8,125 mile break in trip with Winnie Tour 42AD

[rv rick]

Sometimes, it seems that all we hear are problems and issues folks have with coaches and since we have just completed an 8,125 mile trip over 6 months since buying our new 2010 Winnebago Tour 42AD coach in April, 2011, we thought it would be interesting to provide an update as to our experiences.

First, we used about 940 gallons of Diesel in our trip from Florida to the upper peninsula of Michigan, to Colorado, then Texas and finally back to Florida. During this trip, we averaged 8.3 mpg while towing a Buick LaCrosse, which I thought was pretty good mileage while running in a wide variety of terrain -- from sea level to over 8,000' high.

This was our first trip in the new coach and we had a few issues, the most critical was a leaking windshield caused by an improper windshield replacement prior to our purchasing the coach (the original was broken during initial delivery to the dealer). Winnebago fixed this, a couple of cracked floor tiles, and a leaking HWH leveler jack during a visit to the factory in Forest City. Other than these relatively minor issues, the coach performed great.

This coach replaced a 2008 Tour 40TD, which we enjoyed for three years, but the new 42AD is wonderful. The extra room, stacked washer/dryer, king bed, and more storage is great. As fulltime RVers, we also liked the enhanced cabinetry and other features -- Winnebago has a real winner in their 42' offerings.

The Freightliner chassis was flawless -- no problems at all! Great power from the Cummins 400 (this is a pre-urea coach) and perfect shifting from the Allison transmission. We did have some learning to go through with the tag axle and weighing the coach (learned that you need to dump the air and let it re-fill before weighing), but everything worked great. The ride quality and directional stability of the tag axle chassis also seems better than the 40' coach we had before.

We had no electronic or electrical issues, which is kind of amazing given the number of systems on this coach. Further, the 3 roof air conditioners performed fabulously in hot weather -- a real improvement over our 40 coach.

All in all, a great trip and a great coach.

[SargeW]

Great break in trip Rick! It's nice to hear positive comments instead of all negative stuff. We have just over 20K on our 2010 that we have had for about 18 months. We too have had very few issues and all of them minor. We also full time so we use the heck out of all the systems.

Great report!

[Five2o]

Sounds great....wish my 2010 42AD had so few problems. After 38,000 miles I get 7.2 mpg so your 8.3 is stellar.

We had a lot of cracked tiles replaced as well (about 5), some new cracks have appeared so I think that will be an ongoing problem.

Our biggest problem was our roof required replacement...Winni did a good job but we had to fend without our home for 2 weeks.

The latest problem was our driver side front slide wouldnt extend. After various attempts to get it to move I found that the retaining hook at the top of the slide was not releasing(I think the slide weight was jammed against it somehow). Tilting the coach with the jacks didn't fix the problem...finally pushing hard corner to corner on the interior got the hook to release and the slide works again.
Just another day though haha.

The freightliner chassis has been magic though, no problems other than a surge tank sensor and now a faulty turn signal switch.

Still, I love this bus and the lifestyle it allows us to pursue.

[ouraydog]

Our fuel mileage (2009 Tour) is a consistent 8.1mpg over the long haul. One trip from San Diego to Quebec and one from San Diego to Vancouver. We tow a Ford Exporer Sportrac and typically drive about 60-65 on the Interstate highways, and 55 on the back roads. Twisty mountain roads can really pull the mileage down, but highway cruising brings it back up.

Regards, Bill

[AppleValley2]

I just had to jump in to say we saw the 42 ft. 2012 Tour at the RV show in Pomona yesterday and in a word "WOW!" What a beautiful coach. Maybe one day