2007 Vantare on Ebay

[Coloradobus]

Sorry to see another coach fire. Glad no one was hurt.

JON, Here is yet another Country Coach. If is for sale like new, intact. But they are calling it a 2012????? I called the lister, and he said its an '08 shell, and the title will call it either a ??(Sea) C- Coach or Custom Coach. I didn't ask why they are advertising it as was a Country Coach regardless if he used former CC guys to finish it.
http://www.rvtraderonline.com/find/listing/2012-Prevost-Xl2-45-97925696

[Jon Wehrenberg]

I wish all coaches were titled and registered based on the year of the shell. It would make things easier for potential buyers. As it is now with varying converter policy and a market that has been depressed for a couple of years at least there is absolutely no consistency to the model years. In the not too distant future when these coaches trade there are going to be some mighty mad buyers and sellers with the buyers thinking they got ripped off and sellers getting whipped on pricing of their coaches.

At one of our POG rallies a number of us looked at a coach that had a chassis date four years prior to the date being listed as the coach model year. You just know down the road someone is going to think they got screwed when that coach is sold again.

[travelite]

Folks,

This coach was recently listed on ebay. It's advertised as an '07, but it's built on an '03 chassis. The title says '07. Is this common practice in the converter world; i.e., to roll the registration date forward?

Ebay number: 290530841777

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/2007-Prevost-XL2-Vantare-W-2-Slides-/290530841777?pt=RVs_Campers&hash=item43a4fcd4b1

[dale farley]

David,

I've seen this before, but I wouldn't say it is common practice. It is common practice for the chassis and the conversion to be one year apart, but this is stretching it.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

David,

When the economy went south (and converters who were building coaches for spec and not specific customer orders) buses unsold in inventory were titled in the year they were sold, and not the year of the chassis manufacture. I think there is a limit to the legally allowed spread between chassis build and the model year on the title and registration but regardless as Dale said most conversions have a one year spread.

There was a time when Vantare and some others had coaches they could not sell and that is now reflected in a chassis vs title model year spread. In the future that large difference is going to create problems for a buyer or seller depending on whether a buyer feels he got screwed by buying an old coach than he thought he was getting, or a seller thinking he cannot get the full market price because the chassis is so much older.

To add to the misery and confusion some converters such as Vantare or Legendary were ultimately selling this inventory at deeply discounted prices not only affecting selling prices of those models in years to come, but actually devaluing the entire market.

[charlesebrownjr]

I am wondering if this policy can be changed with a little encouragement from current coach owners. I assume the dept of transportation at the federal level controls this. One year difference in conversion and chaise is total understandable maybe 2 but someone stuck with some shells needs the ability to liquidate them but four years or more is really stretching it. Just as in any business, if you have old merchandise you liquidate it at a discount. I realize the Prevost conversion market is not your usual retail business. If I take my old 10 year old dog to the groomer and spiff him up, buy him a new collar, paint his toe nails and make him look good, he is still a 10 year old dog. I think all conversions need to be titled in the year of the chaise and not the conversion. Chassis year model is the most important fact to me, could be wrong, but the main cost of the coach to me is the running gear. The people with the coach on ebay better hold on at 1.5 cause it will be a long ride. I would not even look at it as a prospective buyer, maybe south of 7 or 8 hundred K. At that age look at all the stuff that needs to be replaced just from an age issue and not mileage. All the rubber componets, bags, seals, valves, hoses etc. Good Luck:confused:

[charlesebrownjr]

BTW my old dog verbage is not refering to a COUNTRY COACH, the best out there:p, bug shield or not !!!!!!!!!!

[travelite]

Jon,

Those are very good points. Frankly, my opinion is to put no stock in the advertised "model year". I look at the VIN and add a year. One year is about the time it takes to build a coach so plus one on the VIN chassis build date seems reasonable. To me, the coach in question is really an '04, and the price should be competitive with other '04's, unless someone can convince me otherwise. :)

[Jon Wehrenberg]

We know what you meant. And you are correct, but those owning coaches with a wide spread between chassis and model year are then caught in a dilemma. They likely bought based on model year (but at a discount), but will be forced to accept market value based on an older model year. How will the market value a coach with a chassis 4 years older compared to one of the same model year but with a 3 year newer chassis?

Absolutely correct about things aging, and not so much the frame or running gear, but air bags, Norgren valves, hoses, coolant, transmission fluids, brake chambers and anything else with fluids or materials that age out are going to be faced with replacement premature for the model year.

When that CC is sold will the Transynd and coolants have been replaced? They are both age limited. Would the fuel tank have algae? Has the seller compensated the buyer for the tires which will age out in about 2 years after the purchase? Will the buyer still be running the tires 10 years after shell was produced because he did not feel it necessary to look at tire date codes on a new coach?

