Spartan Chassis Input Needed

[Quicktrip]

We are considering buying a 2013 Entegra Aspire 42RBQ. We have always owned Motorhomes with Freightliner Chassis. Would like opinions of the Spartan Chassis and the Entegra brand. Thanks

[DoggieDaddy]

Please note that Spartan is considered an upgrade with most brands that use the chassis. At least that is my recollection.

[MRUSA14]

I have a 2013 Entegra Anthem which I purchased new in 2013. Very happy with my Spartan Chassis and my Entegra coach.

[tom chelbana]

We have owned 3 Spartan chassis coaches since 97 which we have driven over close to 300K miles. Our current coach a 18 London Aire with the Spartan K-3 chassis and just like the two other previous Spartan chassis we have been very pleased with them all. In the Newmar line up many coaches have a 5k to 8K up charge over FL. You will be pleased with Spartan when calling for service or answers questions.
Newmar Man

[Gary.Jones]

This is not a question that can be answered in a few sentences.

Spend some time looking back through the threads of this forum and then searching with the search box at the top of the page and familiarize yourself with the issue or you just are not educating yourself of all the pluses and minuses.

Spartan is a good chassis. I owned a K2 and a K3. They have pluses and weaknesses. The warranties are different. Great for somethings and not so much for others. Freightliner is a good chassis which also has pluses and minuses.

There is no easy single answer. You need to do your research and decide what matters to you.

Gary

[bevandtomH]

Very happy with our Spartan chassis. And experience in Charlotte, Michigan when we go for annual service.
But with any ‘13 (mine’s a ‘14), stuff will be wearing out and will need replacing no matter what brand of chassis. Definitely should look into service records.

[darjacob]

In my opinion, the Spartan chassis rides smoother than the freightliner. I think the Freightliner turns a bit sharper than the Spartan. If I had to come up with a complaint, (which I'm pretty sure there will be lots of RV'ers telling me I'm wrong) is that it's much harder to find a Spartan factory service center than a Freightliner service center. Freightliner is everywhere. I wouldn't hesitate buying either one.

[WDW]

Agree - Spartin chassis service can be difficult to find. They list a number of places on their app, but in our case, they either do not service motorhomes, are no longer in business or strictly service the fire emergency services industry. I have an issue that’s going to cause me to have to go all the way to Michigan.

[hdgoldie]

We owned a 2013 Aspire RBQ for 5 years. We bought it new and did not have any issues with the Spartan chassis. We liked it well enough that we also had a 2017 Aspire and now have a 2019 Aspire.

[GeezerViz]

Not sure how you rate one above the other. I know my Spartan has had issues and am really pissed off on how they handled their defective radiator problems. I havent had issues with my DEF head yet but I'm sure it'll be the same BS when it happens. Probably not issues you'll have with a '13.

[MRUSA14]

The DEF head problems are not an issue on pre-2016 coaches.

[Gary.Jones]

Mike

You are correct in MHO. Spartan's problems are not structural or manufacture...... but they have shown that they have serious problems in their attitude of management and what role their management feels is appropriate when use of their product reveals that they have made some very serious mistakes in their choices of suppliers and equipment. Every product is going to have problems, some of them serious problems, and it falls to companies to service their product and product choices (warranty) in a way that is fair and reasonable to their owners and their company. THAT is the place that Spartan has been most "wanting" and least impressive in the 8-10 years that I have been owning and following motorcoaches.

The first huge disaster that I had personal experience with was the disasterous Spartan choice of who was going to make and provide the radiators for their chassis. They picked a Mexican manufacturer which had a design problem in their product that led to massive numbers of radiators on Spartan coaches to fail and leak. The problem is still evident here on the forum and can easily be found by searching archives. Worse, even if it was well known and recognized that their radiators were poorly designed and manufactured and was costing owners serious amount of money, if the radiator failed 5 days out of the warranty, at various times, Spartan would refuse to get involved and stick the owners with the entire cost of installing and replacing their radiators. At other times, they would replace the radiator, but stick the owners with the installation costs. At other times, they would honor the warranty after it expired and pay for it all.... it was a complete Sh** show of company involvement. I've never seen a mess like how that situation was handled.

The problem was solved by Spartan using someone else's radiator, but it was years in the resolution, and if you had one of the older units on your coach, good luck on how it would be handled.

Then, the DEF head farce raised its head, with massive numbers of owners stuck out on the road using their coaches, when their coaches shut down completely (or threatened to shut down completely) because of problems with the delivery of DEF and how our coaches dealt with DEF failures and problems. This was a massive problem a couple years ago. It was complicated by their being a severe shortage of DEF heads and Spartan could not resupply them whether in or out of warranty and for a year or 18 months, coaches were stranded around the country, or owners were afraid to use their coaches out of fear that they would be stranded and Spartan could not supply them the part to get them going again. What a complete mess this was for owners. Owners bought $1,000 spares if they could get their hands on them to carry in the basement just in case they were stranded in their coaches.

The problem appears to have been solved by multiple re-designs of the DEF heads of the original manufacturer (Shaw??) and the adoption of DEF heads made by a completely different manufacturer (might be an Italian company), but the problem beyond the poor quality of the DEF heads, was the reluctance of Spartan to acknowledge any involvement in this fiasco and the slowness of the company is dealing with the situation (glacial) !!!

So, as I say, all of this is all over the forum. Start doing some searches and I believe you will find that I am doing a pretty good job of summarizing the terrible responses of the company to owner problems. I have said I will never own a Spartan chassis again. That is a hard thing to say, but it is because in my opinion, the company management has been so delinquent in how they have handled severe product problems in the past that I have no confidence in their administrative officers knowing how to treat their customers reasonably. A Spartan chassis can be a very good chassis, and beyond design failures and product support fiascos, the chassis on my coaches have handled my use well.

All of that is my opinion based on my personal experience and the experience of others. Factor that in.

Gary

[777 Driver]

Originally Posted by GeezerViz

I havent had issues with my DEF head yet but I'm sure it'll be the same BS when it happens.

Mike, I had a DEF head failure this past March as I was returning home from Florida. The check engine light and associated DEF head failure codes displayed about 11:30AM, just before we stopped in a rest area for lunch. After we had stopped for the evening, about 3:30PM, I called Spartan Customer Service to discuss the issue. The Customer Service rep wanted to see a photo of the associated codes, which I provided to him via an email. He asked our location (Fayetteville, NC) and direction of travel (northbound on I-95). He was able to locate a Cummins Service Center 45 miles north along our route and had a replacement DEF head next day delivered to that location. The DEF head replacement arrived there the next morning at 10:30AM (19 hours after I first notified Spartan).

We had planned to spend two nights at Fayetteville, so the replacement part actually arrived at Cummins almost 24 hours before we did. The Cummins folks moved us into their shop as soon as we arrived and in about 4 hours, the repair was complete.

Had we chosen to depart immediately, the sum total delay to our progress would have been about 4 hours. We did chose to spend the rest of that afternoon, evening and night at the Cummins facility (50 amp hookup) so my DW could enjoy a nearby outlet mall shopping experience. The Spartan/Cummins repair was covered under warranty (no out of pocket expense), the outlet mall experience was not.

Should you suffer a DEF head failure, it's entirely possible that your experience could be as pain free as mine.

All things considered, I couldn't have been happier with the way Spartan/Cummins handled the failure of my DEF head.

Take care,
Stu

[757driver]

Originally Posted by MRUSA14

The DEF head problems are not an issue on pre-2016 coaches.

Marc,

Tell that to my def head that decided that quantity indication was a variable that was constantly having a mind of its own. New head is working great………..so far.