'99 HR Imperial or '00 Monaco Diplomat Not sure, help!

here's a nic clean one; https://chicago.craigslist.org/sox/rvs/d/2003-diesel-pusher-monaco/6642622965.html

Tom said:

The variety of Roadmaster chassis had more to do with weight capacity & size of motorhome, although the bigger/heavier coaches were usually higher end. (Gas v diesel, length, # axles, # air bags, engine, etc).

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A motorhome weight/chassis is directly related to 'Quality'.    as you go up in quality, you get real beveled glass solid Cherry cabinets and granite counter tops, floors etc.  and that stuff weighs a lot more.

A side mounted radiator is also a sign of a higher quality diesel pusher.     

  For me, My motorhome wish list includes a cast fiberglass roof, air leveling, a side radiator, aqua hot heating and nightstands on each side of the bed, washer/dryer and a good living room layout.

My motorhome wish list includes a cast fiberglass roof, air leveling, a side radiator, aqua hot heating and nightstands on each side of the bed, washer/dryer and a good living room layout.

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Our Windsor had all of those features except the washer/dryer which our newer, larger one has.

ArdraF

[quote author=sightseers] A motorhome weight/chassis is directly related to 'Quality'.[/quote]
There's an echo in here 

[quote author=sightseers]A side mounted radiator is also a sign of a higher quality diesel pusher.[/quote]

That's a generalization; Our 2003 Monaco Camelot has a side radiator, Cherry cabinets, nightstands, washer/dryer (combo), and a great (for us) floorplan. But the Camelot was a step below the Windsor, which was a step below the Dynasty, which was a step below the Executive.

Subsequently, Monaco changed their lineup; They removed the Windsor, replacing it with a much upgraded Camelot. The Executive was also replaced with a much upgraded Dynasty.

FWIW cabinets for all Monaco brands of that era were built in the cabinet shop of the acquired Safari plant in Harrisburg, OR. The Safari manufacturing bays were turned into a Monaco service center.

Have a similar question about two units I'm looking at...

- 1998 HR Imperial 40 foot single slide (75000 miles 8.3L Cummins 330 HP) - New Tires, Recent Service and in overall good shape

- 1999 Monaco Executive Tag Axle 42 foot no slides (120K miles 8.3L Cummins 450 HP) - Good Tires, Recent Service, Aqua Hot, Tag Axle and in overall good shape

Be great to here opinions

Thx Greg

Something to consider when looking at motorhomes with a Roadmaster chassis. Check to see if it has an RR4R. They have an issue with the trailing arms cracking. If I remember correctly, the years affected were 2002-2004.

Good point kdb. Here's info on which chassis and motorhome models were affected by the trailing arms issue: http://sourcerv.com/trailing_arm

Neither the Imperial nor the Diplomat were affected.

I think the only meaningful point here is that one cannot generalize based on a brand name, or even a model name across a multi-ear time period.  RV manufacturers shuffle product names and price points frequently, sometimes to capitalize on a popular model name, and sometimes just stirring the pot so that they have a "new" item to attract attention.  They also change or add brand & model names for franchise reasons, because dealers contract on the basis of the individual model name, not the whole company line-up. There might be a Monaco Camelot dealer on one street and a Monaco Windsor dealer on the next.  Winnebago and Fleetwood were particularly adroit at the franchise game, with sister-models that were near identical except for name (and franchise rights).

In the prior Monaco case, dealers usually sold all Monaco brands, and the distinction was brand loyalty from the pre-Monaco acquisitions. This was especially noticeable when Monaco decided to consolidate their rallies.

his was especially noticeable when Monaco decided to consolidate their rallies.

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To put it mildly!  At one of the first rallies after Monaco acquired Safari, they teamed each Safari tech with a Monaco tech to do on-site repair work.  I happened to be walking behind one of these Safari-Monaco duos and overheard the Safari tech say "Wow we thought our Safari rallies did a good job with the technicians making repairs, but ours were nothing compared to Monaco!"  That was during Monaco's best days and it was not unusual to have 50 technicians at a rally.  Jerry took one photo where the technicians filled the entire stage on the last night dinner gala.  It was quite a production!

