I am once agian reaching out to the deep collective knowledge of conversions that exists in this group. If you had a choice assuming same color, price, and floor plan would you pick the 2008 XLII Vantare or a 2008 Marathon.
Thanks in advance again.
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I am once agian reaching out to the deep collective knowledge of conversions that exists in this group. If you had a choice assuming same color, price, and floor plan would you pick the 2008 XLII Vantare or a 2008 Marathon.
Thanks in advance again.
I would choose Marathon. Not that I have a lot of imperical info, I believe overall you probably get better build and value with Marathon. Nothing wrong with Vantare, I just like the Marathon Conversion more.
This is strictly an opinion not based on fact or personal knowledge.
I would opt for the Marathon. I believe they are going to be one of the long term survivors, they have a proven product and they support that product.
If I were pressed to make the decision between two apparent equals I would be asking each converter to explain in detail how the systems work and what happens in the failure mode. All coaches are great when everything is working properly, but some system failures on some coaches leave you in a world of hurt. The devil will be in the details.
Also, I would sure as hell weight each coach, each axle, and side to side with full fuel and full water. In my opinion neither are lightweights and front axle overloading would be pretty high on my list of concerns.
Once again, this is simply a personal opinion, and not based on any facts.
I would choose the Marathon. I have met many Marathon owners who are very happy not only with their busses but also the service that they have received by the company after the purchase.
Speaking from personal experience, we are currently at Marathon Coach picking up our 2000 Liberty. I cannot speak highly enough of the skills of the technicians addressing all the little issues that have surfaced. They have performed the nearly impossible in making any changes or adjustments that we have requested.
Even though we eventually decided to purchase a Liberty, we are very impressed with the Marathon staff.
One element that should be considered is what kind of an owner will you be. If you hang on to a coach forever then the economics of the purchase matter little, but if you contemplate trading coaches periodically then the depreciation of the coach is a factor that cannot be ignored.
In that regard the marketplace has spoken clearly as to what coach will be the best.
I too vote for Marathon over Featherlite, but find it difficult to believe that the price for both models are the same?
Marathons are almost always priced much more than a Featherlite, But that is just from what I have seen on the web sites and from looking at all of the busses.
Gary S.
I sold a Marathon this year and a Vantari employee told me what the value would be if it was a Vantari,his estimation was almost 20% less than I sold it for.Everyone who has responded is basically telling us that the Marathon will retain a larger percentage when it comes time to trade or resale,my Marathon experience confirms this also.
I have been impressed with the quality of my Marathon, but even more than the coach itself, the customer service has been outstanding. They have never failed to answer any questions I've had, and in some cases, have spent an hour or more on the phone helping me troubleshoot a specific problem. Most of the problems were due to my ignorance or inexperience with the operation of the systems.
The only negtive that I have about my coach is that they placed the 20k generator in the front bay on one side of the coach and all six house batteries in the front bay on the other side. This configuration causes the weight of the front axle to be very close to being maxed out. I would hope they have changed the location of one or both these components since mine was made in 93. I would definitely buy a Marathon again.
We have a '96 Vogue which we purchased a year ago from Featherlite/Vantare/Vogue. It is an outstanding coach with quality better than anything I have seen. It was built by the Mitchell family in Pryor, Ok when they owned Vogue before selling it to Featherlite. The Vogue can be serviced anywhere which I learned because I had no choice but to go somewhere other than Featherlite after less than acceptable work there. In short, when a business slowly pushes you away and you are forced to look elsewhere for service, you learn a lot.
In two days we will pick up a 2002 XLII Marathon at Marathon Florida. These people have done WAY MORE than they had to and bent over backwards to get this deal done. The contrast to our previous experience is, well, simply amazing, the people are first rate. We will have no concerns about handing over the Marathon to them for service and knowing it will be done right the first time which is a stark contrast to what we witnessed in Sanford.
Having said all of the above, I had a Marathon exec tell me last week that Vantare builds a good coach. There are some great deals out there and we all think we're going to keep our busses forever, but we don't and resale is going to be very important some day.
The Marathon quality is evident, and the service will be there. Vantare is going through difficult times with significant layoffs, employees leaving on their own, and rumors of them being readied for sale. Go with Marathon and don't look back.
Richard Beecher
02 Marathon XLII
96 Vogue XL 40 for sale
Richard, Looks like we'll be leaving Marathon sometime tomorrow, as they have pretty much completed everything we asked for on our coach.
I agree that doing business here has been an exceptional experience.
Sorry we won't be here long enough to introduce ourselves. Which one of these beauties is going to be yours?