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kingfr

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Posts posted by kingfr


  1. FWIW. Our former '08 40 Ft coach had an ISC 360. Our Current '15 42 Ft coach has a 450 HP ISL. The bigger '15 coach consistently gets .5 to 1 MPG better mileage than the '08, running 3 - 5 MPH faster on interstate HWYs. The GVW of the '08 was 32,000 lbs, the '15 (tag axle)  is 44,000 lbs. I attribute the mpg gain to the improvements in engine tuning that can be done with a DEF engine.


  2. 2 hours ago, Selah said:

    The original posted states Tiffin is not taking ANY coaches for service.

     Warranty service is being done and they changed to only warranty service quite some time ago.  

    Not quite so. They will do "Service" work on any Tiffin coach, no matter the age or warranty status. I regularly see 10, 15 and even 20 year coaches in the service bays when I go there for service. They do NOT do "renovations or modifications" to coaches. There are a number of businessmen in Red Bay, former Tiffin employees, who make a good living doing mods and upgrades and their work is excellent. They take appointments and will accept 3rd party warranties. Tiffin doesn't do appointments because too many owners abused the system by making appointments a year in advance, and then no showing. They stopped doing 3rd party warranty work because they were having to devote 3 fulltime staffers to collecting from the warranty companies.

     

    Carl, maybe you should verify your information, especially something that is so far out in left field, before you post that info. All you would have had to do is say "I heard that........... Any truth to it?"


  3. 4 hours ago, manholt said:

    Tiffin is not taking any coaches in for Service in Red Bay, anymore!  They are overwhelmed...you need to see your dealer or anyone who does Warranty work, or any other Allegro work on non warranty!

    Carl

    Just exactly what do you base this statement on! If this were the case, then the folks on TRVN would be reporting it, and they aren't. The only things that they aren't doing anymore is making appointments and honoring third party warranty's due to the fact that they were having too much trouble getting the warranty companies to pay.


  4. The wobble issue is a Cherokee issue only, not a Grand Cherokee issue. They are two Completely different designs. The Cherokee is a front wheel drive platform (Fiat I believe) modified to become a Cherokee, with 4WD or all wheel drive if ordered that way. Still a transverse mounted engine/transaxle design with a takeoff to drive the rear wheels when necessary. The Grand Cherokee is a traditional front engine rear drive or 4WD based on the Mercedes Benz ML SUV series.


  5. 46 minutes ago, hermanmullins said:

    Refresh my memory. Wasn't it the Grand Cherokee that has problems with the transfer case? Didn't they throw lots of time and money into components only to find it to be a program error. ????

    Herman

    Yep and Yep. I heard that they applied a "fix" to some Grands, which caused the Transfer Case to fail. Tried to fix with hardware. Our '12 was never updated and we never had any problems. (Until the lightning)


  6. 3 hours ago, FIVE said:

    You might want to check out the "Death Wobble" with Grand Cherokees.  I just binged it and this is the first article that came up:  

    http://www.allpar.com/SUVs/jeep/death-wobble.html

    The "Death Wobble" is with Jeep Cherokees, not Grand Cherokees! They are two completely different vehicles. The Cherokee is a Jeep/Fiat developed unit using many Fiat components including a transverse mounted engine (read front wheel drive/all wheel drive), the Grand Cherokee is a Jeep/ Mercedes Benz development which shares many components with MB SUVs. No Problems with "Wobble". As far as the Transfer case is concerned, we had a 2012 Grand and towed it for 30K miles with no issues, until lightening got it! (Fried computers)


  7. I suspect that the aluminum foil will suffer the same fate as the nest if I crank the engine without removing it. I'll pick it up on my pre-departure walk-a-round.

    BTW, I didn't know that there were younguns it the nest until it came out. The nest was mostly around a bend in the pipe. They wouldn't have survived anyhow. They were just hatched, and we will be driving in less than two weeks.


  8. The Tiffin owner"s " manual" is in fact a big blue bag which contains not only a generic "owners manual" for the Phaeton, in your case, but also a copy of the documentation for every system that is on your coach, including but not limited to, A/C, heaters, Refrigerator, Microwave, TV's, Jacks, generator, chassis (Freightliner or Spartan) tires, and more. It's a huge pile of paper. The previous owner should have left it with the coach!


  9. The only downside that I know of is if the campground's wiring to the 30 amp pedestal will not support 40 - 50 amps consistently and overheats. This can burn the inside of the pedestal, as well as cause issues for other campers who are on the same circuit from the CG's main distribution system. I used one for years on my previous coach. (2008 DP). My current coach has a smart load sharing EMS which won't allow the use of more than 30 amps if it cannot sense a real 50 amp connection.

    You can get one of the adapters at Camping World.


  10. My coach, with a Cummins ISL 450 uses about a gallon of DEF every 310 miles. I have averaged 7.1 MPG since new on this coach. This usage does include generator fuel usage, so the actual miles per gallon of DEF is probably a little higher.


  11. 2 hours ago, ObedB said:

    Don't use DEF but I have not seen a nozzle on both sides at the fuel islands. Seems to be primarily on the driver's side.

    Never seen DEF pumps on both sides of a truck lane. Also, never seen DEF in the RV lanes, although I avoid the RV lanes at FJ for many of the reasons stated earlier. Only go in RV lanes when that's where the Propane fillup is.


  12. I suspect that Wranglers break more than other vehicles is because their owners "Torture" them much more than owners of other vehicles. People buy Wranglers to go places where you wouldn't want to take your average SUV, not to mention regular automobiles. I have owned 8 Jeeps since 1985, 3 old style Cherokees, a Liberty, two Grand Cherokees, and two Wranglers. I don't believe that any of them were any less reliable than the other cars, vans and SUVs that we have owned. Our current Wrangler Unlimited Rubicon is great, with no trouble since purchase, and it has been "wheeling" more than once.


