RayChez
Barstow, Ca. USA
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Joined: 09/13/2003
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UltimaRV wrote:The stats are fine, but compare an older $70-thou Bluebird or Country Coach with higher recall stats to an almost new $70-thou Damon with lower manufacturer recall stats. Now where's the quality?
Again! You can't compare apples to oranges. Bluebird is a 750K dollar coach when new, Country Coaches had some top of the line that were also in the same category.
How can you or anybody else try to compare one of these coaches with a coach that cost half the price to manufacture. It just does not take a brain surgeon to figure which is going to have better equipment and should have better workmanship. Now these people that are trying to compare, just don't have any mechanical knowledge and are just blowing up smoke of hear say. Just what they have heard or read in this forum, but no mechanical or engineering experience what so ever.
2002 Gulf Stream Scenic Cruiser
330 HP Caterpillar
3000 Allison Transmission
Neway Freightliner chassis
2005 Honda Pilot EXL 4WD
Aventa III
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Sully2
Cincinnati
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UltimaRV wrote:The stats are fine, but compare an older $70-thou Bluebird or Country Coach with higher recall stats to an almost new $70-thou Damon with lower manufacturer recall stats. Now where's the quality?
Right on, right on! I know what my CC "stickered" for and what it cost me actually....and I look at newer coaches with the SAME MSRP and have to laugh
2000 Country Coach Allure; Cummins ISC 330 HP; 71/2 - 8 MPG regardless
2002 Jeep Liberty
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UltimaRV
USA & Europe
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Joined: 04/13/2006
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Let's play: "If I had 70,000 burning a hole."
RVONLINE.COM
My nomination between 70-60-thousand: 1997 Foretravel U-320
OK, it's not 2000-2004 - and no slides, but a true quality winner.
Is quality more important than age and slides. To most, including myself, it is a trade off with what the wife wants.
Ray, I agree with you: apples and pears. But... today they are both $70,000 motorhomes.
* This post was
edited 11/06/09 10:50am by UltimaRV *
Dian, Robert & Precious - Presently RV'ing in Europe!
2000 45' Featherlite Vogue 5000, tag, slide, Detroit Series 60
2006 19' Towcorp enclosed trailer w/60" tongue
2004 13' Ultima GTR (9.9 seconds standing quarter mile)
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dqcarol
SE Pennsylvania, Chester County
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Joined: 10/26/2007
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If you liked what you saw on the "Foretravel of Texas" website, go to "Motorhomes of Texas" and look at their inventory, as well. They also have a superb reputation and know Foretravel products. (They are a mile down the road.) We have a 1993 Foretravel Unihome. 36', 22,500 GVW, 235HP Cummins, solid as a rock and have never felt ourselves to be under powered. This is our first motor home and we have looked at others since buying it .... but we have NEVER seen anything to remotely compare to the quality of ours. EXCEPT a newer one! The folks at Foretravel of Texas are wonderful, a tour of the factory is a real experience and you may well be spoiled for other brands.
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texasbaskets
Frisco, TX
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MisterMcD wrote:Texasbaskets -
We just sold our Coachman gasser and loved every second of it. It was our first MH and since we know that our entire family loves the whole RV experience, we decided now was the time to step up and buy a diesel if we could sell our gasser. We sold it the day we listed it and now have cash burning a hole in our pocket!
Our budget is under 70k and would like to be under 65, so that is one major limitation.
Speaking of Coachman, we found one in Mobile that fits our budget. It looks beautiful from the outside and the interior is very nice. The only thing about it that we don't like is the 275hp cummins. I was hoping to get a 330 or better.
Congrats on the sale in one day. Guess that Coachmen brand didn't hurt you too much.. 
Have you looked at the coach prices at PPL? Their stock is a pretty good indicator of what the market is doing. They might even be close enough to you for a trip. 
PPL Motorhomes in Houston, TX.
I wished I had your problem.. lol.
Have a good weekend.
Michael, Kay, and Prissy (The vicious Malti-Poo)
'05 Coachmen SportsCoach SE 372DS a.k.a. "Mana's Cabana"
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MisterMcD
Mississippi
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The recall list is good solid info.
djevans - Alfa just jumped in. Now out. (Sorry for the judgement on that)
Texasbaskets - I really liked my Coachman. I am considering them, but I do want something that will hold value and hold up for a long time. I'm not convinced that Coachmen does that.
Foretravel is too expensive. I would like slides.
Newmar Mountain Aire
Fleetwood Revolution
Monaco Diplomat
Fleetwood Discovery?
Coachman Sportscoach?
Tiffin Allegros and Country Coach front ends are ugly, but the quality overrides that.
Anyways, I appreciate the discussion.
Heading north now to go look at some. See You all
* This post was
edited 11/06/09 11:57pm by an administrator/moderator *
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B Bob
Jamul, CA, USA
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Joined: 05/07/2003
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We just spent the last couple months looking and driving a ton of 1999-2008 class A DPs. My opinion would be that many of the early posters were pretty much right. Here is my list.
You put as a criteria for your list that it would be of fairly large volume brands, so
1. Prevo cannot go in this list as they don't qualify as a large vol maker. And pretty much the same thing goes for Foretravel. Foretravel is a great coach but very expensive. This is especially true if you want slides. So IMHO if you are looking for a 2000-2005 coach the highest quality on a larger volume brand is Country Coach. I looked at and drove a number of these. They ALL drive well. As you go up their model range the interiors get better.