Prevost does not care what year a coach is titled as because when it needs parts or maintenance the only thing Prevost goes by is the model year listed in the serial number. Maybe the first purchaser of such coaches will be an astute buyer and cut a deal that reflects the actual age, but as the coach depreciates I suspect the blurring of the date the chassis was produced compared to the model year on the title is going to create issues for later buyers and sellers.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

We have parallel threads going on the same topic. But imagine the folks who are not POG members, don't even know about POG, and with no Prevost knowledge or experience buy that coach based on the listed model year and not the chassis build. A less than candid seller can withhold the serial number from all sales information until closing and blind side a buyer who will read posts like this for the first time after the purchase. You can bet there will be sparks flying.

[truk4u]

I merged the two threads for your Searching pleasure.

[jack14r]

About a year ago Liberty traded for that Featherlite coach and of course they knew before they traded for it that there was a 4 year difference in shell and conversion,so they wholesaled it to the current dealer.We all know how important the shell date is and that the conversion should not be more than 1 year difference but many converters have gotten by with what I would term as misrepresentation.I have seen more of this by Featherlite as they got strapped for money in about 07,but they are not the only ones guilty.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Apart from the issues owners and buyers will have down the road with the model year versus the chassis year, Detroit has a warranty that starts ticking away after a certain time elapses. I cannot remeber what that is or where to find it, but if there is a wide spread between the chassis build date and the titled model year the new owner may find the engine warranty has been running and if something serious should happen to the engine they may have no recourse.

[garyde]

I'm not understanding why the Coach is advertised as a 2012. It's feb of 2011 now. Whats the point? The price is too high irregardless of the year.
This brings up another question for me on the price of new Coaches. They have risen in price into the hemisphere.
With so many other products reducing manufacturing costs to maintain competitive prices. Labor & material more or less stable over the last three to four years. Inflation zip.
Demand is down and has been down for 3 years or more.
The Shell purchase price has not risen significantly over the last 4 years.

So why are coaches priced so High? 2 Million +

[Coloradobus]

Perceived value, a new coach is supposed to be better than what you have. Slides, (no offense) girards, LCD TV's Crestons, IFS, they are gimmicks to make the customer think they need these things. Over the last 3 months, we have searched and looked, felt and smelled 12 differnt coaches travelling 7000 miles in 2 loops of 3500 miles and have been told what we have is obsolete, worth very little as a trade, inferior. Bottom line, we didn't see anything out thiere that was any better, except one coach, 1999 Marathon with bunkbeds. But it was overpriced at $260,000... and it needed 6 tires, had inverter issues, Teck Link screen dark, paint scrathes, crack windshield, missing tiles in bath faucet handles and the biggie, rear diff ABS sensors needed replaced.. Advertized as perfectly maintained, needs nothing. We like our coach even more now.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Let's presume the converters are in business to make money. While we all know the economy was (is?) in the tank and prices are supposed to go down, if we look at this from the converter side of the coin that is not going to happen unless the converter chooses to lose money or make less.

As production numbers decrease the converter's direct costs are reduced in direct proportion to the number of buses converted. But indirect and administrative costs remain the same and are spread over fewer buses. I realize certain indirect costs can be reduced, but for the most part the converter is stuck with the same costs of buildings, utilities, insurance, selling expense, advertising, etc. So new coaches actually have to carry greated indirect expenses per coach driving up the cost.

I am sure everyone recognizes that the cost of materials and components has also gone up. Batteries and tires come to mind, but I am sure there are hundreds of small increases across the board that have to be recovered in the price of a new coach. And finally the buyer wants more for his money so the coaches have more marble or granite, but the expensive light weight materials. The coaches have much more sophisticated electronics and controls and remote operated devices. If you don't think a coach has more of everything consider the weight of the average new conversion of today and the weight of the average conversion of 10 years ago. Every pound represents something not previously supplied and that extra weight represents proportional increases in cost.

Is this good? Is the market really asking for what is produced today? Is the market still willing and capable of paying the ever increasing costs? I have no clue but apparently all the answers are yes because that is what the converters are responding to.

What I would like to see right now is financing available from top to bottom for coaches. The older coaches are being pounded in price because of the difficulty to find lenders. If financing were available I strongly suspect the marketplace would quickly revalue coaches to reflect what older coaches are really worth. I think as the spread between a new coach and an older coach gets greater due to the inability to finance older coaches it makes new or slightly used coaches look overpriced. I find it hard to imagine a 10 year old coach with 100,000 miles and in decent condition is bringing such low prices, especially when we consider that the buyers of that 10 year old coach and a brand new one will likely never wear out or have serious expensive problems with either one of those coaches for the rest of their lives if they are well maintained.

[travelite]

Jon,

I completely agree. The converters can't build a less expensive bus because they can't achieve the margins required with the reduction in volume especially after overhead allocation. It's simply not that much cheaper for the converter to build a low-end bus as compared to a high-end bus in COGs terms.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

I may be wrong, but I suspect if across the board financing is available to the market this will all sort out. But in terms of value I think right now good used coaches are getting their values depressed far below their true worth because of lack of financing.

