We finished a few last minute details on Saturday afternoon -- how many things you have to keep track of when doing this! -- and finalized a deal on a 2015 Mountain Aire 4503 today! Scary and exciting
both at the same time. Anybody have this same experience when it came to pulling the trigger on your Dream Motor home???
The changes they made for '15, especially in this model, really knocked us off our feet. We went out to Newmar about a month ago, talked extensively with Michelle Howard, looked at the coach in production and were both wow'd by all we saw. Newmar has made some fantastic changes to this model for 2015 and the value this year in MA is big -- maybe one of the best values across the lines.
For us, larger tires and wheels (I guess maybe I like this more than DW does), more room, three airs, bigger motor, huge bathroom with two person vanities and sinks, more storage in mid coach (pantry) and bath (linen closet), induction cooktop, solid surface shower, full Girard awnings, heated floor, 12.5 gen set, Silverleaf are all things that will be fun upgrades for us.
Why the 4503 instead of the 4553 which we were first interested in? Because we absolutely love the L sofa in our Dutch Star 4018 and the 4503 has the L sofa but in a much larger size than in our Dutch -- it is 100" and has a top end sofa sleeper in queen size -- something we have been wanting all along. Plus the 4503 has a larger vanity area in the bath (two sinks, one large mirror, two separate vanity cabinets) and a linen closet which the 4553 does not have in the same way. In the 4503 layout, the drawback seems to be that the washer and dryer are moved from the rear of the coach (which we prefer) to near the mid-coach half bath (something we're pretty sure we can live with just fine, especially when it allows us a 100" L sofa sleeper with recliner function).
If we love the 4503 as much as we love our 4018, we'll definitely be in business.
Options / Specials on our order: Induction cooktop, heated floor, all electric (of course), AGM batteries, 12.5 generator on sliding tray, Coastal (natural) Cherry cabinets (as opposed to Carmel glazed Cherry cabinets), Full Girard power awning package (the big boy -- all windows, door and two full Girard awnings on the door side), GE Advantium 120 microwave/convection oven, custom larger-than-stock cabinets on door side, chrome pulls on exterior storage compartments, London Aire tile pattern which we liked for backsplash in kitchen, baths and shower, Trip Info displayed on back up screen, King Aire drawer, cabinet and door pulls, King Aire counter-top throughout, all solid surface sinks, solid wood doors in rear of coach for cedar closet in lieu of mirrors like King Aire, some King Aire fabrics, a number of additional USB and 110v outlets throughout the coach. We also asked not to have the oval cutouts made in the beautiful wood trim posts throughout the coach -- in the stock MA, these have LED "mood lights" in them -- Newmar agreed to keep the wood intact without the mood lighting in the oval cutouts (but we still got the cool squiggles on the facia above near the ceiling with the LED mood lights in them).
Notable things we omitted: Front and exterior TV's (we have never used the outside TV, even when we had one, and we like the extra space in the front of the coach where the front TV would go), VORAD (I asked about it on this Forum and there was not an answer I got from anyone who had it which recommended it as an option not to be without), extra freezer/refrigerator below in storage compartment (we like our down below storage and would probably not use the freezer/rerig), power and extra sliding trays (we got the large one that opens on both sides -- we feel that this is enough and that we would lose too much space in our down below storage area with more sliding trays).
You can always forget something, and probably we did, but we think we got most of what was on our order wish list.
That's the good news. Now the bad:
It's gonna be a tough day for both of us when we give up our 4018 -- really tough.
What a fabulous, flawless, wonderful coach our '13 Dutch Star has been.
How
nice it would be for someone to buy our DS before it has to go to the dealer at the end of October -- we would
so love to see it go to the right home. Thankfully, we get to have it through Hoots II before it has to be given up for our Mountain Aire delivery. We will use it all we can before it goes.
Deek
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