mweiner

Bill, I suppose anything can fail, but, metal roof especially from the factory are not as likely to leak, there's a lot more seams on the fiberglass caps.. I'm not particularly worried about anything that came from the factory or the conversion... AND, there's no ladder to the roof of my rig.😁😁😁

Bill, sounds good... YES, I agree buying a nice used vehicle will definitely save money. I imagine that you paid quite a substantial amount even in 1999... How has it been with the maintenance and up keep?

Chindog- YES, sounds good.

Steve- I agree 100 percent with hermanmullins.... you can dump in the clean out drain like mine at your house...I can't even imagine how or why you would want to dump the RV into the toilet inside your home.... just getting the hose there is logistics nightmare.. let alone the back up...I should have mentioned that in my earlier post.

Bill, you wrote "Depending upon where the coach is built, including a macerator may be illegal (Oregon is one of those locations). " What are you saying here?? Are you suggesting that macerator pumps cannot be used in Oregon?? I certainly hope that is NOT what you're saying. Do you know of any locations where using a macerator pump is ILLEGAL? Please advise.

Five- REALLY? You would "remove the macerator pump"? Don't know what your system was, ours is really fast... On the Roadtrek RS Adventurous....the discharge hose is only about 3 inches wide... comes right out on the driver's side like an accordian snake and goes back in just the same... you pull it out, open the valves for the appropriate black and then grey water separately.... There's a red button on the left side of the driver's seat to start the pump...it pumps everything out... coil up the hose close the side panels underneath the fender skirts and you're ready to go.... I would NOT ever consider getting rid of that. How easy was it dumping your American Eagle? I've seen pictures of that coach online, what a magnificent machine.

Bill, sure, I understand . Everything is done online today.. What made you decide to go full time from 1997 .... I've seen some of those Prevost coaches on the road... they're awesome.. Did you have the conversion done for you or did do a lot of the work yourself. I have to admit that I don't have those kinds of skills...If you did it yourself, I'm very impressed.. actually, I'm impressed either way.... those Prevost vehicles are really substantial.

Are you willing to take your coach to a reputable RV repair shop and have them swap out the air conditioning unit??? I'm sure that they would know what size to use and cool your rig.

michaelhillhouse- Well, the American Eagle RV is certainly beautiful... And so is the Dutch Star.. don't know anything about the Safari Zanzabar... what was wrong with that?? Those were all Diesels, correct? Why did you sell the American Eagle... I looked up the coach..it was a beautiful machine.

What's your fuel economy in this.. pulling the car?

That's a lot of coach for the money... nice looking rig and toad. Surprised it didn't come with the macerator pump built-in.

YES. that's fine....you mean 84 percent in favor of sending this out to the membership for a vote. What's wrong with that? Now, those of us who want to vote can do so.

Wild Bill- I've heard that aftermarket warranties differ greatly... have you heard anything good or bad about Good Sam.. I went with them for $78 per month.. can cancel anytime.. Dealership offered me another option which was much more expensive.. 4 years, fixed cost, translation to $120 per month.

No self addressed stamped envelope?? LOL... It's 2017... not 1988... When will people wake up that it's easier to vote online..... after all, as members, we all have a username and password for our FMCA account. Besides, Internet voting is easier, faster results and verifiable. PLUS, for all you "full timers"... How long does it take to get your forwarded mail??

Understood, we looked at many vehicles over several years... yes, hard to find exactly what we wanted... UNTIL we found the 2012 Roadtrek RS Adventurous..got very lucky.. We didn't want a Class A... but, we don't have kids... I've been told that even "new coaches" have issues, I'm sure that your warranty will help you...be sure and get all of those things worked out as soon as possible.. AND, we purchased an extended warranty..I recommend that. Good luck....

Thank you all for your replies... I've had several cars with sunroofs and never had a problem ( lucky I guess) with leaking roofs.😀 Kay, interesting to know about the Sprinter history there... Yes, I was aware of the Daimler Chysler connection.... from what I know Mercedes Benz wanted to keep the exclusivity the Sprinter and when they split with Dodge, the Dodge folks started producing the RAM ...are you saying that the RAM is on the same chassis as Mercedes? In any case, I figured that having a metal roof from the factory would be a better fit for longer term maintenance costs and performance.. I don't have any fiberglass caps or seams.. there are seals around the A/C and antenna. Not much... As for vibration, I suppose anything could happen, but, my installation guy is VERY professional.. I would hope had more issues chasing water seals and seams on the fiberglass caps of the Winnebago Navion 😁😁😁. The Navion was very nice inside and I seriously considered getting one, but, the extra weight on the sides and the more top heavy box made the unit feel NOT as light on it's feet as the van. I was also concerned about how the aerodynamics of the larger box would perform in high winds and of course, the extra box is more of a sail with lower mileage. All of those things steered me into the Class B. The Navion is sometimes called a Class B plus.... but, I think it's really a Class C. SO, the two panels for 320 watts should be fine... GREAT. Desert deals, I see you have the Centennial batteries.. just got my Full River batteries replaced... hopefully these Centennial batteries will be good... have you had a good experience with them?? As for the risk of having the solar...the whole rigs a risk to some degree...I'd rather have the extra power...if I'm out on the road.

