Picking up my new coach

[Rich_in_Tampa]

I'm off Friday to pick up my new motorhome, an Itasca Suncruiser 35L up in Ohio.

I've owned trailers and a Class B in the recent past so I'm not a total babe-in-arms. However I sure would appreciate any tips regarding the pre-delivery or my first ride (1000 miles for the trip back). My plan is to go from the dealer to the nearest open parking lot for some get-acquainted dancing before I hit the road for real

I don't plan to camp on the way home since I won't have had a chance to provision the thing, and I'd rather do my shake-down cruise closer to home and dealers. I'll just stay in motels and maybe catch a nap or two in the rest areas during daytime. Also plan to do the Tennessee mountain leg during full daylight with a good cup of coffee in my system.

I feel like a kid buying his first bicycle without training wheels .

[RonK]

Rich:

Good luck on your trip and MH pickup. I find it interesting that your coming all the way to Ohio when we travel to Fl to look at MH. Although we just got our new Providence in IN.

Safe travels to you!

Ron K.

PS
The weather for Friday is a chance of rain and 73, thats around Columbus

[Rich_in_Tampa]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RonK Rich: Good luck on your trip and MH pickup. I find it interesting that your coming all the way to Ohio when we travel to Fl to look at MH. Although we just got our new Providence in IN.

Money talks.

Thanks for your good wishes.

[Half Dimes]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rich_in_Tampa I'm off Friday to pick up my new motorhome, an Itasca Suncruiser 35L up in Ohio. I've owned trailers and a Class B in the recent past so I'm not a total babe-in-arms. However I sure would appreciate any tips regarding the pre-delivery or my first ride (1000 miles for the trip back). My plan is to go from the dealer to the nearest open parking lot for some get-acquainted dancing before I hit the road for real I don't plan to camp on the way home since I won't have had a chance to provision the thing, and I'd rather do my shake-down cruise closer to home and dealers. I'll just stay in motels and maybe catch a nap or two in the rest areas during daytime. Also plan to do the Tennessee mountain leg during full daylight with a good cup of coffee in my system. I feel like a kid buying his first bicycle without training wheels .

Congrats on the new rig. Somewhere on this site is an excellent PDI list that I copied and revised to suit our rig when we bought last year. Make sure you have some kind of checklist that covers everything. As far as the get acquainted dance, I'd suggest that take place at the dealer. Check everything before you leave! I understand you have no provisions, but unless you have time constraints, spend the night somewhere near the dealer. Nothing will find issues quicker than spending a night in the rig. Good luck and drive safe!

[Lindsay Richards]

You might want to be careful in the TN mountains with a new rig.

[Our Time]

When we picked ours up, 600 miles from home we UPS enough provisions to spent the night and make coffee. Cheaper than a motel room!

[rjf7g]

Congrats on your new rig.

[kenenders]

Wish you the world of luck. Ken

[Luv2go]

Congrats on your new rig, Rich!

Our Time has a great idea on UPS'ing provisions, we took the toad up stuffed to the gills with things, but that was for our family of four, if you're going alone you can UPS a lot less.

We purchased our Canyon Star in Ohio for two reasons, because I wanted to break it in (our dealer was less than 200 miles from the Newmar factory) and we got a great deal (also Newmar wanted to charge us a premium for factory pickup).

As Lindsay mentioned, I was very careful going over the TN mountains on I75. I installed a Scangauge (http://www.scangauge.com/) and programmed it for cylinder head temp and kept it below about 215 degrees.

Also, I allowed the engine to slow the coach as much as possible using tow-haul mode (I read something about the vacuum caused by engine braking helping seat the rings here: http://www.enginesonly.com/break-in.html).

Watching the cylinder head temp was amazing, it took less than a minute of engine breaking to drop the temp from 210 to 195 degrees.

Time will tell if this actually did anything good, our coach now has 8500 miles on it with no sign of engine or transmission-related problems.

This probably does not apply to your coach as much as mine as I assume yours was driven from Iowa, but this may be it's first mountain so some still may apply, it certainly can't hurt.

I would be prepared to spend a few days at the dealer, I was there about 4 days getting the punchlist generated by the PDI resolved.

FYI, I have the Ford F53 chassis, Workhorse can use Scangauge also, unfortunately it doesn't have cylinder head temp. It will monitor engine coolant temp and transmission fluid temp on both chassis types, which is also very useful info, much better than the instrument panel gauges which seem to stay in the same position no matter what the temp is.

Best of luck!
Stewart

[Rich_in_Tampa]

Yeah, I made a mistake in scheduling this at a time when we couldn't really shake it down right after delivery. Had to do with time constraints, day job, schedule conflicts, etc. (close to retirement, but not quite there yet!).

I'm hoping to do that at a 5-day stay at a nearby park and dealership here in Tampa, where they do Winnebago warranty work. I don't think they'll turn down our business considering the slow economy.

Forecast is for showers and storms through the mountains Friday, though not severe. It will be a relaxed, slow trip home and I'm prepared to stretch it another day if driving safety becomes an issue. I'm only driving during daylight this trip to increase the comfort margin. If I get a chance, I'll post.

[Lindsay Richards]

I assume you mean Lazy Days. We had lots of trouble with their service department saying they had fixed a problem when they had not. They are in very bad shape and have laid off many people. I drove by there today and tehy still had many coaches on the lot. Make sure you check the problem before you accept the coach back. We bought our 33V from them and love it though.

[Rich_in_Tampa]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lindsay Richards I assume you mean Lazy Days. We had lots of trouble with their service department saying they had fixed a problem when they had not. They are in very bad shape and have laid off many people. I drove by there today and tehy still had many coaches on the lot. Make sure you check the problem before you accept the coach back. We bought our 33V from them and love it though.

Lazy Days would be the closest, but RV World in Nokomis also does WB warranty work. Nice thing about Lazy Days is that we can arrange a weekday stay for a few days, and I can commute to work while my better half (with flexible work hours) oversees any repairs, questions, etc. Nice not to use precious vacation days waiting for the fridge to get fixed, or whatever. HIllsborough state park would be another possibility.

Well, first things first - get it home safe and sound. Thanks for the reply and your less-than-perfect dealings with LD.

[Luv2go]

I know what you mean about time, Rich. I have a ways to go before retirement, too. I took a week of vacation to get the coach.

A word of caution, I'd make sure to document any body-related work very well, get the selling dealer to get authorization from Wiinnebago, and get a copy of the authorization.

Newmar was very picky about this, we got it worked out, but it would have been helpful if I had gotten more info about the authorized work from the selling dealer. For example, we had scratches on all the bay doors that needed buffing, they were documented and approved at the selling dealer but the repairing dealer said they had to get authorization all over again (which they eventually did).

20-20 hindsight, I'd get the repairing dealer on the phone while at the selling dealer to make sure they don't have any issues.

And yes, in this economy dealers are surviving on their repair work, at least my repairing dealer is (the owner says things are starting to look better, but pretty much the only income he had during the winter was from his service dept).

Stewart

[Lindsay Richards]

We spent 42 days at Lazy Days. I was thinking about gettingmy voters registration switched over. This was before the slow down. The free breakfast and lunch can get pretty old. We slept n the coach in the bays many a night. There is other places to eat, We were toadless someof the time which ws bad.You can always go to Camping World and memorize the stock.