  13. I think the so-called downsizing trend is also relevant, to bring this up as a follow up on "Having said that, if we had a S & B residence and only traveled part time, we would probably have something in the 32-36 foot size with much less stuff to keep up with, maybe even, gasp, a gasser!"

    ​There are a small number, if not a growing number of down sizers (reading across forums) who use to own 40 ft dp coaches. This is certainly opposite of "we found that newer coaches pretty much all have two bathrooms and huge closets." They switched to a B class floor plan or something closer to a 32 Tiffin Breeze floor plan.

    When I read their topics, they sound a bit like me, which is why I'm not totally committed to a 40ft dp just yet. They, like me, often have an interest in mixing in some international travel. My wife wants to go to France later this year, for example.

    Well yes, if I was going full-time floor plan would probably be much more important.

    One couple I read wanted the 1 and 1/2 bath because they wanted their grandchildren to accompany them from time to time.

    It is still not out of the picture for me to abandon the mh and go 5th. So maybe I'm in this forum to toss this around a bit more before I commit.

    We want the Two Holer because the older we get, the more often the "urge" strikes us both at the same time! :rolleyes:


  14. We love our current coach! Our perspective comes from living in a DP fulltime since 2007, first a 40 footer with 4 slides, 1 bath one sofa, a recliner with computer desk, and two tv's. Now we are in a 42 footer (Phaeton 42LH if you are interested) with a bath and 1/2 bath, L shaped sofa, entertainment center with 42" tv across from it, outside TV, fireplace, heated tile floors, etc. Much prefer the 42 footer. It lives like it is 1 1/2 times larger than the 40! Oh yes, 450HP engine, tag axle, 3 A/C units and a 10 KW generator.

    Having said that, if we had a S & B residence and only traveled part time, we would probably have something in the 32-36 foot size with much less stuff to keep up with, maybe even, gasp, a gasser!


  15. Sorry Frank, but you just made even less sense! "So, no appointments". Then you wrote, "plus you can and should make an appointment"! What is it?

    Been to Red Bay many times, overflow is generator only...4 days of that is real fun. A town that rolls up the sidewalk at 8pm and 1 reasonably good restaurant! Just the place for a vacation....all my work was on warranty, or recall. In a 30 month period, I have documented 17, 318 miles to Red Bay! Yes, Bob was aware of it!

    I got rid of the Allegro Bus at 36,000 +/- miles...Lazydays was so proved of my Bus, they took it to Auction after they gave me top dollar and I got the one I have now! A 2011 coach sold at Auction, as is, in Nov. 2013.

    Sorry for being a little testy. For some reason, that I don't understand, it seems that the Phaeton has far fewer major problems than the other Tiffin models, both gas and DP's!

    Carl

    So if I read your post and signature correctly, you traded a 2011 Tiffin for a 2010 AMC Tradition in 2013. Means your current coach was 3-4 years old when you got it, since the 2010 model year coaches are usually released in mid 2009. This of course means that you got a coach that a previous owner had worked the bugs out of. (Or it means that you rolled the dice and got a new on that had been sitting on a dealers lot for 3 years.) This is not a bad plan if you don't want to deal with "new coach" issues and don't want the latest features found on new coaches,

    We determined that the features found on the 2015 Phaeton were worth dealing with the "new coach" issues. And yes. our 2015 went back to Red Bay several times during its first year. (September 2014 build). If I were to sell it now, the next buyer would get a basically bug free coach. Most of the issues that we had to deal with were problems with Coleman, Spyder Controls, Attwood, etc systems. Since our coach is one of the first of a complete redesign of the Phaeton product line, we had a few build issues which Tiffin fixed very quickly. We never had to wait more than 5 days to get into service, even during "snowbird" season. We are fortunate that we pass by Red Bay several times a year on our way West or East. We have all of our service work done in Red Bay, but not necessarily at the Tiffin service facility.

    Sorry you got a problem coach, there is not a manufacturer out there that doesn't have one of these occasionally.


  16. Sorry Frank, but you just made even less sense! "So, no appointments". Then you wrote, "plus you can and should make an appointment"! What is it?

    ..................................

    Carl

    If you go back and read my post you will see that I was referring to making appointments with the "Businessmen" in Red Bay, Brannon Hutchinson, Bruce Deaton, etc, not the Tiffin Service center!


  17. That makes no sense at all. Some guy buys a $500k bus, lives on the west coast and can't make an appointment to have a serious problem fixed! So he drives to Red Bay and finds out they are booked for a month...then what?

    Tiffin made appointments by opening appointments for the year on Jan 1 of that year. They made 3 appointments per working day. Getting one of those appointments was similar to getting a reservation for a campsite that would hold a 40ft DP in the Yosemite NP. People made appointments "just in case" they might need one, and a large number went unused. The other side of that was arriving appointments would push back folks who had been waiting to get in, which caused hard feelings. They tried making appointments on a quarterly basis, with pretty much the same result. You can't please everyone, although Bob Tiffin tries. So now no appointments. They are doing a much better job of managing the service process with express (3 Hour) bays, mobile techs who come to your campsite, and giving priority to coaches in warranty. I made several warranty trips to Red Bay in my current coach and never had to wait over 5 days, even during "Snowbird" season. (Spring and Fall) There are a number of businessmen in Red Bay who do a great job of servicing Tiffin coaches and at a lower labor rate. You get the benefit of being in Red Bay with access to Tiffin's parts bay plus you can, and should, make an appointment. That's what I do for all non warranty work.

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