2015 Dutch Star 4313 on order!

["007"]

The coach below the bunk does that pull out to full bed or just a knife type coach, interesting option.
Hope they do not bang their heads.

[Mr_D]

Just found this thread!
Yes, we do tow a 2005 Odyssey four down and have for some miles/years now. I do go through the CR-V towing prep. Just need to rebuild the parking brakes now since I towed it with them on! They don't survive that.
I also talked with a 2010 Odyssey owner at the GS rally in Phoenix, he has had no problems with it and would also have at least the 5 speed trans like ours although perhaps a newer version.
In fact I haven't found anyone that tows a newer Odyssey that has had any problems with the running gear.

[Italjim]

The couch jackknifes into a bed for two little ones. The upper bunk could have been installed a bit higher, IMO, but it works.


Jim

2015 Newmar Dutch Star 4313
2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit

["007"]

Jim, going to add this thread in QT's # 3, 2015 coach's, its a good description of buying a Nemar from beginning to end. Good job.

[dakotabuckeye]

I love the tile!! Our DS 4312 go’s into production 4/2…might be too late to do a change order. Thanks for sharing.

[4thetwins]

We just picked up our 4313 as well on 3-27-15. However, our pickup would have been sooner if the coach didn't suffer a total breakdown on Route 84 in PA as it was making its way to RV One in Albany, NY. Yep...that's right. In an unanticipated heavy snow storm in route, the alternator died during the trip Fortunately for us, good folks with the right equipment came to the rescue Big tri-axle rig with wheel lifts picked up our baby and towed her to a very good Freightliner shop where diagnosis was performed and alternator replaced. She finally made it to the dealer where she was prepped and handed over to us on 3-27. I must say that both Newmar and RV One sprang into action and were awesome in the follow-up. Newmar even conference called us in with the Freightliner people who provided every record of the diagnostics and the alternator failure (even mailed us copies of the diagnostics and fix). Great job, Newmar and RV One It's evidence that even brand new stuff breaks on these rolling earth quakes. Both Newmar and RV One were very professional. RV One's: George Singer in sales and Ron (mechanic) in particular were very professional and a pleasure to work with. I like your lower bunk space, Italjim. Since I have twin 5 year old girls, we kept both bunks. We went with the caramel glaze interior and Bon Bon exterior. Very pleased. Filling out product registrations and personalizing coach items like Clarion GPS (not too bad) and the Dometic HVAC controls. Our big maiden voyage is to FL Keys in June when kids are out of pre-school with stops in NC, Hilton Head (www.hhimotorcoachresort.com), Ft. Lauderdale area (www.aztecrvresort.com) and ultimately the Keys (www.bluewaterkey.net). Having been humbled by the alternator thing, we purchased the loaded Good Sam Warranty and Road Side Assistance. We compared several. Wholesale Warranties came in a close second but they had a buried disclaimer about "normal use" in their exclusionary policy coverage where Good Sam didn't use that same language. God bless and best wishes for a safe and wonderful voyage in your new coaches. Give us a wave if you pass us on the road

[Italjim]

Originally Posted by 4thetwins

Question: is the added warranty offered by dealer worth the cost? Our dealer offers added warranty but it seems redundant when considering factory warranty and the insurance we will have on the coach. The dealers added warranty is expensive too. About $15,000 for first five years. Does anyone think this added warranty is worth the price? Are there other added warranty providers that are worthwhile?

The EW we purchased from Wholesale Warranties was less than half of that for 7 years/84k miles.

When do you take delivery?


Jim

2015 Newmar Dutch Star 4313
2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit

[Italjim]

We had a great experience with our factory delivery process at Newmar this week. Our service tech, Mike Miller and the entire Newmar Highline service team were absolutely wonderful to work with throughout the week. They went above and beyond at every opportunity to help us get the most out of the time and address any and every item big or small. Aside from the thorough walkthrough of the PDI checklist and explanation of virtually every system, feature, button, etc., Mike also gave great advice based on his 25+ years of experience at Monaco and Newmar. We really lived in our coach for 4 days, drove about 150 miles and tried out pretty much everything we could to see how it performed. As first time owners, the cost was well worth the education, attention, VIP customer service and more. Here are a few things we found along the way or had done this week:

- We had trouble leveling the coach at Camp Newmar but not in the shop. Mike identified the issue quickly and corrected it. The jacks were incorrectly wired, so opposite corners were deploying at the same time. This caused an "excess slope" warning and failure to level on an uneven surface, like the camp area but not on a flat surface in the shop.

