Comments on Angola Coaches

[rfoster]

Just a note to say Congratulations on your new Coach!. I know this is an exciting time for you and if you need help or have questions, please don't hesitate to ask. There's a lot of guys on this board who make up answers. They don't really know jack. I am the only one you can believe!

Tell Santa to please come by my house, he missed me this year. It is obvious now where he was.

[Just Plain Jeff]

Congratulations on your new coach!

You may not be aware that there is a long-standing tradition that we need to see pictures, pictures, pictures!

You noted that your long search is over.

Will, there is something called MPD and it ain't over 'til it's over.

And then some.

May you have many happy times and miles in your new coach!

[TedK]

To reply to Jeff's message, I am the "Ted" that he mentions. We did buy all of Angola Coach except the walls and people. We are Regal Coachworks in Janesville, WI. and yes, we did try to do something with the Angola information but with no success. We understand that Angola was the people not the equipment. To that end I will say that we do have all information on past coaches and I don't recall that the coach you bought was an Angola. We did provide a timely remodel for Jeff and accommodated him rather well. I have sent out letters in the past to former Angola customers and got only 2 responses. If you have an Angola coach, please feel free to look us up, we do have records and original materials for your coach as well as new H3-45's. Thanks again Jeff for being a great customer and come see us again soon.

[Loc]

We have had a 1992 Angola for 5.5 years. The systems are well thought out and logical. The bus is as solid as a rock and it has 250K plus miles. Our only complaint with the Angola set up is the Espar heaters.

Ted,

Any suggestions for the Espar heaters?

[Jon Wehrenberg]

Aquahot, or with the addition of a hot water tank and some plumbing it seems a Webasto would work. Simpler.

[Just Plain Jeff]

Loc:

We went through the Espar saga with our 89 Angola. It was a miserable experience on the best days. What we have here are imported German truck heaters put in a motorhome chassis x 3 which stink, drip diesel oil, and when they work, blow so hot and dry you could make my hair grow.

We got in touch with Vehical Systems, the Webasto folks and what it came down to was a backwards conversion of the system into the coach. You can't tap into the bus air, so you wind up tearing out all the converted pieces along the sides of the coach on the inside to run registers, exchangers and fans for the heat. At that time, which may have been in about 2002 or so, they tagged the price at about $13K. We got another quote for the same job in Florida at just about the same money.

At that time, Espar was about as cooperative as the IRS doing mission work and had no parts available, no plans and no tech service (a good deal all the way around). They did offer to sell complete new turbo units (nice of them) which is what we alread had. The control units were the problem as it turned out and finally got some from a marine distributor.

It's a toughie. We also added an additional kick heater and used the Cruise Airs as heat pumps to work around the Espars.

Gosh, wouldn't it have been great if Angola had gone the Webasto/Aqua Hot route back then?

Pay now or pay later I guess.

Good luck, I'm sure you'll figure a good solution.