2. Most likely a controversial second place but I am going to put Alpine in it. There are lots of these for sale right now at very good prices for what you get. The drive quality is very nearly as good or as good as the Country Coaches. Although the best driving coach we drove was an Affinity CC. The 2000-2003 Alpines are very well made coaches with nice interiors. The 2004-2006 Alpines have beautiful interiors and are quite low priced. Sure they went broke. Country Coach may still be able to do that to. So what. DPs are made of common parts, mostly.
3. Beaver - a carpenters dream. Truly gorgeous wood. They don't drive as well as 1 and 2
4. American Eagle - Beautiful interiors. Lots of these out there at good prices. Don't drive as well as 1 and 2
5. Monaco - Windsor on up are great coaches. You just have to make sure they have enough chassis length and CCC. Most do, a few do not. Still in business.
6. American Dream / American Tradition - slightly less lux than the Eagle. Parent Fleetwood still in business. These are on Spartan chassis and not custom chassis like Country Coach or Foretravel.
7. I am sure that the Allegro Bus and the Dutch Star should be here approx but we did not drive any so I don't care to rate. The Dutch Stars we saw had interiors not nearly as nice as the 1-6 above. Same goes for the Allegros.
We live in the west so not so many Tiffin or Newmars out our way and lots of western made stuff plus a big quantity of American Tradition, Dream, Eagle coaches.
BTW - not all the Ts are crossed and i s dotted, but we have signed papers for a Country Coach as we liked those the best. We paid quite a bit more for ours than we could have got an Alpine for, but it was really close. The Alpine has a lot for the dollar in a used coach. And the Alpine was very easy to drive. The C Coach though went down the freeway at freeway speed like a locomotive on tracks. Even better than the Alpine. And the CC got up to speed so easily I had to be careful not to go too fast.
Any of my top six (and of course Foretravel) are great machines and I would be happy to own them. What really got to us with the Country Coach is the custom interior. Wow, a one of a kind. Classic. Now that I have said this the deal will fall through, I hope not.
Bob & Barbara Nuttmann
2002 Country Coach Affinity 42'
Jamul, CA
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MisterMcD
Mississippi
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Good info Bob. I wish I lived in an area that had Alpine. I haven't even seen one of them on the lots that I have looked in.
I drove that Newmar Mountain Aire last night and was shocked at how much better it was than my old gasser. It was smooth, fast, QUIET and didn't get pushed around by wind.
There is one major downside and one minor. The major is that the ceiling height is only 6 - 6". Lower than my 2000 coachman. Why is that?
The only other thing was the noise of the generator. I have seen many coach's where we tailgate where you can barely hear it.
Oh, Also - If anyone is still reading this thread I have a question. When I got up on the roof I noticed that the cover over the "refrigerator" vent? was missing. Rain would then have poured down there. It was about 18 inches long by 5 inches wide. All 4 posts were there, but it looked like it had like broken off in the wind or something.
Everything else we LOVED about it.
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John S.
Northern Virginia
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Mr.Mark wrote:After watching most of the lists here, I see Foretravel hit the top on several posts. Honestly, I didn't know if they were still in business or not. So, I pulled up their website and 'wowsie', they have some very nice coaches and even offer a mid-entry door model.
I was a little surprised that some of their nice coaches only have 2 slides and the MSRP is very north of $400K and even a $743K MSRP coach only had 3 slides with only one slide in the living area. The Nimbus CE models are in the $700K plus MSRP and the Phenix Custom can be over $1M MSRP. So, a used version of a Foretravel would seem be a good value.
One thing I found odd, is that on some models, the compartment doors open sideways where it will cover the door next to it. Like where a bus door will swing upwards and hug the side of the coach, the compartment door swings out sideways in front of the compartment door next it.
The plus would be if you are in a tight area you can get into your compartments if needed.
I learn something everyday...MM.
Most all of the Foretravels made are now custom. If i was bulding a new one I would only have two slides. I will say this that other than prevost and Newell. FT owners travel on average more miles than most RVs. I have over 300K in my three FT and using the unit on the road is as important to us as sitting still. If I were to build a new one I might even go to one slide. Every slide removes about one foot of inside storage space. If you design your coach right you can have 2 slides and have no issues. Also mid entry is realling nice as you are always under the awning and never very high off the ground either. The bus doors on the compartments are a compromise. I have some that open up stright up next to the coach some that swing up. The issue is where the slides are they put them so they swing sideways now. That way you can open the two bays you need to get at when you are camping. The bays that are covered are the fuel and battery bays and where they put the remote radiator for the genset. They are doing a huge business in remodeling older coaches that have lots of useful life left. If you were inside you might not be able to tell the years apart.
John
2001 42' Foretravel U320
2007 Bornfree 24 Painted
2001 Jeep Wrangler
2007 Burgman 650 Executive
Susie and Dolly (Cavalier King Charles Spaniels)
Dolly now in our hearts and thoughts 8-27-05
Doodle a Black and Tan Cavalier
Lolly a Ruby Cavalier
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uncle t
reno,NV
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Joined: 04/17/2002
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ALFA?????
Obviously never talked to an Alfa owner.
Tony
06 Knight
06 Monaco Knight 40PLQ
08 SATURN VUE
BE PREPARED- NEVER BRING A KNIFE TO A GUNFIGHT.
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