Community Forums

Beane1 · 01-07-2022, 07:06 AM

I am about to buy a 2009 Monaco Diplomat 41PDQ with 65000 miles and it has all maintenance records and is up to date.
After a pretty good look around it and checking every function it seems to be in overall pretty good condition.
Is there anything I should look for or should I stay away from it all together?
I negotiated a price of 112,000.00.
Any help here would be great.
Thanks

Orrin · 01-07-2022, 07:24 AM

Did you have it professionally inspected? Has it been jacked up and the frame, cross members, and suspension inspected? If so, and you like it, buy it.

Remember, you are buying at the all-time high of the market.

jacwjames · 01-07-2022, 07:26 AM

Tires and battery age/condition are always a question. Rule of thumb is tires have a 7 year life. Batteries can last a long time if taken care of depending on type.

You may consider getting the engine and transmission oil tested/analyzed.

Beane1 · 01-07-2022, 07:53 AM

I have not jacked it up or had a professional inspection, but I am going to.
Batteries are new, tire are April 2017.
I think I will get the oil analyzed.
I am somewhat worried about the price, I’m just afraid I’m paying to much.
Thanks for the input

moisheh · 01-07-2022, 08:18 AM

Was that unit made by Monaco or Navistar? What engine?

Beane1 · 01-07-2022, 08:22 AM

it has the 400 hp. How do you tell who made the coach?

moisheh · 01-07-2022, 10:31 AM

Is it a Cummins ISL? HP means nothing. I do not know how you tell who made it. Perhaps there is a build sheet with the service records. Some 09's were still made by Monaco. Others could be when Navistar took over. Is there a build date somewhere in the coach? Maybe another forum member can help.

jacwjames · 01-07-2022, 10:52 AM

If it is a 2009 it was made by Monaco as they were in bankruptcy at the time. We toured the plant in early Sept 2009, they had skeleton crews working building coaches and using up whatever inventory they had of stuff. We did walk through of several coaches that came off the assembly line and there were visible issues with quality, they had a separate crew fixing the issues and another crew doing general cleanup.

A 2009 model year could have been built in 2008. So depending on what year/month it was build this rig may be a quality coach, or it could be cobbled together with spare parts.

Mine is a 2002 model but was built in late 2001.

CountryB · 01-07-2022, 11:29 AM

Personally, I would not buy a Coach with an engine newer than 2007. After 2007 there was a ton of emissions junk added - and that's ninety percent of the engine failures/problems owners are complaining about here. The emissions technology is just not reliable (yet) and if you're buying a "heavy duty" diesel engine (i.e. not medium duty like an ISB), it's going to be expensive to fix.

Get an older Coach. They are built better and easier/cheaper to work on.
The only downside to older Coaches is the electronics may be outdated and hard to get parts for like the Aladdin monitoring or Intellitec multiplexing (not talking about dash radios and TVs and such, which are easy to replace).

vito.a · 01-07-2022, 12:02 PM

At first glance I thought the price looked high but checking NADA bluebook that is a very good price.
NADA average retail is $131,900 and low retail is $109,500.
Todays market has raised the prices quite a bit.

The Diplomat is is just under the Camelot in Monaco's lineup. It will have a rear radiator with a Cummins ISL engine and an Allison MH3000 transmission. Monaco stocked up on pre-emission engines so it may have a 2006-2007 engine without the DPF (diesel particulate filter). You'll have to crawl under there and look at the exhaust for a DPF filter.

If you have it professionally inspected by someone familiar with large diesel coaches you should be fine.

moisheh · 01-07-2022, 01:58 PM

CountryB. Your advice eliminates 80 % of the coaches in the marketplace. Not practical. All coaches have problems. Our 2008 has been better than many of the pre 07 coaches. Thousands of others agree. To suggest that people should only buy coaches that are more than 14 years old is almost silly. maybe you should advise to only buy coaches with mechanical injection!!!

dbircky · 01-07-2022, 02:08 PM

My 2009 Camelot has a 2008 ISL with dpf. I bought in March 2019 with 27,000 miles. Significantly below the price they are asking for that diplomat. But the market has changed significantly as the book on mine is higher than what I paid. Great engine and transmission.

offdutyagain · 01-07-2022, 04:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vito.a

At first glance I thought the price looked high but checking NADA bluebook that is a very good price.
NADA average retail is $131,900 and low retail is $109,500.
Todays market has raised the prices quite a bit.

The Diplomat is is just under the Camelot in Monaco's lineup. It will have a rear radiator with a Cummins ISL engine and an Allison MH3000 transmission. Monaco stocked up on pre-emission engines so it may have a 2006-2007 engine without the DPF (diesel particulate filter). You'll have to crawl under there and look at the exhaust for a DPF filter.

If you have it professionally inspected by someone familiar with large diesel coaches you should be fine.

Your points are spot on but I wonder at what point the downward trend will start? With diesel creeping towards $4.00 per gallon here in the mid- west and north of $5.00 on the coast, will we start to see a reversal in DP pricing?

We've been looking at coaches off and on for a couple of years and were determined that this year was going to be THE year. However, with the inflated price of used units and the cost of diesel, we may wait the market out a little longer. It seems every RV dealer believes every coach on their lot is gold and most aren't willing to deal. I think this carries over to the private seller market as well as people see the inflated prices on sites like RVTrader.

To the OP, get someone who is a professional to look at the coach from top to bottom. If it has the 400ISL engine, make sure it isn't one of the affected engines that Monaco got from Cummins. I'm told they can be a ticking time bomb. (There is a list of serial numbers on this site.)

Good luck on your search.

Beane1 · 01-07-2022, 05:00 PM

It is the 400ISL engine.
Here in Utah at Costco the diesel fuel is 2.79 gal.
I am getting a complete inspection done and I am going to back to look it over again on Monday then I can check the build date .
Thanks so much for all the input l have been educated and will be looking at several things myself.