New Owner Looking for Professional RV Inspector for New Prevost Conversion [Archive]

lintodd

03-30-2011, 07:01 PM

I recently took possession of the custom conversion of my 2008 Prevost Mirage XLII by Superior Coach Interiors located near Nashville, TN. Unfortunately, Superior's final quality control efforts were lacking and I discovered a list of issues with the conversion. I returned the bus to Superior to correct the issues under their warranty. I plan on taking possession of the bus again within the next month and would like to hire an experienced RV inspector to accompany me for an extremely detailed inspection of all of the bus systems and their operation prior to accepting the bus again.

Could anyone recommend an honest and experienced professional with the necessary knowledge of Prevost conversions to assist me?

Thank you,

Lin Todd

Jon Wehrenberg

03-30-2011, 08:00 PM

Lin, Welcome to the asylum. Asking someone in this group to recommend an honest man may be a stretch, but let me toss out a suggestion.

Regardless of your depth of knowledge, a bus inspection is a simple yet detailed evaluation of all working components and systems. Simply put, if you work every switch, knob, valve and control and insure it does what it is supposed to you have done an inspection. I am not familiar with Superior's conversion as compared to the converters most commonly found to do motorhome conversions, but the systems and devices are likely to be much the same but simpler in design and execution.

How the inspection is done is best left up to the person inspecting, but however it is done it should be done so methodically that every switch or control is operated on the entire coach. Nobody will gain as much from doing that as you. It will be your best opportunity to learn the coach. While doing that you can make notes or use a video recorder or any other means to record what you are doing so you can later refer back to see which switch operates the frammistan.

If the inspection is to include the chassis (which I strongly recommend) then you are going to have to start with a trip to a Detroit / Allison dealer to have the computer codes run to insure there are no active codes or surprises in the caoch history. The coach needs to be inspected underneath and for a new or nearly new coach you will just be looking or listening for leaks in the air system, checking fluid levels, and generally going over it to insure nothing is wet, leaking, rubbing, or amiss.

I recommend you allow at least two days and you actually live in the coach so you have a chance to actually use and verify the operation of environmental systems like heat and air, that the water system functions, things like the range, microwave, inverters, generator, TVs, work and work over time. You want to use everything you can to sort out problems that will never show up if you just turn something on to see if it powers up. During the time you are staying in the coach open up all the inspection panels to learn how to access the myriad of things that are installed out of sight. You may find valves and devices behind access panels and while that may not be important now, as the coach ages you may want to find a shut off valve or the black box that makes something work.

These coaches are not difficult to sort out if you take the time because they are simpler than they first appear, but there are so many air fittings, electrical terminals, thousands of feet of wiring, hundreds of switches, fuses and circuit breakers a detailed inspection is little more than a disciplined, detailed, organized look through everything.

The inspection cannot be done without help from Superior. Every converter has their own way of setting up various controls they have to participate to show where and how to operate things such as generator controls, AC controls, locate shut offs, monitor battery status, operate the leveling system, and many other things.

I will send you a PM. Look for it.