Avoid the New Aire

[Ken C]

The manual for our DS is no better. I found it to be a big disappointment. While our 2 prior coach manuals were somewhat generic to include operational instructions for several of their diesel coaches, at least they had information on operation of functions. The manual for our 18 DS in nothing more than warnings and cautions.

[Johnidaho]

Originally Posted by toneil7163

I just sent in my deposit Friday on a 2019 New Aire.

Should I change to a 37' Dutchstar? You guys are making me real nervous about my purchase. Is it that bad?

Does anyone have a positive experience with these? I know they sold a bunch.

This is no longer timely to your situation, but I went through the same dilemma last spring before taking delivery of my New Aire in early June; after I ordered in January all the “Issue” posts kept letting worse, and I nearly pulled the plug even a couple weeks before taking delivery. All you need to do to think of staying away from the New Aire is to go through all Ben’s (“Cinergi” on this forum) incredible string of problems he has shared on this forum.

I guess I got lucky; the New Aire so far is a total winner in my book. After two American Coach pushers (‘99 and ‘04), and a trouble-free Dutch Star, I cant say enough about how well the New Aire works for us. Yes, it is underpowered; yes, the living space is 10’ shorter than our DS 4369; and yes, I have had a few issues to get resolved. BUT, both American 40 footers were constantly breaking down (Spartan chassis with constant hydraulic failures), cheap components, etc., and the 44’ DS was just a behemoth to drive in most of our out of the way favorite spots (living space was wonderful once “there”, but getting “there was not often easy. The owner manuals are a complete joke, but no worse than those that came with the other rigs.

The smaller New Aire, even with the queen bed that now seems so small, and only one bathroom, is very comfortable for the two of us and our big labradoodle, and, it’s luxurious interior is a big plus. One major surprise is the huge amount of storage. The interior storage is much more than we had in either American Coach, and there is MORE useable basement storage than we had in the 44’ Dutch Star. Incredible turning radius, fantastic cockpit and interior.

We have had a few problems to work through. The biggest was the first one. On our third extension of the bed, the bed slide cogwheel shaft literally blew apart leaving us with a bedroom half extended. I had no choice but to clear the contents and remove the shelves under the bed to diagnose the obvious problem. Called Newmar and explained the situation, my basic mechanical aptitude, and that I had a good set of tools with me. Without a hassle they overnighted the entire replacement shaft and bushing assembly, then spent another half hour the next day walking me through the specialized procedure dealing with disassembly and reassembly of the shaft bushing. Was able to do the complete repair, and then ascertain the cause for the failure...factory should have put spacers or shims between the motor and the mounting bracket to eliminate nearly 3/16 inch space before the motor was bolted th the mount. Without shims the motor was simply bolted down tight, thus putting tremendous flex pressure on a shaft that cannot bend...it just exploded when it was turning the bed slide cogwheel.

Newmar CS has been very helpful walking me through a couple other issues as well, but the best ways to get a lot information to fill the factory instruction manual void I have found, in order, are:

1. This Forum, which has a multitude of information from owners who have either “been there” or are great anticipating possible issues...guys like Cinergi, Turbo Pilot, Mike Mas, and a handful of others; you guys are a great resource!;

2. YouTube videos. There are a slew of great ones to walk you through operations and fixes. Search “New Aire Ben Goodwin” (Ben is “Cinergi” on this forum) for to get you informed and educated. There are others as well, but a special shout-out to Ben ( I hope someday I have the chance to thank him personally).

3. Direct calls to the component manufacturer CS people. My direct contact with Oasis, Freightliner, and particularly Silverleaf, have either helped me troubleshoot issues or get “how to make it work” instructions.

These coaches, are becoming collections of extremely complex components...they aren’t yet as challenging as the new generations of single engined aircraft, but by nature the new coach features bring new complications and confusion to the party.

For us, the New Aire is a wonderful product I would recommend to anyone except people wanting with one of the fantastic Newmar 45-footers. By far the best of the 6 other Class A coaches we have had over the last 30 years. We only have about 7K miles and 60 days/nights of New Aire use now, but have yet to regret sticking with our order after all the issues we have read on this forum.

[Ferdie]

May I echo appreciation for the posts and advice that Turbopilot, Mike Mas, Cinergi, 007, others and, now, John Idaho have made regarding the New Aire. Their comments and suggestions have enabled me to weather through many of the same problems. in April of 2018 I picked up my new coach and before 24 hours had my bedroom slide get stuck as the mechanism chewed itself up and trashed the motor. It has since been replaced again, so now I am on my third slide mechanism .... and still holding my breath when the slide is deployed. I don’t now whether the shims mentioned by Johnidaho were inserted, but do intend to check with the service technician.
Of greater concern was the door blowing open at 70mph, breaking the deadbolt in the process. When the incident was reported to Newmar they claimed no knowledge of the problem, but a few months later I received the “recall notice” regarding the issue. Since the problem was addressed, we have had another episode of the door blowing open at speed. This time the “fix” is to give the door seals more time to “wear in” .... and make sure to slam it hard and be certain the deadbolt is secured before driving. The answers could be better.
I agree that there is a breaking in period for all new products, but more transparency and empathy from the manufacturer would help. As others have said, it is a beautiful product and very high tech. That’s both good and bad. Let’s hope things get better, and, thanks again for those who have helped ease the journey.

