Orphan Coaches

[Will Garner]

Jon,

With all the reports coming from Mobile just how do you expect to "reduce weight" of your coach going back to Knoxville so you can maintain that 6.2 miles per gallon? Inquiring minds need to know!

See ya in OKC.

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Jet Propulsion...............

[Coloradobus]

We took at quick triip last week to Fernley, NV (2,047 round trip, via I-80) and the coach's DDEC calculated an even 8 mpg for the total trip. The best part tho, was diesel was less than gas in Fernley!!!

[Will Garner]

Jon,

Good one. Just make sure the "gas" is not too high an octane. I'd hate to see you with burnt valves or worse a piston with a hole in it. Of course that would afford you the opportunity to post pictures of the engine removal, rebuild, and reinstall.

Just trying to make lemonade out of a lemon.

Later ...

[hillndale]

Ok, there are some pretty good deals out there on coaches from some of the now shuttered convertors. Just curious for input from those of you who own one, have owned one, or worked on one about:

1. Country Coach
2. Royal
3. Vantare
4. Angola

My preference is to go with a Marathon or Liberty, but there are lots of nice looking examples of some of the above available. General comments about orphan coaches appreciated as well as specifics relative to:

• quality of conversion
• complication of systems
• service folks still around who know systems
• parts availability in future

Thanks!

I'm pretty sure Vantare (Featherlite) is not considered an Orphan. I believe they were bought out by Amadas and are continuing to build coaches. I was at the plant in Sanford a couple of weeks ago and it looked like their production was alive and well. I think they had about 6 coaches under construction.
PS: Very nice workmanship from what i could see.

[dale farley]

I am quite sure that most of the Country Coach owners are very pleased with their coaches. I have only bought some light bulbs from CC. All other things that I've needed, I purchased straight from the original vendor or an after-market source.

When I had a Marathon, the technical support was better, but I didn't purchase any parts from them, because their prices were extremely high compared to other sources. An example of that is the shocks that I replaced. I called Marathon, and they wanted $200+ for each shock. I bought them direct from Prevost for less than $40 each.

Most Country Coaches come with a Prevost Parts Manual, a Service Manual, and a CC Owner's manual that contains drawings and schematics of virtually all systems on the bus. Mine also has an accordion file with manuals for such components as refrigerator, audio/video, Webasto, security system, etc. There have been only a couple documents I could not find, and that information was misplaced by the previous owner.

There were some things that I liked better on the Marathon and some on the CC. If I were looking for another coach, I would not hesitate to buy another CC. I would find a coach that suited my check book and my needs/wants and buy it. Regardless of the converter, when you peel away the interior, you will still find a Prevost.