Friday, July 15, 2011

We bought a Coach

Wow, we have looked at a lot of junky RVs in the last couple of months!!
 
We were looking primarily for a diesel rig but we decided to keep all of our options on the table when all the diesel coaches we looked at in our price range were either too small or too old.  It feels weird calling it a coach when our entire life we’ve always called them motorhomes or RVs. We have learned a lot about RVs in the last couple of months. It's obvious some people have much different ideas of "clean and in great shape" then we do. This RV (I guess I should start calling it a coach) was the cleanest of all we looked at. Check it out.  It's BEAUTIFUL !!
 
The time you spend looking for a coach is a lot like the time you spend looking for a sticks and bricks house. We traveled all over Minnesota and invested a lot of time. 
The slideouts on the coaches we looked at varied a lot.  The slideouts on the diesel coaches seemed smaller than the slideouts on the gas units. The small slideouts seemed stupid; the larger slideout are great!  2 slides are definitely better than 1.!!  The diesel coaches got better mileage, but within our price range we were able to purchase a newer gas coach with a lot more options, and 2 slideouts vs only 1 on most of diesels.

The condition of the tires was a pretty big deal considering a new set of tires is about $3,000. A lot of the coaches we looked at needed tires; it was nice to find a unit with new tires. The owner we bought this unit from was a professional truck driver and kept everything in tip top shape. They owned it since it was 2 years old and have always had an extended warranty on it and as a added bonus the warranty is still valid until September 1st of this year!!!   The warranty covers almost everything.  In addition, the previous owner had it painted in December 2010, knowing he would never recoup the money he put into having it painted, but still wanted to paint the coach and was able to afford it so he just got it done. I think it was because his brother had a newer coach and they traveled together a lot and he wanted his coach to look as nice as his brothers coach .


We chose a 2001 Dolphin By National RV 36 foot Class A.























Here is a list of some of the features.

Triton V-10 with 57,000 miles,
New full body paint in December 2010 (2009 paint scheme)
2 slide outs, 1 in main living area & 1 in bedroom
Extended warranty until September 2011
Pull out queen size hide-a-bed
New transmission

New tires, New shocks
New refrigerator, New power converter
Automatic levelers
Washer / Dryer combo
Porcelain toilet















3 comments:

  1. Thank you for the great pictures. Love the window in the kitchen and the mirrors. Neat place to put the US map.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Love it, we have a dolphin too, older a '97, 36', one slide, 36000 miles, we looked at this one first, then went all over looking at others, but ended up buying the first one we looked at, the Dolphin! I love dolphins and this one had 3 dolphins on the side, love at first site and the best deal we could find with the money we had to work with. Our inside looks almost exactly like yours, has the table and chairs instead of the booth, sofa bed, we only have one large slide in the living room, we have a washer/dryer combo, but we ended up taking it out for now because it needs repair, even tho it looks like it was never used, but we tried it and it won't drain, also the resort we are going to has free laundromat facilities for us! I also like where they put your US map, we just bought one and was trying to figure out where to put it! We had to have the transmission repaired, a tune-up, roof coated, a ceiling exalt fan repaired, a air conditioner vent top replaced, cab airconditioner fixed, brakes checked, tires are like new and a few minor things done, cost us almost $4000, but as my husband said "I ain't living this town without everything in perfect condition!" We feel confident now! I love my Dolphin more then any home I ever owned, it means freedom to me, I call it my freedom bus, lol, and also dolphins are so carefree and happy and that is what we want to be! Your new home is beautiful!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Don't worry about calling it a "coach". That term generally is reserved for converted motor coaches, aka buses.

    ReplyDelete