The RV Owning Experience

By May 1999, the Ballards had owned their coach for six months and had put about 3,000 miles on it visiting five Thousand Trails parks in Texas and a couple private campgrounds.

Ballard said, "We love the RV experience that we have had an opportunity to enjoy. And, we are still pretty happy with the Country Coach and Buddy Gregg. But by then, we were not quite as euphoric as we were, say three months earlier. I think maybe I could best explain our feelings like this - If we had won the Lottery three months earlier, we would have made a bee line for Buddy Gregg's and bought another Country Coach. If we were to win the Lottery now, we would still give Buddy Gregg an opportunity to sell us a motorhome. I still have the highest regard of Cindy and Fred Green. And we might buy another Country Coach, but I would take a real long look at some of the other coaches that were on our short list.

"Two thing had caused our feelings to change - some minor problems with Buddy Gregg's Service department and the bad taste in our mouth with the Country Coach factory as a result of a windshield wiper modification. Buddy Gregg advertises that they have increased the size of their service facilities at the Lewisville location, I didn't see it before, but it certainly is large and nice. I've never counted the bays, but there must be 15 or 20, maybe more. Every time that I walk through the facility, it is full of coaches. But, I don't see many people working on the coaches. Maybe they are inside or under the coaches, and I certainly don't know how to run a motorhome service facility, but it just seems with that many coaches in a facility like that, you should see more work going on.

"The service people that work with us are some of the nicest people that I have ever met. Todd did our walk through and has taken care of most of our service. Scott has also helped us from time to time. And of course, I have had an opportunity to talk to Troy Moody. But in spite of what I believe is their best efforts, the work still does not get done on time and on our April 99 visit, some of the problems were not corrected even after a planned two day visit, turned into a 10 day stay.

"And there were a few things about Country Coach that didn't make us happy.

"We have the Cummins ISC 8.3 330 hp. I tow a 98 Honda Accord. When I hit the Rockies, I may wish for more, but around here the 330 hp has proven to be more than enough, for a 32,000 pound coach. We took the engine to San Antonio Cummins in response to a Cummins Campaign #9901 to replace a fuel line that had proven to be a problem. The folks at San Antonio took good care of us. The fuel line was never actually a problem for us, and apparently is no longer an issue. Our second visit to Cummins was in April 1999. The coach spent three days at Irvine Cummins because Buddy Gregg thought it had an oil leak. After three days, Cummins decided that the leak was hydraulic not oil and the coach was returned to Buddy Gregg. Two Hundred miles later, there is no question about it, we did have an oil leak.

"Also, we paid a thousand dollars to upgrade from the Freedom 10 to the Freedom 20 Inverter/Charger. The upgrade includes a second 8D battery. The system is delivered with nothing more than a simple on-off switch. The Freedom 20 has a lot of capabilities, but none of them are accessible without a remote control unit, in place of the simple on-off switch. The remote control unit cost less than a hundred dollars from Camping World. The difference in the price of the Freedom 10 an Freedom 20 is $279. The 8D battery cost $150 at my local auto parts store. The wiring changes to the coach are pretty minor. So we paid $1,000 for an upgrade that would have cost less than $500 at retail. It doesn't seem that it would have been too much to ask that the "required" monitor panel be included. And, there is no doubt in anyone's mind that the panel is REQUIRED!

"The second part of this problem is that after I bought the monitor panel, I had no place to put it. The cost of designing and building the systems panel to accommodate a unit that Country Coach knows the consumer is going to have to add, would be insignificant. In talks with the Country Coach factory, they have indicated that they will consider adding this panel in the future.

"The second thing that we thought was really dumb in the Country Coach design is the engine air intake location. With about 2,500 miles on our new air filter, we were showing that it was near the end of its useful life. The indicator was not wrong, the filter was full of dirt. We have never operated the coach off road or in dusty conditions for any length of time. In the winter in Texas, we don't have much bad weather, but we do get a little ice, and when we do, the road department does use a lot of salt and sand on the bridges. I noticed back in January 1998, that when we would drive over bridges at slow speed the fan would kick up a dust cloud. And, once we were in an RV park where we had to drive about a quarter of a mile on a dusty road. But other than that, I cannot think of any reason that we should have expected problems with an air filter, and I don't think that is reasonable. It would seem to me that any coach that would need an air filter replacement after less than 3,000 miles -- or less than 10,000 miles for that matter -- in normal driving conditions is very poorly designed. I believe that the American Eagle has the air intake near the roof. At $80 a pop for air filters, that sounds like a pretty good idea.

"If the electric water heater is on, the convection oven will not preheat in a reasonable length of time!

"I wanted to make some changes to the cabling in the video distribution panel. When I pulled the cover off I was shocked at the poor workmanship that I found in the 'out of sight' areas. For example, the video switch itself sits on a small shelf that is attached to the cover. The switch is held in place by two tie-wraps. It seems to me that this could be done in a more professional way.

"I wish that the power cable connection was in a secure place. The power cable is very vulnerable. Maybe I'm just paranoid, but the power cable is an expensive piece of equipment that we can't live without.

"There is some problem with the windshield wipers on the Country Coach Allure, and maybe several other lines from Country Coach. While our coach was at Buddy Gregg's for repairs, a new windshield wiper linkage modification kit was installed. When we got the coach back the windshield wipers cleared little more than half of the windshield. When I am in a normal driving position, the windshield wiper will clear from near the center of the windshield to about my left ear. It will clear the windshield so that I can see the lane that I am driving in, but little or nothing to my left. Besides being very distracting, I didn't believe that would meet the minimum standards of the US Department of Transportation, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. I started the process of checking on compliance of national standards.

"I talked with both Mr. Troy Moody at Buddy Gregg's and Mr. Pat Lillie at the Country Coach factory. I had two questions:

"1. Are my windshield wipers operating as intended by the factory? - I still don't have a clue.

"2. When they shortened the linkage and thus the travel of the wipers, what problem were they trying to fix? - I still don't have a clue on that either.

"My fear is, as a retired engineer, that the motors were not powerful enough to pull the correct linkage, so rather than replace the motors, they shortened the linkage. Whatever their reason for the modification, if my windshield wipers are operating as intended, the coach is unsafe on the highway and this is unacceptable!"continued