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Old 01-04-2017, 10:31 PM   #1
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Last In-House Chassis Rolls Off The Line

Foretravel ends Chassis production.

Marketing Rep says emissions rules force move. Spartan to provide chassis for conventional (not Prevost) models.

Not widely advertised, but this family caught it at the factory:



Safe Travels
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Old 01-07-2017, 09:37 AM   #2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Scarab0088 View Post
Foretravel ends Chassis production.

Marketing Rep says emissions rules force move. Spartan to provide chassis for conventional (not Prevost) models.

Not widely advertised, but this family caught it at the factory:



Safe Travels
As an owner of a trucking company, I can understand there issues concerning the EPA, that is Big Government for you.
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Old 01-10-2017, 09:55 PM   #3
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At times the EPA (and the California version) really dictate what mfg processes & materials can be used, sad to say
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Old 01-11-2017, 07:39 PM   #4
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At times the EPA (and the California version) really dictate what mfg processes & materials can be used, sad to say
The issue here is not the EPA vs. Foretravel, it is the change at Cummins that replaces the ISX with the new X12 and X15 engines. An engine change results in a cooling package change and that drives a new chassis design (or at least a significantly tweaked one).

Foretravel lacks the engineering staff/development budget to absorb the costs of designing a chassis/cooling package around the new engines. They admitted issues with the last change. It only makes sense at their low volumes these days (20 or so coaches) to contract out to a chassis manufacturer.

They may say it's a custom chassis from Spartan, but it's unlikely there is enough volume for Spartan to design a truly custom chassis for Foretravel. More likely a slight modification of the existing K3GT or some derivative of that will be used.
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Old 01-11-2017, 07:50 PM   #5
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Looks like Newell is the only one left.
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Old 01-11-2017, 08:27 PM   #6
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And I wonder how long they (Newell) can hang on?
Altho I'm sure that the one mfg'd by Spartan will be a joint design with FT
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Old 01-11-2017, 08:46 PM   #7
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And I wonder how long they (Newell) can hang on?
Altho I'm sure that the one mfg'd by Spartan will be a joint design with FT
At their price point and production numbers, probably for a while.
I was there a week and a half ago. They were building 2 frames, skinning 2 coaches, had 7 in various stages of production, 3 in paint and were delivering 3 last week. All that after a 3 week Christmas furlough.
I'll be back in 2 weeks to get the old mans. It will be interesting to see where the coaches I saw last and where they will be in 2 weeks.
I'm sure eventually they will get to the point where they cannot charge more but labor and materials outweigh the cost. For now, they seem strong.
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Old 01-11-2017, 09:05 PM   #8
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Can't recall the name, but believe the gent that designed the Alpine Peak chassis, also designed one for Tiffen? Is that not sill an option when buying a Tiffen...

Kind of sad to see some of the uniqueness of the RV industry becoming more GM'ized (Buick, Chevy, Olds, Pontiac - oh yeah, and Cadillac - for many years shared very common chassis in the 70's/80's...).

Best to all,
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Old 01-15-2017, 10:44 AM   #9
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I read that spartan is going to manufacture the chassis. It will be foretravels current design built solely for foretravel by Spartan.
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Old 01-15-2017, 02:03 PM   #10
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1st off I'm between coaches right now and have never owned a Foretravel Coach - so take my comments with grain if fact...

For 20+ chassis per year it raises the question whether the Spartan mfg chassis will be the current Fortravel TravelRide Chassis with a revised engine compartment to accommodate the new Cummins X15 engine/cooling package...or whether it'll be a Spartan Chassis slightly revised for Foretravel and parlayed as the new Foretravel chassis.

Reason I raise the above is that Foretravel already manufactures the Realm using the Spartan K3 600 GT chassis. And Freightliner already manufactures modified Freightliner chassis for Tiffin and Monaco coaches.

I wonder, considering Foretravel's current chassis production numbers, whether it might more "long term cost effective" to pay an appropriate engineering firm to redesign the engine compartment of the TravelRide Chassis to accommodate the new Cummin's X15 engine/cooling package?

Just my thoughts especially as it would be a loss to the industry to lose another custom coach chassis considering the losses to the industry since the last housing meltdown...

Regarding the Newell coaches, they appear to have a larger overall engine/cooling system space allocation than the Foretravel coaches so accommodating the new Cummins X15 enigine/cooling system may not be an issue for them.
Link to 2017 Newell engine compartment...
http://www.newellcoach.com/wp-conten...-1600x1060.jpg
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Old 01-19-2017, 08:00 AM   #11
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These pics were posted on foreforums by a member at the Florida RV Show
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Old 01-20-2017, 12:49 AM   #12
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Color me wrong...

That shock boot on the tag axle (last photo) sure is scrunched...
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Old 01-20-2017, 10:07 AM   #13
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Color me wrong...

That shock boot on the tag axle (last photo) sure is scrunched...
Yeah, I saw that too. Don't know exactly what it could be...shock boot is too big or shock is compressed (?).
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Old 01-20-2017, 02:33 PM   #14
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Yeah, I saw that too. Don't know exactly what it could be...shock boot is too big or shock is compressed (?).
Tag is lifted.

Drive axle air bag is almost fully extended, if you look a the tag axle air bag you can see that it is collapsed and not in the travel mode. If you were in travel mode all would look different.
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