Page 2 of 4 FirstFirst 1234 LastLast
Results 11 to 20 of 34

Thread: Reflections on 4 Years of Prevost Owner$hip

  1. #11
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Kansas City, MO
    Posts
    497

    Default

    Great post Paul and I agree the ownership and maintenance is not for the weak at heart. After selling the CC Affinity and watched the tail lights disappear over the hill it was not the moment I had in mind. After doing the boating thing for 30 years that was over, as the fun had disappeared. Not the same feeling with the RV. After a couple of weeks I saw a Prevost at the Flying J across the highway from our storage business. My god, that coach had a good looking paint job. Just was enough to plant the seed.
    After one of our RV tenants sold his coach as some vision problems forced him to quit driving his 42 footer coach. I remember his phone call saying his RV driving days are over. It happens, just like that. Work for years to afford one of these and health says otherwise.
    Our financial planner tried to talk us out of the expense of our Marathon and said all the things that are probably making good sense. Except I want one of these, we can afford it and who knows how long we can drive one.
    Great bus, great rally's, great people, lots to see and do......traveling down the highway with my own bed.

  2. #12
    Join Date
    Jan 2011
    Location
    Brooksville, Fl
    Posts
    229

    Default

    Paul,

    You posted this on the day that we picked up ours! It's not hard to see the expense, as $1000 to add a blu-ray player was on the tab, right after we decided to drop Netflix!

    In any case, I agree with Al above. My in-laws worked to retire and got 3 years or so until they hit the side of a mountain and my mother-in-law died. It's still cheaper than my plane was, and I have no intentions on leaving anything for the next generation!

  3. #13
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    Port St. Lucie, FL
    Posts
    1,745

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Sawbonz View Post
    Paul,

    You posted this on the day that we picked up ours! It's not hard to see the expense, as $1000 to add a blu-ray player was on the tab, right after we decided to drop Netflix!

    In any case, I agree with Al above. My in-laws worked to retire and got 3 years or so until they hit the side of a mountain and my mother-in-law died. It's still cheaper than my plane was, and I have no intentions on leaving anything for the next generation!
    The cost, which can be substantial, is only part of the puzzle. By the time we have sold both the Liberty and our RV lot, we will have been living full-time in the coach for a decade.

    We have flirted with the idea of a house a couple of times in the past, only to come to realize that we just weren't quite ready to give up this incredible lifestyle. Although not for everyone, it has been a wonderful journey.

    A big part of our decision is the current real estate market, which I think will be beneficial to us as buyers for the next year or two, so we figure the time is right to start that transition to a home.

    That and the fact is that I have never sold anything that I didn't get "just right" immediately before I sold it...

  4. #14
    Join Date
    Apr 2008
    Posts
    617

    Default

    Hey Paul, you got me thinking about my cost so I totalled all the repairs and maintance on my bus for the past 3.5 years

    Total money spent $ 49943.85
    Hit a pole with bus -$ 18360.06
    ------------
    Money spent $ 31583.79 This includes every thing I spent on my coach new tires all around new batteries bus and house.
    Total miles driven 95,365 This comes to $ .33 per mile
    With the pole $ 49943.85 This comes to $ .523 per mile

    The only things that I don't have in here is yearly insurance and fuel. I just thought it to interesting to find out for myself what it cost.
    The big thing I see is that I put on alot of miles and yes I /we enjoy it very much having our own bed when going down the interstate.
    The other thing is we don't want to scare anybody off with how much these things cost to run, but to me it's the greatest lifestyle for me and my wife. My wife doesn't read the post on here so we don't need her to know how much that little run in with the post cost :-)))
    Last edited by Sid Tuls; 08-08-2011 at 12:31 AM.

  5. #15
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    Port St. Lucie, FL
    Posts
    1,745

    Default

    Sid,

    Without a doubt, the more miles the better the cost per mile will work out. Glad you're out there driving that bus! After all, that's what they were meant to do. Our Liberty is never "happier" than when she's rolling down the interstate. You can almost feel the bus just settle in at a comfortable speed and just hum right along down the highway.

    My numbers weren't about scaring anybody, but this forum has provided an excellent data resource for everything "Prevost" and I thought this information might be useful for someone wanting to compare their cost of ownership. I just found it interesting to do the research. I had always kept a log book of my maintenance and repairs, just never totaled up the bottom line.

    It's not all about the bottom line, however. We always accepted that the lifestyle we chose came with a certain price tag.... and to us it was worth every penny.

  6. #16
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Location
    anytown
    Posts
    8,908

    Default

    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.

  7. #17
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    Port St. Lucie, FL
    Posts
    1,745

    Default

    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.

  8. #18
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    Port St. Lucie, FL
    Posts
    1,745

    Default

    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.

  9. #19
    Join Date
    Nov 2006
    Location
    Wilsonville, OR 97070
    Posts
    852

    Default

    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.

  10. #20
    Join Date
    May 2007
    Location
    Port St. Lucie, FL
    Posts
    1,745

    Default

    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.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •