How to buy a Top of the Line Prevost Class A RV - things I would look for

hey guys so i wanted to do a video on how i would buy a prevost more than how to uh so disclaimer in there um this is what i know based on owning this thing for a little over a year there's a lot of other people out there that know a lot more than me but i thought i'd share with you get asked a lot of questions so this for people that don't know this is a prevost this is an h3 45 and so h is the model and so it's fiberglass body three is the axles so one two three so i got the drive axle and the tag axle and 45 is the length and i think there's some h3 40s i also think there's x xl 2 3 i don't know the x's as much as this and then also there's vip the guy a viewer um he explained to me the vip they take the prevos frame and it's the same bus the 54 seat bus except they extend the ceiling up so you've got more height for the converters and so just at a high level this is a prevo h345 vip so this is a year 2000. they haven't changed that much front cap has they've removed that center piece and in reading some facebook posts and things about these buses i guess just taking out that piece and sticking the glass in there this front cap wasn't designed for it and you're going to have a lot of problems with it so that's why you can get it done for cheap but it's not done right the other thing i wanted to show real quick a prevost is stainless steel i haven't done anything with this this is 22 years old and it's stainless steel and aluminum and so that's the bones of this bus as you're getting and there's more aluminum inside of there so these these things are tanks and it's got independent suspension on the frame it's got disc brakes and i'll show you the uh the back so what i'll do is just try to show you a prevost so kind of look back past the colors in the converter so that's one thing i wanted to show you is it's a prevost h345 h model 3 axles 45 foot with the extended roof and american coach got that bones and then they converted it and painted it so part of what i'm wanting to show you is this is not like a ladder frame school bus this is a 54 seat department of transportation safety ratings on it on the frame there's also i wanted to show you it on an h3 model or on an h model this is going to be a prevo bay and so this is the it's got four start batteries for 24 volt um it's got a veiner system for it uh it's got a charger in there so this is all prevost so no before the conversion that's what i'm trying to show you here and explain this is going to be on every bus it might be the converter may have configured it a little bit different but it should be standard on a prevos this is more prevos what i call a prevo bay any 2000 probably 98 to oh six maybe somewhere in there they're all going to be the same it's the h model um got the engine so this is a 12.7 liter uh detroit diesel series 60 engine so all the stuff in here is prevo before the converter gets it so it's a rolling chassis i don't think there's much in here that is a converter changed they may be able to order it with a little bit of different alternator configuration so this one has a 200 amp 24 volt alternator on it so this is more prey though this is prevost um this is also prevost here so this is a prevo bay this is more fuses inside of here so that says converter regulator so i don't even know what that is but uh a lot of this stuff this comes from the prevost factory as part of the conversion so this is added on by the converter but we've got the rolling chassis in the frame is all prevos this is another prevo bay 2. so all of this is most of it is uh prevost so this is going to be standard on a lot of on a lot of the h models prevo h model no matter what converter gets it so inside of here is a lot of the air and so that you've got your brake system your air ride system and then your auxiliary air and so that's an air compressor in here to help the engine also has a engine driven air pump all right so i don't know if you can see it that's my it's a twin cylinder engine driven air compressor and so that helps with the suspension and the brakes so i'm still showing you just prevo so here's more air stuff this is just prevo it's an option from the factory but this is back here in this back bay i've got the uh backup camera and from a switch in the dash this switches this uh um what they call this norgen valve and then this these two air lines go up and it opens and closes the hood you've got power steering you've got fuel filter all of this stuff is is prevo more prevo related is the air airbags so the bus it has two large airbags up front it's got four on the drive axle and it's got two on the tag and so in the dash and i can show you real quick up front again this is all prevos right up here you have your parking brake so you pull this up if i were to push this down um i don't have it turned on so it won't release the parking brakes but that's part of the air brakes this switch if you flick it um it lifts the back tag axle up and again this is still prevo not american coach and so what happens is back in here the system it uh dumps the air in the bag and then it lifts the axle up in the air what i read is there's an option and so one option is it just dumps the air so that and i think there's about 15 000 pounds of pressure on that axle i got it weighed um it'll dump the air so that you can turn the coach easier and so some some other things uh should try to show you the air bag in here so there's one airbag there's another airbag uh transmission is back in here kind of sits reverse here's another airbag and you can see some of the stainless steel prevo frame inside of here so this is all still prevos the other component mine has a transmission retarder so this is prevo so you flick the switch this way and it's it's like i can't describe it other than like a tesla um and so if you let off your foot in a tesla the electric motors provide regenerative braking so it's kind of got that that pull to it in this this will increase resistance to stop the coach without putting the brakes on it the more that you put it in here and so one thing you have to watch is the more pressure i usually put about one two three clicks in sometimes four and it goes all the way down but the more you put in there and the more resistance the transmission provides to the bus to slow it down it makes a lot of heat and the transmission is tied into the engine there's a transmission cooler and it'll make the heat go up and you can scorch your uh your transmission heat by doing that so you've got to watch it so some people don't like these i like it up here you can select your transmission to go down like if you're gonna go down a huge heel because this coach is fifty thousand pounds i put in about three of these and go down to fourth gear and the engine rpm i think the never exceed is like 2200 rpm but if you keep it at like 1600 rpm put in like three notches of this go down to fourth gear you can go down almost any grade you want and it'll kind of hold it the other option that you'll see on coaches is in the engine air brake and i don't i don't have one and i haven't seen it so i don't know what it's set up so that's one option to look for is does it have a transmission retarder or does it use an engine brake and again this is all just prevo at this point the other thing on the bus they call it level low and so this says left front and right and so you've got a switch here where you can increase the air and decrease the air and so on a prevost frame if you come to a campsite or to park and right now you can't see it but this side of the driveway is higher than that side and you know over 45 feet it adds up and so you can think of a prevost as kind of a tripod you've got you can control and dump the air on the right side on the left side and then just the front and so with that level low you can select between left right in front and you can adjust and pump up the air that's all the leveling that you have there's a computer in here and this is getting into probably american coach this hwh computerized leveling it's supposed to do uh that manual configuration for you but uh i haven't tried it yet so more on the prevos side and i'm just kind of talking about the air so you've got air brakes and you've got eight airbags for your suspension you've got your engine your stainless steel and aluminum frame it's not steel so this is 22 years old and it looks like it rolled off the factory um this is like a huge vault door so this door probably weighs i don't two three hundred pounds and it doesn't shut like a like a little wooden door this is like a vault door and i think the x model i think they have air cylinders that even pull this shut and tighten it this h model doesn't have that so kind of going all over the place but you know we've got air when i talk about auxiliary air there's that air compressor up front and so this seat is air ride so that runs off the auxiliary air there's also this guy right here if i had uh i've got air in it this will with it it's got an air cylinder in it that will shoot across and come across to here so that you don't have this big drop so that's air also there's some air for the uh the rear camera up there so that's air as well and so this is mixing into converter the other component that's on my auxiliary air is my toilet i can show you inside of here give me a minute turn on the lights inside of here you guys can go back and see my other videos i just love this toilet but uh it's air and water so i need i'm probably gonna get it wrong i think i need like 50 pounds of air at least and like 40 pounds of water pressure to make it work so that's on my auxiliary air as well so those are items that run off of the air there's some different converters they use pocket doors that are air driven uh this back bed it'll lift up um it's just on a kind of a hydraulic shock but there's some where you can press a button all that stuff's neat but it wears out and so i'm not saying it's bad to have it i guess i'm just saying be aware there's auxiliary air and one thing to look for so up here in the dash there are the two air tanks so this is for the braking system and in the rest of the stuff this is the auxiliary air it's got the a that's for suspension and all the other components so if you go to look at a coach one thing i would do is have them uh air up the coach and right now i've got the air compressor on and you can see that it's not airing these up the brakes only run off of the engine and so i would start everything up and then turn it off and see how long it lasts because if this is running down you've got a big leak somewhere and one thing i've found is i i didn't know it because i couldn't hear it i do have a leak when my rear door is shut not open so if i open it up it holds there and if i shut it i've got a leak but because it's sealed so where well these things are sealed and fiberglass and thick and insulated i can't hear the damn thing leak and so not until i took it apart did i know when it's shut i've got a leak when it's open i don't oh the other thing with uh auxiliary air is uh airbags and so i've got it pumped up right now but these airbags provide tension to these belts and there's also this kind of mixes in with the converter there's just stuff everywhere on these coaches uh we've got airbags on the generator right here and so these airbags are auxiliary air as well and i had some issues with my inverters and with that air compressor in some components and so i lost a bunch of air so i couldn't run my toilet and i couldn't turn my generator on because i couldn't have the air and so what i did was i put me in an auxiliary system so i've got an auxiliary tank an industrial grade 24 volt air compressor and then i've got a whole bunch of air dryers and so what i do because i didn't know i had the leak i couldn't find the leak for the bigger system but it's in my the piston for the door um i my front air compressor it would run all the time because when you pull in somewhere to run my toilet or my generator i've got to have these i've got to have air in it and so i was leaking air in the back and this air compressor was cycling about every 20 minutes because i was losing that much air so and some other things so what i've done is i've isolated it so if i turn this switch these bags in my toilet are run off this system i've isolated it and so this doesn't i think this cycles once every day maybe there's a little leak in it somewhere i can't find it but once a day's a lot better than once every 20 minutes um the other thing that this does for me is if my inverters or my 120 volt air compressor goes out i've got a backup that's on 24 volt and this can provide the auxiliary air for everything another thing to note is that the auxiliary air will be the engine the bus engine driven air compressor fills up the auxiliary air but not until it hits like 90 pounds something like that so all that to say that's kind of a that's what a prevost is i've got the air um kind of the components that belong to the prevost what i would look for um just on the on the prevost side i'd start it up turn on the air compressor and then turn everything off and see how long it lasts now if there's a leak it doesn't mean the bus is bad it just means there's a leak and so just trying to explain you know if i were going to look at a bus i'd start it air it up turn everything off and see if it holds if everything holds there's no leaks if it leaks really bad you know it's something that depending on how bad it leaks it might be fine or it's something that you're just gonna have to try to fix there's miles of air hoses fittings um norgen valves so it's not you know if you could get it down to cycling once every two or three hours you know probably good um i'd leave it otherwise you're gonna spend you know it's like it's easy to get to the first 95 percent that last five percent you know you're gonna it's gonna take you to your grave to fix it so just one thing to look for so another thing to look for are tires so these are these are big dudes so this is a 315 80 22 and a half so this is by michelin the tire alone is right around a grand and i don't even know what it costs to take it off and put it on but they're all stamped see if i can find it here it's not really hidden there it is so dot so this right here it's i think march 4th or at any rate the last two numbers is the the year so that's your date stamp so these are 17s so they're five years old and so people say to replace them you know between five and six maybe seven years old the problem is is that these commercial tires they don't put uv inhibitors in it so you could let it the tire could be brand new but if it's you know six years old don't put it on your coach and you know if you've got eight tires and just the tires are a thousand a piece you're looking at eight grand in tires you know if it's just been sitting so that's another another thing to be aware of i keep this out of the sun and so i'm wanting to get through this year and i'll probably change these tires next year but that's just another thing to consider is the uh the year of the tires some people say to run a three i think it's a 335 but you've got to get another rim and so that's that's a huge investment i don't know what the rims are at grand so then you're two so then you're four thousand dollars to change it to a 335 and i'll tell you what i mean this thing rides on on air you're splitting hairs it's your money you can do what you want to do but if somebody has a 315 versus a 335 i mean go drive them and you know if you can't live without it then you can change it just because you want a 335 and it has a 315 on it doesn't mean it's a bad bus that's what privo sells it from but that's just another thing to be aware of so i'm kind of getting into american coach so again i'm kind of blurring the line here from prevost to american coach so american coach bought this frame the vip chassis from prevost and then they build out the inside build out the bays and then painted it put the awning on it things like that so one thing i wanted to talk about are the batteries so this coach unlike you call them sticks and staples it's kind of mean but like on the other brands this if you look at this coach as a whole we've got the inverter system and the batteries for the coach so the batteries for that are right here the prevost frame that starts the engine is right here so i've got four commercial batteries in here at a 24 volt system to start it so i've got a pack of four and then i've got these batteries right here which is for the inverter system to run the coach beyond that there's another battery in here that's to start the generator and so my generator battery it died last year so i had to replace it so it's just one the coach batteries the prevo batteries it was my fault um it was dated 12 17 so the batteries were what five years old i i left something on and it's got a 50 watt maintainer i ran them down and so i kind of ruined them and so i just replaced them and so i changed them like for like and then these coaches and this is my american coach specific so the coach batteries this is just mine they could be anything marathon or vanitary i think it is or whoever the converter is dreams of but my coach has let's see if i can get it in here they have six so i have one two three four five six see if i can get a picture in here 8d 12 volt batteries and so they're 245 amp uh 12 volt batteries so that's about 12 days it's like 18 000 watts of power but these are agm so you got to go about half of that so they're about 9 000 so i have 9000 watts of battery at 24 volt going to my inverters and so i guess all that to say if you're looking at a coach know that there's three sets of batteries you've got your coach batteries that run the inverters you've got your prevo start batteries that run the engine and then you've got a generator battery so you could get a coach and you need to replace all of that i think the 8d batteries are about 600 a piece so that's 3 600 of coach batteries i think i paid 200 a piece so that's 800 of prevo batteries and then that guy for the generator is think was like two hundred dollars so you know there's four thousand dollars worth of batteries eight thousand dollars worth of tires if it was sitting right and it went bad so just something to look for so my coach uh it had a trace inverter system which i think is pretty standard on a prevo converted coach you know if you go to the sticks and staples you might get like a 2000 watt inverter so this one and i'll show you inside i have two ac panels in here so just like in your home uh crap there we go so just like in your house i've got two panels so i've calling this my top panel so this top panel inverter one and bottom panel inverter two so i've got two panels in here and so each panel has two air conditioners on it so i've got air conditioner one an air conditioner two air conditioner three and four so i've got four air conditioners on here and that's kind of converter specific as well because what i can do is show you out here there's just a lot on these things it's not that big a deal there's just a lot so i think you can see them up there i've got one two three four four air conditioners on here and so two air conditioners go to one panel and the other two go to the other panel and the way i've got mine set up is each panel so this 3000 watt inverter runs the top and this 3000 watt inverter runs the bottom so i can run on batteries on my 9000 watts of batteries i can run 3000 watt on one panel and 3 000 on another so you've kind of just got to do your own load shedding when i've got it plugged in they're passed through and so i've got 50 amp there's 100 amp power coming in here so 50 amps on each leg so i've got 50 amps of pass through going to the top and 50 amps of pass through going on the bottom so when you get a coach you might just look at the inverters i would definitely make sure they work and try to load them out so unplug it and then run it off of the inverters most of them will probably have two trace inverters and they've got probably have a panel inside so that you can run it but i would definitely unplug your coach and run it off of it and then also ask the year of these batteries i don't really know how you can test the batteries to see how good they are or not i mean other than just trying to i think on some of the other coaches you know if you go back to 2000 or 2002 or five or six i don't think they tracked that much so i don't think you can get some real good data on it it's just you've got to go out and use it and see how long it'd go for but uh my inverters that were in here i one of them got toasted so i gutted it and i rewired this and i kind of went a little bit over the top in that i was at a park and the inverters went out and i couldn't run the coach but i had 50 amp power and so i couldn't run the power because they're passed through so the power goes through the inverters to the coach and so what i've done is i've wired me in three panels so i've got panel here here and here and so this is my incoming power whether it be from shore or the generator and that goes to my inverters my inverters then can take that shore power and pass it through so it goes up and it passes through and this goes to the panels inside the coach so i can whether i'm plugged in or running the generator it'll pass through and then if i unplug it these um the technology in it they'll switch quick enough that you can't even see it it will run off of the batteries and run 3000 watt to my panels and so what i've done is if i turn these off and let's say there's something wrong with this system the batteries or my inverters what i have the ability to do is to switch these off bypass it and i can run the generator or the shore directly to my panels because what i didn't like was the coach worked but the inverters didn't so i couldn't run anything couldn't do anything at all the generator worked fine i couldn't run the coach i had shore power i couldn't run the coach now i i can do anything i want it's kind of like my air system i've got a backup so if my 24 volt goes out i can run i can plug in my air compressor and still run it up the other thing i've done is if i go into bypass i've got another victron charger that will keep my house batteries topped off so i know that's kind of high level but check your inverters make sure they work and kind of go through that kind of another over the top thing i've done i've got a 12 volt 24 volt area to land wires to so i've got my air pump in there and then i've got this system here it runs off the battery and it monitors my temperature and gps location and it sends it out via 3g so i can get i know where the coach is at all times so if somebody stole it as long as they didn't take that out i'd know exactly where it is in real time and it also tell me temperature and the voltage of the batteries so the other thing to look for on your coaches kind of going all over the place here but on this one because i have four rooftop errors and that's all i have i don't have over the road air i'll get to that later i've got this entire bay that's open and these bays are huge so part of this h model it's the floor is right here so this is all open and so you can kind of see there's a ladder frame in here but these are it's almost four feet by four feet by eight foot deep and these both pull out and so i had a 35 foot super c and i had everything in here scattered around the whole coach and i put it all in here and i've got extra room so we use uh we use this one we fill it up with shoes you get four people and you put three or four pair of shoes in bad's up it's a first world problem i guess um the other one so this bay had a very old crt tv in a cabinet and the cabinet took up most of the room in there and so i ended up buying i took all that out and i bought i tried to get these but they don't make them anymore so i bought me another tray and so what i've done and i used to have the tv over here but i moved it over to this side i've got my tv here and then i put a sound bar on it and i've got an arm and so i can move this guy out of the way i can move it there for sun for looks but then i can access i haven't even used it yet but i've got a fridge and a freezer and so like i was saying i can run i can run this stuff forever i got 9000 watts of power if it's unplugged and i've got unlimited if i'm running down the road or plugged in so i've got me a fridge here and then my tv system and the other thing i've done is if i want to i can pull this guy out and then i didn't finish the front i just put carpet all around it i don't know if i want to put doors on there or not i kind of like it open so i might just build me a frame around there but i've got a pellet grill on here and so i can use my pellet grill and one thing i found is that if i open it up it hits my fridge so i put this on a pull out so i can pull i can pull this out of the way but so i've got a pellet grill storage tv sound bar and a fridge this is only six feet long i still have room here and this is an eight foot bay so i kind of this is my back of house so i've just got fluids airline stuff toilet paper paper towels i put all my tools in over there and i still have plenty of room and i still have storage space here i don't even know what to put here i want to try to clean up this electrical but i just put this together and i think it turned out pretty good you can push this inside everything that's real nice so i can watch tv i've got a sound bar and a sub refrigerator out here so i can put meat and popsicles for the kids and do my grill have a beer if i wanted to so this configuration is only on my bus so every coach is custom they're one-off there's no other prevost american coach like this in the world this is one off there was a surgeon happen to be in indiana he custom built this and so again this is american coach marathon's a big name they go a lot more elegant than this but this is my coach so that's one thing to look for is just your bays because some of them you don't get much room this one basically this bay and this bay was open and this is my electrical that's my batteries and then that's plumbing i'll show you that next so talking more about these bays um so this is their pass through so this is the other end of the front two base this is my generator bay uh so one thing i was showing you in here most of the converters this is it's a three cylinder turbo diesel uh generator 20 000 watts of power and so i mean i can't even pull that through my panels but the thing runs really nice these could be pla this could be placed anywhere in the coach but just look for it i'm getting ready to change the oil fuel filter and air filter in it myself because i like to do that stuff but they run run really well but i would suggest starting it up and testing it out so i would definitely put start it up and run it make sure that your inverters run off of it your coach and then test everything put a load on it make sure that generator works this bay right here most of them they'll have like an aqua hot system and for people that don't know what they are it's basically a hydronic and water heating system and so the bus itself it passes through the hydronic so you can preheat your engine with your aqua hot which means when you're running down the road the engine will heat your aqua hot so you can take a hot shower or run your hydronic heaters which i'll show you in a minute inside the coach just by running down the road you don't have to turn this on but then this aqua hot system it's got a electric element inside and so that runs off 12 or 120 volt to heat the water and then there's a it's almost the jet engine is not the right term but it's a it's a pump with a fuel nozzle and it uses the diesel fuel the generator uses diesel fuel too and so it heats that system so you can heat heat your hot water and your hydronic hot water and i guess those are like 10 grand a piece but these systems are kind of finicky the electric elements can burn out and the diesel um the diesel getting bit by bugs the diesel heater component of it's kind of finicky too there's a nozzle in it that costs like eight dollars and i just replace it every year but uh you need to make sure that's serviced and it works otherwise it's another component that just drives you crazy but you can pay to get this serviced annually or if you know what you're doing there's uh manuals this thick you can kind of go through it i replace the nozzle clean everything out make sure everything's in good running order