Reflections on 4 Years of Prevost Owner$hip

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Anyone care to look at what the depreciation has been relative to the cost of fuel and maintenance? Or how about the interest on borrowed or invested money? I am not trying to be a wet blanket, but to point out that Sid is doing it right. He is using his coach and getting a lot of smiles per gallon.

Once we have made the irrational decision to buy a coach we need to just go out and enjoy it. When you get somewhere around 800,000 miles on it you might have to decide if you want to buy a new one. I'm pretty sure most of us won't put 25% of those miles on a coach.

[phorner]

Some of the financial considerations also deal with cash flow.

For instance, depreciation is without question the lions share of the cost of bus ownership, but that "cost" isn't realized until the day you sell the bus. Kind of like a house. You haven't lost anything until the day you actually sell it. Of course, this is simplified and doesn't take into consideration the loss of use of the funds to purchase the bus, or even the cost of interest paid in the case of a financed purchase.

Maintenance costs, however, are immediate costs and can dramatically influence cash flow.

You can push the "cost" of depreciation off to some future date as it is only a figure on a balance sheet..... but you gotta keep the bus maintained with actual out of pocket expenditures now.

[phorner]

I do agree with Jon though....

The single best thing you can do after you have decided to purchase a bus is to get out there and enjoy using it!

We have had the experience of a lifetime! There are some things that you simply can't put a price tag on.

[gmcbuffalo]

My wife has been big in the stock market and done well, maybe one of the reason I can buy a bus, but I hear weekly how much money she could have made if I had bought the bus. It is an expensive hobby and/or lifestyle.

[phorner]

I guess the point I wanted to make for would-be Prevost owners is that I failed to realize just how valuable a detailed, documented history of routine maintenance and desirable up-grades can be.

Whoever ends up with our Liberty will have the benefit of this documentation, which I wish I had available to me as a new owner.

For instance, I replaced my house batteries with new Lifelines (thanks Truk!) this past March partly because I had no idea how old they were. There was no documentation of any kind. Trying to be pro-active, and avoid potential problems down the road, I made the decision to not wait until they started to show signs of failure.

As it turned out, I replaced batteries that were only 4 years old. And, since it was so readily accessible during the battery replacement project, I also replaced the aux compressor. So, I probably could have spread this cost over a longer period of time.

[hhoppe]

Paul
We will miss our twin prevost and it's ocupants. We enjoyed the brief time Shirley and I were able to spend with you and Janice. You were always and good sounding board along with Jon and others. Were indeed going to miss your input. We do not get as much use out of our bus as you do, but when we do head down the road looking for sun in winter and cool mountains and beachs durng the summer, were all smiles in our beautiful Liberty. Good luck in your sale and keep in touch. I enjoyed your sharing costs of ownership with the forum. My bus expenses run along the same amounts. God willing we'll still be on the road a few more years.
Harry & Shirley

[phorner]

Harry,

One of the items that the new owner will get with the bus is that custom made floor platform used to remove the refrigerator. Remember when we made them? Yours is better because it has the genuine "Liberty" logo on it

Of course, no bus would be complete without a set of Jon's stands, so they're part of the package too...

[Jon Wehrenberg]

I have a floor platform for the refrigerator too. I wonder why the refrigerator wasn't just put on the floor?