I'll get to the stupid part shortly
Wife and I just took delivery of a 2014 Ventana 4369, from a dealer in Lewisville, TX. We absolutely love the coach! Our last motorhome was a 1985 33' Southwind gasser, that we sold in 2003. I was a little apprehensive about driving a 43' coach in Dallas/Ft Worth traffic, so we camped in the dealers lot on Friday night and left out on Saturday morning after a few tweaks that needed to be done by the techs.
I soon found out that I had absolutely nothing to worry about with this coach. To compare it to our old Southwind would be like comparing a Ferrari with a clapped out Oldsmobile.....Wow is all I can say.....The Comfort Drive system really is all it is cracked up to be, and the TAG axle makes so much difference!
Ok, I know y'all are all waiting for the "stupid part"... here it is....we made an obligatory stop at Cabela's on the way home (we both love that store). Spent about 2 hours wandering around in the store and spending too much money, returned to the coach parked out by the trucks. I sat down and started it up, and had a LOUD warning horn, with no lights on the info panel but "parking brake" (which I thought was the source of the warning, although I didn't remember it being that LOUD before). Wife was complaining about how loud the warning was, so I applied the service brake and pushed the parking brake off....the warning didn't go away. Hmmmm...I have spent a lot of time driving big trucks, mostly fire apparatus, and I'm thinking "this is not normal". Checked everything, no warning lights, plenty of air, jacks aren't down. Wife has the Freightliner manual and is reading out all the things that will set off the warning buzzer....negative on ALL of them. I am stumped, wife is aggravated. I pick up the cell phone and call the dealership, but don't get anyone and leave a message to call me back. I get the brilliant idea to put the coach in gear and pull up a few feet just to check things out, so I pull my shoulder belt over and latch it (you thought that would be it, didn't you??).....and then I reach down to move the drivers seat forward because it is all the way back against the full wall slide. As soon as I moved it about 2 inches forward, the warning buzzer stopped....moved the seat back and it started again
About that time our salesman called back, and he had never heard of such a thing. I can't find it documented anywhere, but then I haven't completely finished going through that massive black suitcase.
Made the rest of the 300 mile drive home with an ear to ear grin, wife is happy in her reclining co-pilots chair with the foot rest, and all is good with the world! Then we get home and find out that even with the air bags dumped, it won't quite fit under the 12' overhead doors in our barn (NO, I did NOT find out by scraping everything off the roof
I used my calibrated eyeball to make the determination)....so I guess I'll make my contractor happy about fixing that!
I have spent many an enjoyable evening reading through the posts here in the Newmar forum, I feel like I actually know some of you fine folks....I probably won't post much, but I'm also sure I will have more than my share of system questions before I get it all figured out (the dealers "PDI" consisted mostly of pointing and saying "read the manual to find out how this works")
We hope to be "on the road" soon, although wife found out, today, that she is probably going to have to have some ankle surgery soon, so that may cause a bit of delay (nothing serious, just age catching up with us
)
Lee and DW Leslie in Midland, TX
and thanks for brightening everyone's day! You've already found that a sense of humor is necessary as you get used to a new coach!
Looks like paint ball splatter!
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