Steven, all excellent points, of course. Your respected reputation in these forums is well known and well earned, and I promise you nothing was taken personally. Quite the opposite, actually; I very much appreciate the opportunity to have frank discussions like this as a learning opportunity.
Quote: The perfect floor plan in a rig that has an engine that's too small to get it from point A to point B efficiently, safely and reliably isn't even going to make it onto my list.
Response: While this makes 100% perfect sense and those of us that have been around long enough can point to some coaches made in the 1970’s and even the early 80’s that were unsafe due to engines of insufficient size, that problem has been laid to rest. The reality is modern day coach manufacturers all use a ratio of HP to GCWR so no coach is unsafe or has an engine breaking down early due to a mismatching of HP to weight. Therefore worrying about the engine size or Chassis at the outset makes no sense unless you have some unusual requirements, like needing to tow 12,000 lbs.
First, I wasn't referring to anything older than 2000, which is the line I've drawn in the sand of my own research. Including anything much older than that in this discussion is simply too many apples and oranges to make much sense out of. I know I didn't come right out and say that, but I just assumed everyone could read my mind. What... you mean you
can't?
Further, when I said "efficiently, safely and reliably" I wasn't referring to catastrophic break downs or blatant safety violations, but rather the differential between the working capacity of different sized engines. For example: If you've got two 40' motorhomes that weigh approximately the same and one has a 350 in it and the other a 450 in it, the 350 is likely to run at a higher percentage of its working capacity that the 450. Granted, this is just a baseline comparison that doesn't take anything like tuning or torque into consideration, but I think it's a valid starting point for evaluation purposes. Can the 350 do the job? Of course, and I'd happily buy one if that was the only option in the perfect rig for me. But I would
rather run a little bigger engine that might leave me some headroom in the powerband when running up a hill, for instance - if given a choice between the two.
Personally, I'm
thrilled to read that this isn't nearly as big a deal as it's often made out to be, but that doesn't mean it isn't at least a small deal worthy of consideration.
Quote: Next, I think considering specific brand names is very important.
Response: I understand where you went with your comment and we might be on the same page but let me be clear. ALL coach manufacturers have had lemons and ALL (even those crappy brands) have had some really stellar coaches (the crappy brands just have less of those). It’s also important to realize that sometimes Brand X’s Model Line A just plain sucks while their Model line B is stellar. So it’s important to do your research on the specific year and model you are looking at.
Yes, of course, all manufacturers have their 'problem children' - we are definitely on the same page with that. But to clarify my point: If Brand A has an excellent reputation across 80% of their product line, and Brand B has an excellent reputation for only 20% of theirs, it's really just a matter of "why would I bother?" It's unlikely I will find anything in that 20% that's going to be
so much better than anything in the 80% to make it worth my time. I'm not going to spend precious time and resources searching through a basket full of rotten apples to find the (
hopefully) good one when I can simply walk across the road into the orchard and pick from almost any tree I want.
I closing, I do owe an apology for not making my chassis/engine point clear: I wasn't referring to different brands of chassis. I agree completely that all three manufacturers you mentioned make an excellent product. I was referring only to the different lengths, capacities and configurations of chassis and their respective relationships to specific floor plans. This was a glaring oversight on my part, and I apologize for the confusion.
I hope we can share s'mores over an open fire sitting comfortably between our two rigs one day
Linear Mode