- The drivers side front slideout would not deploy one night at camp. Mike drove over to camp in the morning to check it out, along with the leveling issue above. He brought a spare controller box and swapped it out, which did the trick. Once back at the shop he ordered a new controller from the Parts dept. and installed it the same day.

- Mike and John Miller (we met at least 4 Millers at Newmar and none were Matt or his father!) spent several hours adjusting our full wall slideout to get it as flush as possible at the lower corners after they started to poke out a bit when retracted, which may have been caused by the improper jack deployments during leveling. Not sure.

- The KIB wall panel for floor heat in the bedroom randomly shuts off. KIB is aware of issue and are developing a software update to correct. Hope to receive the update in 1-2 months.

- Mike installed our supplied Progressive Industries EMS unit with display.

- Removed the scald restrictor to allow hotter showers.

- Adjusted one of longer baggage doors that wasn't closing properly.

- Measured coach height (at ride height).

- Lubricated steering wheel column to eliminate a persistent squeak when turning the wheel.

- Ordered and installed an additional pantry shelf missing from our specials list.

- Ordered a replacement in black fabric for the accordion shade-style door between the bunk room and dining area. The beige/white fabric allows too much light while kids are going to sleep at night. We'll see if that works better. I think it should help. This was a special door, needed because of the jackknife couch we have for the lower bunk.

- Rechecked all tires, adjusted pressure as needed and filled fresh water tank before final departure;

- Received and installed license plates sent directly to Newmar by RVONE with temp registration.

And while all that was going on, Dan's Hitch in Elkhart installed a Blue Ox tow bar and braking system to our Jeep GC! Thanks Ryan and Dave, we've made it nearly to Cleveland and the toad is following right along like a lost puppy!


Jim

2015 Newmar Dutch Star 4313
2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit

[newmarpusher]

Originally Posted by Italjim

We had a great experience with our factory delivery process at Newmar this week. Our service tech, Mike Miller and the entire Newmar Highline service team were absolutely wonderful to work with throughout the week. They went above and beyond at every opportunity to help us get the most out of the time and address any and every item big or small. Aside from the thorough walkthrough of the PDI checklist and explanation of virtually every system, feature, button, etc., Mike also gave great advice based on his 25+ years of experience at Monaco and Newmar. We really lived in our coach for 4 days, drove about 150 miles and tried out pretty much everything we could to see how it performed. As first time owners, the cost was well worth the education, attention, VIP customer service and more. Here are a few things we found along the way or had done this week:

- We had trouble leveling the coach at Camp Newmar but not in the shop. Mike identified the issue quickly and corrected it. The jacks were incorrectly wired, so opposite corners were deploying at the same time. This caused an "excess slope" warning and failure to level on an uneven surface, like the camp area but not on a flat surface in the shop.

- The drivers side front slideout would not deploy one night at camp. Mike drove over to camp in the morning to check it out, along with the leveling issue above. He brought a spare controller box and swapped it out, which did the trick. Once back at the shop he ordered a new controller from the Parts dept. and installed it the same day.

- Mike and John Miller (we met at least 4 Millers at Newmar and none were Matt or his father!) spent several hours adjusting our full wall slideout to get it as flush as possible at the lower corners after they started to poke out a bit when retracted, which may have been caused by the improper jack deployments during leveling. Not sure.

- The KIB wall panel for floor heat in the bedroom randomly shuts off. KIB is aware of issue and are developing a software update to correct. Hope to receive the update in 1-2 months.

- Mike installed our supplied Progressive Industries EMS unit with display.

- Removed the scald restrictor to allow hotter showers.

- Adjusted one of longer baggage doors that wasn't closing properly.

- Measured coach height (at ride height).

- Lubricated steering wheel column to eliminate a persistent squeak when turning the wheel.

- Ordered and installed an additional pantry shelf missing from our specials list.