Thanks... yes, I carry extra DEF on board.

Don't know what kind of macerator pump we have, BUT, I can tell you that it's one of the best features on our RS Adventurous.... It was installed on our rig as a factory feature. Didn't know how easy dumping the tanks would be, and I'm pleasantly surprised We don't even hook up at RV parks, no need to do that. We pull up to the dump station, pull out the coiled hose that is permanently attached to our rig, put it in the hole, open the valve and press a button.... yes, it's that easy. I'm not sure that the brand of macerator pumps matters that much, they all grind up and discharge your black and grey water tanks. The faster you get this the easier it will be for you. If I were you, I would definitely get this professionally installed. We have not tried dumping it into the toilet at home, but we have a clean out drain that goes directly to the sewer in the front of our house..and we have dumped there. If you have a drain like this outside, I recommend doing that. If our macerator pump ever failed, it would be in the shop tomorrow to fix it, yeah, it's that important... What's your rig? Good luck.

Ouch, I hope you don't have to pay a lot to have that fixed. Sounds like a bigger problem than the A/C. Just did a Google search on your coach...it's 28 feet.. with a 454 V8? How many miles on your rig? Good luck..

How many phones on your plan? One? YES, I've heard very good things about the Verizon hot spots... Verizon told me recently that with two phones unlimited it would be $180/ month. At my current rate on Project Fi, that would be an address 8 GB over my current plan of 4 GB per month or a total of 13 GB... We don't use a consistent 13 GB of data per month...so, I'm not sure it would be financially advantageous for our situation.

Speaking of propane...is it perfectly safe ?? My owners manual says to not use the propane when traveling or refuelling... but, the dealership who sold me the rig says they travel with their units with the propane on all the time. Plus, they pointed out that it takes a lot to ignite Diesel and the risk of running the propane for the refrigerator is not anything to be concerned about.. Do you agree?

Perhaps this is the website you were referring to? https://handybobsolar.wordpress.com/2014-solar-ideas-batteries-other-things/

If your "coach air conditioning " is blowing out 55 degrees from the vents, you should be able to cool down the coach pretty quickly... Also, open a small window to blow out the warm air once you start ...then close up the coach. One more thing, if you really want to cool off faster, turn on the engine and run the vehicle AC up front for a while...the two units together should make a difference. Of course, we have a small Class B and the space to cool down is MUCH smaller than what you probably have, but, I would think that your system would be sized appropriately for this. Question- when was last time you had your unit serviced? Good luck...

Thanks for this. Question, are two 160 watt panels enough to keep my twin 6 volt batteries charged up... I know that it won't be enough to run the AC. @😁😁😁 Listen, the guy who installs my stuff...for my private cars.... proximity sensors, back up camera, custom radio and amplifiers, speakers etc. has been doing this for over 25 years. He is my go to guy for all mobile electronics. When he installs something.. like the new radio navigation system I put in the coach recently, you can't see how he does it... wires are not visible anywhere. Truly magic. He just installed a new back up camera and front camera all integrated into the new dashboard system with a 7 inch screen... very slick. The new mircophone to pick up voice is a tiny one just popping out of the headliner near the windshield... I'm going to be very involved and will certainly ask him about the size of the wires...he is very trustworthy and really backs his work 100 percent. He even does work for dealerships in the area with new cars. Hmm, I had some difficulties locating Bob's solar website...was that Solarbobsolar.com Didn't work for me??? SO, do you think I'll be able to get enough bang for the buck on these two panels? I imagine it's better than nothing? I really don't expect to be boon docking that much, but, keeping the batteries charged is much more desirable than letting them get deeply discharged.

The guy that would install them for me professionally told me that he could easily get two 160 watt panels up there for a maximum output of 320 watts. He wasn't sure about a 3rd panel?? And, he would wire that to the electrical system with a charge controller... The two panels installed would be around $1,100. If that could give me a little more peace of mind when boon docking, I would consider this money well spent. The coach has two AGM deep cycle 6 volt batteries in series under the hood. They're Centennial batteries, here they are below... https://battsys.com/centennial-battery-cb6-224-6-volt-224-amp-hour-sealed-lead-acid-agm-battery