Future Service for Country Coach

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We have had to deal with Prevost and they have been great. We are lucky they have a large service center in Ft. Worth which is about 3 hours from our home in Austin. We had an 06 Liberty Prevost before I got the bug for the 4 slides that the Magna offered. On the Liberty while on a trip home from Louisianna we had a problem and they sent out a huge truck and trailer to take the coach to Ft. Worth. I cannot say enough good things about Prevost.
 
DR,

We had 17 Prevost tour buses where I used to work. As long as you are dealing with Prevost facilities in the U.S. you'll be alright.

As a parts manager, I had to sometimes deal with Prevost at their home office in Quebec. Depending on who answered the phone determined whether I got any service. Sometimes I had to call their service center in Los Angles and have them get what I needed. My contact in LA said that they sometimes had problems too and they are a Prevost service center. He said he would just hangup and keep calling until he got someone that would help him.
 
That is why I asked.  I knew of the problems you had as well as others.  I also know first hand just how hard it can be to get help from Quebec.
 
I heard that before from tour guys as well! We have not had to deal with Canada so I guess we are lucky. We dealt with Prevost in Chicago and Ft. Worth and both had been great to deal with.  On another note I read that Wells Fargo is trying to collect on the assets pledged by Country Coach and that the utilities are being turned off so I am guessing it is pretty much over! What a shame!
 
The employees were given access to the facilities last week to gather their tools and personal belongings.  CC owes Wells Fargo a few million, the note/payment is due/past due and WF wants their money; as I understand the situation the property was collateral for the load loan.
 
Wells Fargo had a 4th qtr loss in the "B" column. They have shareholders that need all the cash infusion possible to keep them going through this crisis.
 
We bought a used CC last May. We have never had any problem with getting service repairs done and have never used CC... other than a phone call or two. But we had no warranty from CC either.

My opinion is, CC is such a well-built unit (for the most part) that I would buy another used unit right now - even knowing what we know right now. As long as you are not trying  to deal with warranty work you should be fine. The service centers that know about CC will still know about them, even if CC fails.
 
I disagree with the last post about CC. The problem is they have their own chassis and suspension! On the 08 Magna we had non-stop front-end problems that no one could seem to fix! We could not make a single trip without airbag fasteners breaking and causing the coach to to fall and each time it would spend a month or so back in the shop and as usual would fail again shortly after picking it up. BTW we know of at least a few others in the same boat with the same problems If it was on a sparton, Freightliner or another 3rd party chassis then I would agree but being it is a proprietary chassis I under no circumstance would risk it.  Just my personal opinion
 
Granted they have a custom chassis, but I doubt many parts, if any, are special for them.  Their production volume would not be large enough for that.  What they most likely did was to purchase standard parts, that most chassis builders also use, and mount them in a position or manor that suite their design specs.  Finding repair parts can be done, but you won't have the factory to fall back upon. It will become a paper chase to find the suitable part.  That slows you down, but many garages will know the parts and have alternate sources to get them.  I would weight that in a decision to purchase such a vehicle, but it may not stop a purchase.  If I already have one, I'd plan on more preventative maintenance to minimize down time on the road.  We have a similar situation with our 1989 on a John Deere Chassis, extra preventative maintenance has paid off.
 
But your John Deere Chassis isn't a complete orphan.  John Deer was bought by Oshkosh which in turn bought by Freightliner.  Some of the folks that were at JD and Oshkosh were also picked up by Freightliner.
 
Granted, our chassis is not a total orphan.  Many years back I spoke with a RV factory guy & he described what I tried to convey about how the RV application is a grouping of existing parts, not of custom parts.  For our chassis, only once have we had to go back to Freightliner for parts.  We needed new from brake hoses.  Since then I've found them other places.  The point being is that the parts used in RVs are most likely used for other vehicles too.  Finding those equivalent parts becomes a kind of hide & go seek game, but you can find them.  i.e.; when plan 'A' fails, go for plan 'B'....
 
Yes, a lot of parts of the chassis are off the shelf, but the problem is how they fit and work together that would require factory knowledge. And for a new coach, you won't have any factory help for misfits or adjustments like you would have if the coach were on a Freightliner or Spartan chassis.

If CC were to close, I am sure that a cottage industry of CC mechanics/service people would spring up to service the coaches out there like has happened with Travel Supreme, so the overall effect may not be too bad.
 
There are also a lot of smaller components that are in fact custom to the chassis. Things like radiator overflow tanks, air intake plenums, fan housings, and exhaust tubing are molded/stamped, cast etc. to the specs of the particular chassis, whether it be a CC Dynomax, Freightline, Roadmaster or Spartan. And chassis factories buy hoses, connectors and wiring in bulk to build with, but those same sizes and types may not be available at local parts supply houses. It is of little value to know you can get a replacement hose from a hose supply factory if the minimum order is a 1000 foot spool.

Big service centers like Lazy Day RV in Florida will sometimes buy an item in bulk so they can provide cut-to-fit sections for their customers. They can do that because they get enough requests over the course of a year or two to recoup their investment. Small shops usually cannot afford to do that.
 
Actually there are several parts on the chassis that is custom to CC in particular steering rods and shock dampers etc. That was part of the problem we had was that they did not make enough and some that had been made had issues. When we found there was a problem we had to wait almost 4 weeks while they had them machined which still never fixed the problem. The coach would not stay on the road as wandered excessively at freeway speeds and the driver would get wore out from having to manhandle it. The sad thing was many years ago we had a CC Concept that was one of the best coaches we ever owned but the new 08 Magna was completely different. You could not use it but it was sure pretty to look at!! 
 
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