ArdraF

In the prior Monaco case, dealers usually sold all Monaco brands,

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In my area (East Coast) the dealer sometimes opted for either the higher end models or the lower end, but there were at least two "full line" Monaco brand dealers I knew of.  HR models were usually sold at separate dealerships, and ditto for Safari & Beaver.  Things began to change as HR, Safari and Beaver gradually lost their identities several years after the mergers.  The same thing is now happening at Thor and Rev Group.

Tom said:

That's a generalization; Our 2003 Monaco Camelot has a side radiator, Cherry cabinets, nightstands, washer/dryer (combo), and a great (for us) floorplan. But the Camelot was a step below the Windsor, which was a step below the Dynasty, which was a step below the Executive.

Subsequently, Monaco changed their lineup; They removed the Windsor, replacing it with a much upgraded Camelot. The Executive was also replaced with a much upgraded Dynasty.

FWIW cabinets for all Monaco brands of that era were built in the cabinet shop of the acquired Safari plant in Harrisburg, OR. The Safari manufacturing bays were turned into a Monaco service center.

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they had very nice cabinets in that era, maybe they still do but, I thought they knew what they were doing. I have seen some 350k new coaches with drawer boxes that are bare wood, no clear. How do you wipe them down when the rag catches on the  raw wood?

Davis Cabinets in Junction City, OR used to make cabinets for the original Monaco coaches. But, when Monaco acquired the Safarai plant and on-site cabinet shop, they decided to make all cabinets for the various Monaco brands. That's when Davis Cabinets lost a big part of their business, and went into building custom cabinets and doing retrofits. They (Davis) made custom retro-fits for many forum members' coaches, irrespective of brand, including ours.

How do you wipe them down when the rag catches on the  raw wood?

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Good question.

The quality of the cabinet work is one of the distinguishing features of the better built (an more expensive) brands/models.  A lot of that "quality" is in the details, e.g. drawers, joinery, drawer slides, etc., but many people either never look beyond the skin or simply don't recognize the sometimes subtle differences.

The 'high end' Beaver Marquis was known for it's burlwood cabinet doors that folks raved over. They did look nice but, when we got to tour the cabinet shop, the burlwood was a veneer.

Thanks everyone for all your insight and words or wisdom.

We have decided to purchase the 2000 Monaco Diplomat.

It did checkout and look as good in person as in the pictures if not better.

The current owner and previous owners kept it in a covered or enclosed storage when not in use.

The current owner also owns a company that uses rather large diesel vehicles and has kept up with all the service and maintenance that would have been required by a diesel engine.

He is also doing the service next week prior to our picking it up.

We came to, in our opinion a reasonable price(less than asking) with the understanding that he do the this years needed service.

Tires were only 2 years old(I checked date code), inverter, transfer switch and 4 house batteries were replaced in May 2018 and chassis batteries were replaced last year.

The generator bay was almost clean enough to eat off of and the engine bay was just about as clean.

It has the RR8R air bag system and all were in very good condition with no cracks or signs of age.

It did have a little bit of play in the steering which I attributed to it not having any type of steering stabilizer installed(yet).

It was a very windy day when we test drove it and it was very stable and I did not feel any real sway at 65mph.

He did say the speedometer was off by 5mph to the high side, 65 was 60 etc.

Not sure what would cause that or how to re-calibrate. 

Any ideas would be helpful.

All in all we feel very good about the purchase and plan to drive from purchase to a campground for the night. 

The next purchase will be a tow dolly so we can tow the wife's 2017 Mini Clubman behind it.

We found a used one that we are planing to look at on our way home Sunday, it needs some refresh to the paint and wiring but is half the price of a new one.

Thanks all, will attach pic to signature line when I can get a good one.