[lakebuster]

Originally Posted by charlievette

Until Newmar spends the time and the money for an owners manual that is designed for the 3341and 3343 avoid the New Aire. It’s a disgrace to design a new vehicle and use second and third hand sources for documentation. If your serious about a New Aire download the owners manual...It is a DISGRACE. Many of us have spent hour after hour to find answers to easy problems if there was documentation with a photo problem solved. Newgle is a pathertic excuse for a high tech manual. Silverleaf and Rosie also fail to have a straight forward direct manual identifying the many modes.
Do I sound angry....Your damn right.

They need a qualified technical writer!

[Johnidaho]

Originally Posted by Ferdie

May I echo appreciation for the posts and advice that Turbopilot, Mike Mas, Cinergi, 007, others and, now, John Idaho have made regarding the New Aire. Their comments and suggestions have enabled me to weather through many of the same problems. in April of 2018 I picked up my new coach and before 24 hours had my bedroom slide get stuck as the mechanism chewed itself up and trashed the motor. It has since been replaced again, so now I am on my third slide mechanism .... and still holding my breath when the slide is deployed. I don’t now whether the shims mentioned by Johnidaho were inserted, but do intend to check with the service technician.
Of greater concern was the door blowing open at 70mph, breaking the deadbolt in the process. When the incident was reported to Newmar they claimed no knowledge of the problem, but a few months later I received the “recall notice” regarding the issue. Since the problem was addressed, we have had another episode of the door blowing open at speed. This time the “fix” is to give the door seals more time to “wear in” .... and make sure to slam it hard and be certain the deadbolt is secured before driving. The answers could be better.
I agree that there is a breaking in period for all new products, but more transparency and empathy from the manufacturer would help. As others have said, it is a beautiful product and very high tech. That’s both good and bad. Let’s hope things get better, and, thanks again for those who have helped ease the journey.

Ferdie,

Sorry to hear about your bed slide issues; it happening multiple times leads me to believe that misalignment of the motor and cog shaft is the likely culprit.

It is pretty easy to just connect the busing joint and then just bolt the motor down, and maybe all the problems owners have had with bolts on all slides coming loose cause techs and others from recognizing the problem. I think the best way to diagnose the alignment is to mount up and tighten the shaft assembly to the motor first, then determine if and how much shimming is needed; I suspect that the factory and repair techs do it the other way (first bolting the motor to the mounting bracket and then tightening the bushing...if the alignment is off before the bushing is tightened, the shaft will stressed at all other rotation points.

It is an easy diagnosis and fix, which makes these failures more infuriating.
Hope you get your problems resolved and enjoy all the good features of the coach!

[Jaddie]

There's a worldwide trend for manufacturers to skimp on documentation. Look at Apple, a company that's near and dear to my heart.

When I bought my first Mac in 1990, it came with two heavy spiral-bound manuals explaining most everything about it and the software installed on it. Nowadays you'll receive a mostly useless "getting started" guide.

In Apple's and other companies' defense, if you were to receive adequate documentation for the machine and all of the preinstalled software, it'd weigh about the same as a set of encyclopedias.

Is anyone here familiar with Adobe's Creative Suite? That's about four years of college in that one suite. I don't believe Adobe publishes any free getting started guides for its software. Instead, Adobe publishes its Classroom in a Book series for individual software titles, and as someone who taught Photoshop for two years, I can tell you those books are basic.

Everything is becoming more complicated. It'd be nice if manufacturers such as Newmar were to provide adequate documentation, but I don't know how they could.

You can be sure Newmar is interested in documentation provided by other manufacturers. If most other manufacturers provide 10,000 pages of printed documentation, Newmar will want to surpass their level of quality. But what's Tiffin providing? What about Newell? Marathon?

The RV industry needs what the information technology industry already accepts: quality documentation available for purchase, seminars produced by third parties at a cost, perhaps streaming videos at a cost.

It's understandable that you believe your half-million-dollar motorcoach should come with decent documentation. But it's equally understandable that a $10,000 personal computer should also come with decent documentation. I don't know about the RV industry, but I can tell you from the information technology world that you'll be disappointed in the documentation that arrives in the box with your new and sophisticated technology.

[Johnidaho]

One more thought on the bed motor/cog shaft alignment...
With the slide extended simply remove the forward cover under the bed, remove (not just loosen) up the bolts holding the motor to the bracket, and see if there is then space between the motor and the mounting bracket. If so, then fill the space with large fender washers or other metal shim material, run the bolts through the washers in the mounting bracket, and then tighten everything back down.

To mitigate the chance of the bolts loosening up, rather than using longer self tapping bolts (after the shims, the factory bolts were too short), I instead used 1/4” diameter stainless bolts with nylock nuts, and washers under the bolt head and between the bracket bottom and the lock nut. The existing mount bracket holes needed to be cleaned out with a 1/4” drill for the bolts to slide through.

[Dav L]

The group might consider a Wiki to collect the collective info. It would be setup like chapters in the Owner / Service Manual. Then, anyone could author documents / attach documents to the chapter / subchapters. A mod could make the entries permanent.

Typical structure would be:
Year/ Make / Model / Owner's Manual or Service Manual / Chapter number and name / Subchapter number and name

My recollection is that there are about 25 chapters in my old FCA service manuals. hmmm, wonder if I can remember them...

02- suspension
05 - brakes
07 - cooling
08 - electrical
09 - engine
14 - fuel
18 - driveability
23 - paint / body
25 - emissions

Can't remember the rest...

I would offer to build the base Wiki, and even host it, but I think our hosts on this forum would have a cow. So I think it might get difficult. Ideally, IRV2 would host it so it wouldn't be distracting to their business cause.

[LabRat]

Have you logged into Newgle lately? They have been making some major updates to the information. Not perfect by any means, but much better than before.