To see a 10 year old Vantare H3 with 2 slides and what looks like decent condition and colors at far less than $300,000 or a 1996 Vantare H3 with two slides, again in what looks like decent shape for less than $170,000 it just doesn't make sense. A person could buy that 96 and as long as they had no intention of trading stick $200,000 or $300,000 into it and end up with a coach that is the equal of any brand new one offered today. I'm talking new surfaces in the interior, new exterior paint, new engine, transmission, differential, air bags, etc. and for a million less than a new one have the equivalent or maybe better because some of the new ones are compromised with the newer engines which cause the loss of space.

[travelite]

That's a keen insight Jon. There's a market dislocation here that an enterprising entreprenuer might take advantage. Buy 10 year old or newer coaches, refurbish them, sell them as new with fresh factory warranties.

COGs:
coach wholesale: 200K
interior surfaces: 45K
exterior paint: 45K
engine: 20K
transmission: 10K
differential: 5K
Chassis items (airbags, hoses, brake chambers, etc): 5K
Overhead: 70K

Total: 400K
Sales Price: 900K
Gross Margin: 55%

Would the public spend 900K on a brandnew, updated, reconditioned 2000 Vantare with slides and with full 5 year factory warranties?

[Jon Wehrenberg]

In a word, no.

But as a business catering to the owner (with cash) who wants to do the above I see an opportunity.

Entertainer coaches are refurbished all the time. Admittedly their construction of the interiors is going to lend itself to doing that inexpensively due to modular construction, but to do it on a motorhome is just a little more difficult but not impossible. If we look at mid to late 90's coaches I see a huge supply of good basic coaches. And they are cheap. An owner can buy one and enjoy it for a while and then after deciding on having it tailored for his needs go ahead and do it all at once or to a schedule that spaces the costs out.

Unless a company doing this has a customer in place I think they are hanging their necks out because of the risk associated with trying to call an old shell a new one. But if it is already owned and the customer is willing it seems like a great opportunity. If I were to do my coach today, I end up with a brand new coach (theoretically) that has long range tanks, OTR, rivet construction, and engine that is not strangled with EPA specs, and I could change the things that are important to me and retain those I do not want to give up. I cannot get the stuff important to me in a new coach.

As a practical matter few would pull and replace perfectly good engines, generators, air bags, transmissions, holding tanks, etc, but would redo interior finishes, fabrics and in some cases layouts. We would see coaches with updated front ends, new paint and new tires, batteries, inverters and dashboards.

The fly in the ointment however is no lending institution is going to get involved. But for folks with cash they have to decide should they take a $200,000 coach and stick $200,000 into it and still have a 1999 coach, or should thay take the same dollars and get one 3 or 4 years newer? Today they have the same amount in either coach, and in 2 or three years the old one is worth a lot less than the newer one.

There is no answer to these questions because if Prevost ownership made sense there would be a lot fewer of them on the road. None of us motorhome owners can begin to justify what our costs are. We can try, but we all know we are just blowing smoke. So there will be folks that see merit in refurbishing, others would rather just buy a newer one, and still others are just going to buy a new one. At the other end of the spectrum there will be the majority that likes what they have and will do little to keep up with the Joneses except change the oil and grease the bus and take as good a care of the bus as possible.

[travelite]

Not the aswer I was hoping for, but I definitely appreciate the thought process! :)

[garyde]

In the short term I can understand the concept of fewer Built Coaches equal higher overhead costs. in the long term, the Market adjusts to the new reality.
In my buisness , construction, the new reality is selling buildings, selling vehicles, reducing workforce, essentially developing a much smaller overhead profile for the new market.
The market determines the price.

[travelite]

Gary,

To me it's commodity vs niche. In all humility, does the market set the price of a brand new Ferrari?

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Anytime something is priced beyond what the market sees as a tolerable price one of two things can happen. The most obvious is people will stop buying. When that happens the seller is left with little choice but to reduce the price to what is tolerable.

In the short term a price reduction enables the seller to get rid of inventory and turn it into cash. But you know where this is heading. If the cash received is not enough to pay the bills there is no more seller. Look around at the converters that were here 10 years ago and see who remains.

The second likely thing to happen if prices rise to an unreasonable level is it opens the door to competition. I see at least two converters that have recently entered the market and guess what? They are pushing their product based on its price. If we want more common examples than the rather rare bus sales, look at how Lexus ate Mercedes lunch, and now Hyundai has their version of a luxury car that will likely siphon off some Lexus customers.

Whether someone sells buses or luxury cars or steaks it is all about the sizzle, and to use David's example, until someone comes along with the cachet of Ferrari don't look for them to be dumping inventory or selling a cheap version. I think that is why Marathon and Liberty are still selling new coaches, despite slightly older coaches being priced at deep discounts. Two completely different markets.