- Ordered a replacement in black fabric for the accordion shade-style door between the bunk room and dining area. The beige/white fabric allows too much light while kids are going to sleep at night. We'll see if that works better. I think it should help. This was a special door, needed because of the jackknife couch we have for the lower bunk.

- Rechecked all tires, adjusted pressure as needed and filled fresh water tank before final departure;

- Received and installed license plates sent directly to Newmar by RVONE with temp registration.

And while all that was going on, Dan's Hitch in Elkhart installed a Blue Ox tow bar and braking system to our Jeep GC! Thanks Ryan and Dave, we've made it nearly to Cleveland and the toad is following right along like a lost puppy!


Jim

2015 Newmar Dutch Star 4313
2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit

Nice write up, thanks.

I wish I had the time to spend on a factory delivery. I like the attention to detail it seems to involve. I would think it would be invaluable for a first timer. This is my third MH and 6th RV so most of the systems are familiar to me and I've still got a load of things to read up on.

There were a couple of items in your list that, as an owner of a brand new 2015 Ventana, concern me. Leveling jacks cross-wired? Slide controller broken right out of the gate. Slide misaligned. That stuff should have been caught by A manufacturing or B QC. Not during your factory delivery. The jack thing alone could cause fits for the best of dealers or experienced RVers to decipher.

IMO, PDI should consist of those minor little baggage door latch, tire pressure, water tank things and basic instructions, not correcting major QC flaws.

[Algoma]

I have already complained to Newmar about the Zone 1 sensor being mounted on an exterior wall, I hope others will add their voices. The other thing that bugs me, speaking of leveling systems, is that the control panel is sideways. If you want to raise the front of the coach you have to press the arrow that is facing the drivers side window. I am so used to it being correctly oriented that it really confused me the first time I pressed the wrong button. I know it doesn't matter if you auto-level but there are occasions you may want to make minor corrections manually.

It may be that the factory does not do a full QA if there is a factory delivery as they will catch any problems during PDI. That is why it takes 4 days to do it. Luckily they did a decent job with the QA on ours and it left the factory with the wrong HP sticker as being the only fault they didn't catch.

[newmarpusher]

Originally Posted by Algoma

I have already complained to Newmar about the Zone 1 sensor being mounted on an exterior wall, I hope others will add their voices. The other thing that bugs me, speaking of leveling systems, is that the control panel is sideways. If you want to raise the front of the coach you have to press the arrow that is facing the drivers side window. I am so used to it being correctly oriented that it really confused me the first time I pressed the wrong button. I know it doesn't matter if you auto-level but there are occasions you may want to make minor corrections manually.

It may be that the factory does not do a full QA if there is a factory delivery as they will catch any problems during PDI. That is why it takes 4 days to do it. Luckily they did a decent job with the QA on ours and it left the factory with the wrong HP sticker as being the only fault they didn't catch.

Our zone 1and 2 temp sensors are both on interior walls (outside the 1/2 bath), so I guess it depends on the floor plan and what's available.

I had the same thought about possible less QC on factory deliveries but it was more wishful thinking on my part so I don't worry about my own.

[CapuTech]

- The KIB wall panel for floor heat in the bedroom randomly shuts off. KIB is aware of issue and are developing a software update to correct. Hope to receive the update in 1-2 months.

Great write up. I have had the same issue with one if the floor heat panels. Have a trip to the factory this month to get it looked at as well as FWS adjustments and a variety of other service items I'm getting Newmar to add. Looks like I may have to wait on a software solution for the floor heaters.

[nebster]

I also have the KIB floor heat problems on all panels. For a while, I could get zone 1 and 3 floor heat to work, but now none of them will stay on for more than a minute or two. I am surprised that Newmar wouldn't communicate to the dealer, and the dealer to me, that this was a known issue. Since they clearly didn't, I am surprised that dealer PDI did not detect this obvious problem.

Basically, the floor heat is unusable for me until they work out the software issue.

I hope they are able to give us a field-deployable patch and not require a service appt to update this thing. But that might be dreaming.

[KenNJ]

Great write up and thanks for sharing. Almost a year ago we also did factory delivery and enjoyed the experience. We will be back at Newmar mid April for our 1year list but more so to just enjoy the laid back area.






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