and they do upgrades. Bill

Your old toilet!!! Sorry I couldn't help it. Welcome to the forum. By water valve you mean the one on the toilet? When mine failed it leaked into the tank and filled it. Yes as Kay said what is your water preshure? Bill

Yes, they are aluminum. Bill

There are still quite a few of the older HR coaches out there. Bill

True, but more about how they are made than just the sales pitch. Along with what brett said you always want to get a inspection by a qualified inspector on any used coach. Bill

Foretravel is a upper level quality builder. They tend to be a little more conservative in the bling department compared to Newell or some of the Prevost converters. I did hear they are going to start doing Prevost conversions to. My opinion is Monaco may not have the build quality they had before the downturn. PPLMotorhomes is a big consignment dealer with 3 major lots in Texas. I am fairly close to the Cleburne location and have gone there because they have a good parts department. They sell lots of inventory and you can get a idea of real pricing. Here are a couple outher places to look at. https://www.motorhomesoftexas.com/ https://www.mhsrv.com/ Yes, it does help with the weight distribution and stability going down the road. Just a comet about the difference between Bus RVs and purpose built RVs. They started from different concepts back in the beginning of the RV industry. Bus based RVs can trace their heritage back to the guys converting old busses to camp in. They still do. The outher branch started more with towable trailers that were deliberately made light weight and low cost. Some of that thinking carried over to today. That is why I only recommend certain brands. If you get a chance and go to a big rv show and look. You have a interest in and experience in repairing or fixing things and should be able to see the difference in construction. There are several "factory tours on Youtube Here is just one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-uwJoABQ6M&t=16s Sadley the quality is linked pretty close to the sticker price. That is why I advocate buying a little older quality coach and if needed do some upgrades, you get better bones. Bill

I think you can still get water on top of the slide even with realey tight toppers. Try tilting the coach like I do. I had new toppers put on at Minot and still drain the slides. Bill

I did enjoy the Gettysburg area and the museum. Hope to get back that way. I know someone in the area who knows all the good places to eat. Bill

See I told you you would get lots of "help" picking a coach. I have had a couple of "no slide" coaches and will not do it again. Joe L, does bring up a critically important point. You always want to see a coach with the slides in before you buy. You want to be able to get to and use all the critical systems without opening a slide. Think about if you pull over and you need to use the bathroom "NOW", do you want to wait to level and open the slide, I don't think so. I have an older 2003 coach (see signature) I can live in it without opening the slides. Ok I have a couple drawers I can't open in the bedroom and I would need to cross the bead to get to the rear closet. But I can cook on the stove/microwave sit in the dinnet open the refrigerator etc. I do think some of the older coaches have better slides, mostly because they were smaller. I had one problem when I first got my coach but I changed the relay and it was fixed. We see a fair number of people having problems with newer slides, especially the full wall slides because they are more complex. Most are fairly easily fixed (mostly a synchronization problem, they have multiple motors that have to turn the same amount) once you learn how to reset it it is just a minor item. I think you have a good basic idea and understanding. It is good you can do some of the basic maintenance/repairs yourself. Now here is anouther maker for your list.Foretravel in my opinion fits above Newmar and next to Newell. Where you are getting into the realm of when you buy new you have a personal design team to help you. This coach was over $531,367 base with no options. Today under $105.000. I just through this out as an example of anouther quality coach maker. https://www.pplmotorhomes.com/used-rvs-for-sale/diesel-motorhomes/2005-foretravel-u295_rv-43070 I wanted to go back and touch on this. Most all the stuff used to build RVs is off the shelf. They build very little themselves. Yes the technology has changed in 13+ years but not as much as you would think. Mostly it is the TVs and you can easily upgrade. Lots of things you can add cheaper yourself. I did see some 2019 Newmar King Airs on line for under $995.000 That has some neat teckey things. One last thing tonight. I consider the break point in quality or better coaches to be some of the amenities. Does it have a tag? does it have hydronic heat? is the generator on a slide? Side radiator? Heated floors? Ok enough for tonight Bill