myself make sure that the fluids are topped off and there's a fuel filter in the back too for the burner i just change all of that and do it myself the other is this is my plumbing bay so back in here you can probably see it there's a i think it's 160 gallon water and then i've got 80 gray and 80 black this is just my coach some of these bays by marathon you open this bay up and it is like a work of art you could take a picture of it and frame it it looks so pretty this one's more utilitarian i like it because i can see it and it's simple i can access it and so it's just another thing to be aware of it's hidden in here somewhere but you know make sure you can change your water filter it's got a pressure tank in it i've got two water pumps in there so i would definitely you know if you're looking at a coach make sure that the water runs most of them are probably going to have two pumps make sure you don't have any leaks in it the other thing with these bays and again this is just american coach i've got a i labeled it there's a right up in there that comes off the aqua hot so i can heat this bay and these are heavy insulated doors i can ins or heat this bay off the aqua hot and i had to replace it but there's an electric heater as well so you can keep this bay heated and so i've i've asked how do you winterize a prevos and they say take it to florida i would probably say that's good advice on most of them i've this one is simpler and i kind of know what i'm doing so i can winterize this but between your aqua hot your fridge you wash your dryer your pumps your water filter this one's got a water softener on it if you don't know what you're doing you're going to break something it'll freeze but if you can dig into it and you're comfortable with it then you've got a chance of winterizing it but uh driving it to florida or keeping it in heated storage is probably a good idea too the other thing converter specific so this is my cord to plug it in they stuck it here could be anywhere in the bus and then they wire it in somewhere but this just happens to be where mine is it's fine but i've got to reach inside this bay back up in there first world problems but it's kind of difficult to reach that switch and help guide that inside but uh pick your battles i guess so kind of blurring the lines here going into converter uh our awnings the awnings are probably different on every bus uh this one i've got a manual awning here a manual awning here and uh got another manual awning up top and i've got this girard awning right here so the gerard awning is awesome it's got a remote control for it it's got a wind sensor on top that i just replaced because i knocked it off sits right up there 13 foot six inches you hit a lot of trees unfortunately and it broke it off but um all that to say i think a girard awning that goes this whole length they're like 30 to 60 thousand dollars what i've heard so you want to take care of those things this one this is converter specific so this is american coach a lot of them they make this front cap and they make it real sexy so that it kind of blends in you don't even see it it's one thing with the bus so this one just kind of sets there i'm okay with it because it's easy to fix this one here i've got a uh aluminum pole and so i stick it in there and i pull it out and put it in so i've got to manually do that um some of the older coaches they have that some of the marathons it's all electric everywhere so you just pull into wherever you're going hit a button they all come out so kind of kind of watch out for those not saying one's any better than the other the manual it's uh yet to come out and pull it out but there's no electric to go bad and the power ones if they go bad it's a lot of money to replace them they're really nice but it's a lot of money another thing i'd look for on the coaches and this is more it's kind of pravo side it's 22 years old so i'm starting to get some cracking in here you can see i've got a little bit of water in there so those panes have have split apart that glass is uh fifteen hundred dollars um still works but you know it's starting to get a little bit of cracking um that delaminated somewhere and i got it's probably just some moisture in there but just uh you know i'd look at all of your seals doesn't mean the coach is bad it just means that you might have some maintenance for it so coming inside so this is just my coach i like um i've got ceramic tile floor um corian countertops i've got lights everywhere um you know those are kind of cool uh i these aren't these are manual blinds right here some of them are electric uh some of them have tons of stuff in it these i've got a blind here here here and there and they're all operated by a switch so you could have anything in here i liked the two couches a lot of them have just one couch right here and then they'll have like a chair we can have both the kids sleep here prevos really made for two people so these i think they say entertain eight uh feed four sleep two um it's probably accurate uh we make it work for um the four of us uh the other inside of here you're going to get a mix of outdated and lack of parts for lights so just see what works i've changed a couple of the outlets out so that i could have usb chargers and again everything in the coach works all the time so you can take a shower run the air conditioners the fridge freezers tvs everything everything works all the time it's not like you unplug and you just get one outlet now that's the way i have this coach and i think probably most of the coaches are but just just know these things are freaking tanks i can run the um make a cup of coffee take a shower have the fridge go on and do the microwave and the cooktop