2004 Alpine 40mdts

[cos80922]

Hello, I am looking at buying a 2004 MDTS with approx 49500 miles. Having never owned an Alpine before, I was looking for recommendations. Good, bad, what to look out for, problems, etc. Any advice at all.
Thanks Karl

[EngineerMike]

As with any motorhome purchase, check the roof for leaks (could spell mold problems inside), and the tires for date. Due diligence is always important.

You'll find the Alpine to be a "well found" coach as yachties would say, i.e. well designed and pretty well outfitted. We have our irritations, but w/50k on this rig those are probably pretty well ironed out. Most problems w/our coaches once past the break-in period are problems w/manufactured systems on the coach rather than the coach itself (fridge, inverter, batteries, entertainment equipment, microwave...). That said, the 04's (up thru the 09's) have a weak steering gear bracket that can be reinforced to eliminate a fatigue cracking issue that will arise, but otherwise should be a sound platform. Maintenance records would be nice if available, but a competent truck chassis shop can do an inspection of drive line and give you a good opinion if you are not well versed in that yourself.

Feel free to ask any specific questions that occur. Good luck, and hope to see you at a rally soon.

[gjstacy]

Karl, you might want to do a search on this forum, as there are several folks who have asked the same question and received some very good answers. You can do that by clicking on the "Search this Forum" button right above the column headers for "Replies" and "Views". I would suggest you use the words "Purchase Alpine", where you will find some of the posts, though there are other posts mixed in. One that might be good is a thread started by "StansCustoms" called "2001 40' Alpine, newbie questions", which you can find by typing "2001 40' Alpine" in the search box. There was a lot of discussion within that thread.

Good luck!! We love our Alpine, and wouldn't have anything else!

[C & R]

We found a great predelivery checklist by searching this forum. It covered just about everything. Taking our time and working through it made the purchase a great experience (Salesman might not agree). We made notes on it and returned to this forum for more specific answers. Very educational.

Quote:

Originally Posted by gjstacy Karl, you might want to do a search on this forum, as there are several folks who have asked the same question and received some very good answers. You can do that by clicking on the "Search this Forum" button right above the column headers for "Replies" and "Views". I would suggest you use the words "Purchase Alpine", where you will find some of the posts, though there are other posts mixed in. One that might be good is a thread started by "StansCustoms" called "2001 40' Alpine, newbie questions", which you can find by typing "2001 40' Alpine" in the search box. There was a lot of discussion within that thread. Good luck!! We love our Alpine, and wouldn't have anything else!

[gjstacy]

C & R gives excellent advice!!

[Mike & Mike]

Hi Karl,

We bought a used 2004 Alpine 34 footer in 2007 and absolutely love it. The best feature of an Alpine is the superior handling. It's a great dry camping coach too, with the high water capacities, tons of batteries, a good inverter system, a large generator to run the two A/C's, etc.

The Cummins engine and Allison tranny, in that year, have a "data port". A truck repair shop should have a laptop computer that they can hookup and download some good information. When we were looking at ours, we were in CA and the coach was in VT. The owner allowed me to send a Freightliner mechanic to the coach to download the data via the data port. You get to see lots of info, including idling hours and percentage, average fuel economy, error codes as to out-of-spec operation (the battery voltage was low at one time, causing an error code which I got to view, and the engine heated up a few degrees over the set point a couple of times which the mechanic attributed to climbing a long, steep hill. He said he sees that all the time with the semi-trucks.) It was a pretty impressive readout and helped us to feel more comfortable with a coach a long distance away.

A 2004 coach should have had the tires changed at least once at this point since they are over 6 years old (you probably are aware that motorhome tires tend to need replacement more due to age than due to low tread.) And you might check the battery condition. You're probably on your 2nd or 3rd set of batteries (we're on our second since new).

Hopefully you've been lurking here long enough to realize that we're a pretty friendly bunch that'll be happy to help you work thru any problems or questions. And, take a look at the Alpine Coach Association website, specifically the Technical Library section. There's tons of information about Alpines and their various systems located there.

Good Luck, and we hope to see you driving an Alpine soon!

[cos80922]

Thanks much to everyone for the advice