Books could be written on the history of National RV and Country Coach. Both had the opportunity to simply build the best stuff out there but couldn't get past the competition on price and later NRV Quality was the downfall. At the point that they needed to have a service center in Florida it was known that things were going out of control.
I owned two of them. Not only from new but working with Giant RV,
https://giantrv.com/
Both were built to order.
Frist was 1999 Tropi-Cal 6330. Second was a 2004 Tropi-Cal T396.
The 6330 actually treated us really well. 4.5 years and 64K miles only real issue was keeping it on tires. The Goodyears had regular issues going out of round and belt separations. Goodyear did rise to the occasion doing warranty replacements. Other issue was right front corner sag which Ford eventually fixed with the "Attitude Adjustment Kit". This was on the new Ford V10 chassis, 20,500 pound rating which was great for a 33' rig. Towed our 1987 Syncro Vanagon Camper easily. Fuel economy was about 7.5 towing to 8.5 not towing. Only performance disappointment was the Generac 5.5K genny. Did no like running the two AC's during hot weather. Made some mods to fix that.
Doing a lot of traveling with Family or four plus the in-laws decided we needed just a bit bigger and I wanted a DP.
Winter 2003 started looking. Most of the entry level DP had the Cummins 5.9. Test drove a few and simply there was no way I was going that route. Next Cummins engine was the 8.3 and those rigs were a bit above my price range. Test drove a used Tradewinds with the Cat 7.2. Yep, the was the engine. Next, intro to the Trop-Cal now as a Diesel. Yep. What we wanted. Worked with Giant RV as they gave us best price. We would again drive from NY to CA to do the trade and drive the new one home.
The T396 had a lot of issues from the get go. Headlights, not working, drivers slide creeping out. First summer trip leveling hoses failed. Wire harness wrapped around drive shaft. Sidewall delam, front cap separation. All sorts of stuff.
Yep. down to the Florida service center. Ended up leaving there for 3 months.
Of course there were the Diesel related running gear issues over time. The worst though is when the basement compartment framing began rusting out and then the framing inside the walls. I had to retire it about 4 years ago. It was gone. It had almost 100K on it. Still ran great but as the driver's side wall started sagging, I knew it was done.
When started looking I was ready to get another DW said no way. There are a lot of good ones out there and they are reasonably priced. But honestly, as good as the floorplans and designs were they always suffered the stigma of being a small operation, never got the respect when then they made stuff that deserved it, and just did not have the resources to get past the downturn and with the reputation no one offered to buy them as was done with the other brands.
Linear Mode
