Marathon Texas

[Jerry Winchester]

Made my first stop last night at Marathon's Grand Prairie, Texas facility. It exceeded my expectations.

First, it is just a few exits down 360 from Prevost Fort Worth, so that is a plus. And like Prevost, they have multiple 50 amp parking spaces that have water and there is a dump station as you pull in by the gate that already had a sewer hose hooked to it and a water hose rigged up to flush. The keypad gate gives you 24 hour access.

I could not belive all the coaches there. They have some new and used Marathons, but there were almost as many Libertys there. I spoke to Chad Duplantis (he attended the Kerrville and Branson rallies) and he said they had sold quite a few new coaches and taken most of the Libertys on trade. The other Libertys had come in for service and one came in right after we did last night. I also think Marathon has the right strategy in having service centers in California, Texas and Florida.

They have a nice place, but I think their workload has outgrown their shop space. Plenty of parking, but not many bays. I also had to laugh at their lift system; some crude ramps made of plywood. Very effective and light weight. I may have to rig up a couple as they would be way easy to store and move around.

The service manager was also a surprise. Les Evenson is a veteran Marathon guy who transferred from the Marathon plant in Oregon after spending time on the manufacturing line there. He for sure knows these coaches and it was good to talk to someone who is smarter than the Trukman for a change.

And the guy gives you his card with his cell phone number on it.......

I will take some pics when I go back up there and will report back on the quality of work vs the price. I doubt it will be cheap, but if they do a good job I will consider it worth the price.

[meandmyprs]

I bought my 04 model from Marathon, Texas (Chad) and gave them a list a mile long of things to fix and/or replace and they did it without ever questioning one item on the list....and these items were big.

I stay there all the time when I am passing through or I leave my bus in Dallas at their place and it is my home away from home when I am in Dallas on business. As Jerry said there are a ton of busses there to look at for sale.

Jerry, did you see the new H up front with wood grain for striping on the exterior? Crazy.

Brent

[Ray Davis]

I had Marathon Dallas do the PDI on my coach when I was purchasing it in October. They did a good job, but previous owner was a bit miffed. He setup the PDI, which they did a week before I was coming, however they didn't contact him with any deficiencies, so none of the stuff was ready when we came to see the coach. We had to wait an additional 3 days to get them to fix several minor things. They were overly busy, and it took 3 days, and ultimately we gave part of the list over to Prevost to finish.

As you indicated, they seem to need a lot more bays for working on coaches.

I guess while we were there a couple was picking up a 2007 coach, and I guess the poor guys were just being worked to death by the lady who wanted basically everything perfect. They ended up "delivering" that coach for over two weeks!

Ray

[gmcbuffalo]

Wow
I don't think Marathon Coburg will give you the time of day if you don't have a Marathon.
GregM

[Jerry Winchester]

Yep they had some nice coaches there for sure. The wood grain deal is one example of the recent changes in their interior and exterior design strategy. It is painful to see the vintage Marathons in the lot with the Liberty Casino Chic paint jobs. I really liked the new sewer / power drop down door addition.

They had Vantares, Country Coaches and Royales all in for service, so they look like an equal opportunity shop. I can see the factory not wanting to become a service center for every kind of coach out there, but the service manager reported that this is the first year they have really been "slammed" with service work and it I think it will only increase.

And I really liked the fact that the guy sat in the coach with me and asked about any maintenance that needed to be performed then talked about every system in the coach and what needed to be done. I had recently changed the oil on the engine and generator and replaced all the filters, along with the house water filter and Cruisair filters, so there was little they could do, but he never balked at doing any of it.

[Jerry Winchester]

Picked up the coach today from Marathon. From what I can tell, the work was done and all is functioning well.

The glitches ended up being a loose fuse holder on a circuit card that was in the relay box that is mounted to the ceiling of the second bay. This card had a 4 amp fuse that I found burned out on my troubleshooting day in Dayton, OH. I thought the connector next to the fuse holder was hot when I touched it but it didn't register to me that it was loose.

The intermittant "No Signal" on the plasma tv ended up being an inoperative HDTV amp. That also fixed the black line problem on both TVs.

Defroster was fixed and the spring for the door detent was reinstalled. And a few other odd items, so tomorrow when they send me the bill, I might have another opinion.

The good news was that they had it ready at the agreed time and I was able to pick it up on the weekend. I offered to settle up with them on the phone Friday, but they were okay with me taking the coach and us dealing with the paperwork next week.

I took these photos with my cell phone.

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They got a few new XL2's in since I was there a few weeks ago.

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All the Libertys live out back.

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[garyde]

Hi Jerry. Are all the Coaches out for display? Do they have any inside ? Do they have a sales floor?

[Jerry Winchester]

Gary,

All in, this place is not very big (or at least by Texas standards), so all the coaches are outside. The featured ones are in front of the building so that facilitates going after hours to look at the outside if you like. All the customer owned or considned coaches are locked in a compound that is accessable by keypad gate.

The front of the building is just offices with the service bays and some outside covered service areas running north behind the main building.

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[jello_jeep]

When I first bought my bus from a fellow in Ga, I had issues and stopped into Dallas on the way home.

I called first and Les was a bit reluctant to pipe me aboard as it was Nascar week. Being new to all this I had no idea why that would make any difference to him, I was kind of thinking, well go watch the race on your own time

When I explained I had just got it and was passing though on the way to So Cal and all, he got me in and I was there for three days.

I then found out what difference Nascar week meant there LOL.

I had no toad either, and Les even gave me a ride to pick up squeezins in case my good pal Truckster stopped by.

He is a nice chap indeed.

How far is that from your place Jdub?

[Jerry Winchester]

It's about 3 1/2 hours to Grand Prairie. It's an easy drive and being two exits south of Prevost's "Fort Worth" location is a bonus. There must have been some gerrymandering going on with the borders here because they both look like they are in Arlington and at best Prevost is in Grapevine, but that's not what the address reads. Go figure.