Country Coach May be Closing

[mcirco]

I don't have all the details yet but my friends at Country Coach have notified me that the company is closing in February if they cannot get additional financing. I don't have many details yet but I will share them as soon as I know.

Miles and Laura Circo
2004 Country Coach XLII 45' D/S

[Joe Cannarozzi]

How much unsold inventory do they have?

[mcirco]

Hi Joe,

There are a few new Prevosts which are owned by dealers but I am unaware of any unsold inventory at the factory. Country Coach Prevost Conversions were built specifically to dealer or customer orders. There were no unsold units at the factory and no consigned units to their dealers. I don't know about any of the plastic coaches.

Miles Circo

[Jon Wehrenberg]

The seriousness of that situation cannot be overstated.

CC has historically had a proprietary system that not only controlled a lot of house functions, but it intergated a lot of Prevost functions. Unless Prevost has technicians trained in dealing with the CC interfaces some system failures can create some real problems.

Guys like Nick Hessler may be worth their weight in gold unless CC provides access to their engineering, or other companies pick up the responsibility for customer support.

I don't know how much of a crossover there is between the conversions and the plastic coaches, but there may also be dealers capable of servicing these coaches. The time to find out where to go for service is now, before the company ceases operating (if it does).

[tdelorme]

So, Miles, you are saying the whole company is going out of business. or just the conversion plant? If we're talking Country Coach as a whole, I am really shocked. Hopefully someone will jump in here and keep parts and service available. Didn't someone post awhile back that the CC service dept took months to get an appointment with?

[tdelorme]

http://www.kmtr.com/news/local/story...tce26KtdA.cspx

[rfoster]

If you have some time to spare- this is another article out yesterday on CC.

http://www.registerguard.com/csp/cms...2-35/story.csp

[mcirco]

It's too soon to know exactly what the long term status of service and support will be. The Country Coach execs have not given up and wish to continue operations but had to notify their employess of the possibility of the shutdown and/or significant layoffs to comply with the US Department of Labor Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN Act).

In terms of service and retrofit of Country Coach Prevosts, Oregon Motorcoach Center has all the capabilities. The organization is run by the founder of Country Coach, Bob Lee and his family, and was set-up specifically to keep Country Coach and other "luxury" motorhomes on the road. Lloyd and Pamela can tell you all about Oregon Motorcoach but their team has all the expertise to deal with the unique aspects of the Country Coach Prevosts especially the pre-2004 conversions.

As my contacts at Country Coach know more I will keep everyone posted.

Miles

[LarryB]

Miles, your correct about Bob Lee's new operation. There is a wealth of experience in the Colburg/Eugene, OR. working for independent service centers. Desert West in Phoenix, AZ. is another option.
As with the East coast converters lack of facilities here on the West coast, it will be more difficult to find CC service the farther East one travels.

I am not too concerned with the possibility of CC demise except for the people that will be out of work, lives disrupted, and the loss of a major player in the industry.

I have never been to the factory for service in the 5 years of CC motorhome ownership, and their tech support line was not always manned by knowledgeable folks. I know several CC Prevost owners that would say the same. The factory service seemed to be for those with newer coaches still under warranty. This may not be the case, just my impression.

I do hope CC pulls it off but, it really will not be the end of the world for those of us with older [read vintage] buses.

[Will Garner]

Miles, your correct about Bob Lee's new operation. There is a wealth of experience in the Colburg/Eugene, OR. working for independent service centers. Desert West in Phoenix, AZ. is another option.
As with the East coast converters lack of facilities here on the West coast, it will be more difficult to find CC service the farther East one travels.

I am not too concerned with the possibility of CC demise except for the people that will be out of work, lives disrupted, and the loss of a major player in the industry.

I have never been to the factory for service in the 5 years of CC motorhome ownership, and their tech support line was not always manned by knowledgeable folks. I know several CC Prevost owners that would say the same. The factory service seemed to be for those with newer coaches still under warranty. This may not be the case, just my impression.

I do hope CC pulls it off but, it really will not be the end of the world for those of us with older [read vintage] buses.

Larry B,

I had the misfortune to need some repair work last summer (2008). Since I was on the west coast and going through Junction City on my way back to NC, I thought going direct to CC would be the best option. Wrong! I went to their offices and no one really went out of their way to assist me. They did give me directions to the building where "repairs" were handled. I went to that building and was then told that CC was only doing repair work on units remaining under warranty. Mine, of course, was way beyond any warranty considerations.

Now I am only a Civil Engineer dealing with traffic management logistics, however it seems to me that if your business in sales is down and you have service facilities that you would want to pursue increasing your repair/maintenance services to support the overall business. I guess that makes for bad business because I surely did not receive a friendly welcome from CC's staffers nor did any repairs actually get done. Fortunately the repairs were comfort related not safety or operations related so we made the run back to NC and had repairs done locally.