Give us your thoughts on what you are looking for and you will get lots of ideas and suggestions. We love telling people how to spend their money. Bill

Welcome to the forum. Bill

Just how common is this problem? With the number of RVs on the road You seldom hear about it happening. Yes you should take care of your tires and watch the videos so you will know how to respond when driving a "BIG RIG". I think it is more about trying to expand a market. Bill

Like Herman said, I would check your seals. I ran into this problem a couple of years ago. It had been raining and I brought the slides in. well when I pulled forward off the spot it sloped down pretty bad. Well I got at least a quart of ice cold water down my neck and back. It felt more like 5 gallons. I now use the levelers to tilt the coach to drain the top of the slide before bringing it in. Bill

Ok, tell me what is going on when it cracks, are you driving, on what kind of road? Bill

Is this with it plugged into 50 amp shore power? Was the inverter on? According to Newmar the inverter, converter must be turned on to charge the batteries.

What does the Magnum battery monitor say? What are the battery readings? That means if you don't have shore power available turning off the inverter it will reduce parasitic drain on the house batteries in storage. Please report on what the Magnum battery monitor says? What are the battery readings? This goes back to storing with no shore power and below zero conditions. You will never see conditions like this where you are. Let me know what your readings are above. Make sure your inverter is on. Make sure the charger function is on. Bill

Sounds like fun. I would use an app like RV-Parky https://www.rvparky.com/ and RV park reviews www.campgroundreviews.com. Bill

Yet, you brought them up. Don't worry you can learn and improve your RV experience. Are you full time? where are you located? Where do you see this? I don't recall having to swipe a card this year. I do admit to this being a slow travel year as we only visited 27 states (some 2 or more times) so I know I missed a lot of places. The new readers that clamp down on your card so you can't remove it were interesting the first couple of times. I had this happen to me a couple of years ago. I called after being notified and had the replacement card sent to a place we were headed in a few days. Picked up the card when we checked in. I don't have my card stored more than a minimum number of places on line. That only increases your vulnerability if those places get hacked. My apologies then. We do see that here. Seriously if you want to write you need to look at YouTube because there are people making good money there that can't write or video blog. Bill

Bill, you are making me laugh out loud as in LOL. You are a little behind the times. Show me one credit card that doesn't have a chip. Yes it is in the top 10, but if you do a simple Google search it is listed as the 5th most common causes of credit card fraud. Hacking/ Hacked bricks-and-mortar merchant was number 1. You already said this had happened to you but the CC company had caught it and reversed the charges before you became aware of the problem. So what is your point, outher than trying to draw people to your blog to try and drive hits to monetize it. Why would you drive 2400 miles without a toad? You give up so much of your ability to see and do. I am also intrigued by your infatuation with how fast you need to get through the gas buying process. Us old people who are fumbling with our credit cards don't have to be in a hurry. One more LOL, 2400 miles o my. I just rolled past 8458.0 miles this year in the rig in my signature. Bill

Why do you have to wash at dawn? I am more of after a late lunch. Bill

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year and may all of your wishes come true. Bill

I think this fear of the front "catastrophic blow out" is way over hyped. I just don't see any numbers to back up the fear mongering promoted on most forums. And by companies selling products that you can't live without because you are going to have a front blow out and fall into a canyon if you don't. YES it could happen understand it and you can be readey. There are good videos to watch. Just so you know I have had a front blow out. Back in the 80s I was driving a class C that my former father in law was trying to sell me. On I-635 in Dallas trafic the front left tire went away with a big bang. I never felt that I was out of control and was able to safely pull over to a spot where I could change it. This problem I feel was directly attributed to the tires that had come on the RV They were not to old but were the same load range van tires that had been on the rolling van chassis used to build the class C. I upgraded to load range E and never had anouther problem. Bill

They may discharge if you weren't plugged in but you later said you were plugged in. They should not be going dead if you are plugged in. Don't you have "auto generator start" on your coach? When they got low the generator should have started. I can run a couple nights without the house batteries going dead. Why? Why? You are still way below the correct charge levels. Your problem is not fixed. Bill