going down the road i can do it not plugged in with the generator on without it uh my 9 000 watts of batteries i can run the air conditioners without anything won't probably only last a couple hours but then this is my victron so i have it set up so i can see the grid so i'm plugged in this is on one leg in the second leg going into the inverters this is the load being drawn from my ac so it's probably some phantom voltages from tvs and different things then the inverters it's in storage mode to the batteries and then this is my 12 volt draw off of the batteries and so this is just me the old one they had a analog system up here and it had i don't know what it had in there you know the best so coming back out here for air conditioning so this is kind of a heated topic with over-the-road air and so basically i don't have it but i i think over the road air it's basically a mini residential air conditioning system and that takes up a whole bay and then it's connected to your coach and it runs off somehow runs off the uh engine i think there's a different uh alternator for it and those either from what i've heard they work very well or they don't work at all so if you have over-the-road air you might you're not might i would definitely have them you know run through it with you make sure it works what all i have is one two three four rooftop units so those are air conditioners and electric heat pumps so i can run off my batteries generator the alternator while i'm driving down the road or the shore power i can run those and so on battery i can only do 3000 watt on generator shore going down the road i can do you know up to 200 amps or whatever but uh that's my coach only i don't have over the road i just have four air conditioners i liked it because i think the over the road would be neat but i don't have the maintenance and like i said people say oh they're the best until they don't work it's just like everything at some point they're gonna if you keep them regularly maintained it'll be fine but i'm okay with these if i'm going down the road i'll run the prevo air conditioning system and i can turn that guy on and the coach is fine the back end will get kind of warm but you know i can turn the air conditioner on back there too if i want to so it's fine or i can run the heat as well so i guess all that to say that's kind of the air conditioning system so the air conditioner like i said i've got four units and so they're ducted you can't see anything these those guys right there are all return to a ducted system above the ceiling and again that vip i've got an a raised ceiling there's duct work that goes to each of the unit and each of the units they also have plumbing drain lines that snake outside so it doesn't leak off your roof it leaks down a drip drip tube outside so it's not dripping everywhere but i guess all that to say um it's elaborate it's really nice when it works right um the other is is this is uh what i call the the hydronic system so this is part of the aqua hot there's one here there's one up there and there's another one i'll just go ahead and show them to you so there's that one there's this one and then there's two more under the bathroom and back by the bedroom that run off the aqua hot and so the aqua hot just has that diesel heater and it runs off of i think 12 volt or 20 120 volt i'm not sure how it's wired again everything works whether i'm plugged in or not but uh it's very low power consumption and so that diesel heater can heat the whole that aqua hot system and then i can pump the air out the warm air out here and it's kind of a it's a hydronic system this coach also has two electric tow heaters and so i labeled them because i didn't know what the hell they were um you hit that and it turns on it looks just like the aqua hot heater but it's electric so i've got two of those so i can run that if i want to or the aqua hot or i have 4 heat pumps so i can make plenty heat in here and you know you can make a matrix on how to run it you know if you're running down the road the engine is making heat that goes through the aqua hot so all you have to do is just turn these little 12 volt motors on and you can heat the bus you can also turn the heat pump on up here if you're running the generator you you can do whatever i was unplugged just running off of batteries you can run the aqua hot system and keep your bus warm and it doesn't draw much power so the the options are are endless the other thing to look at are these refrigerators so it won't come out of the coach the only way you can get the fridge out is to remove the window and you're gonna have to lay it on its side and wedge it over the leather seat the leather dash in between the leather pillars and that other bar in there to get the fridge out so check your fridge mine's white it's probably the original which means it's probably better than one i can buy today but it works perfect so i'm leaving it alone a lot of people say to leave it on a lot of people say to turn it off i turn it off and leave the doors open and it's worked for me i do not have water hooked up to it i found out where the lines come into it and i capped it i don't want to drink the water in here and i don't want to winterize it i don't want the ice so i turned it off when we do water we just use bottled water i don't want to try to filter it it's i i know too much i don't want to drink it this right here is to an insta hot it doesn't work i left it there because i don't know what to put in its place maybe soap i don't know but all that to say you know watch the fridge because if you've got to replace it you've got what a thousand bucks for a fridge but it might take you two thousand dollars to get it out and get the other one in so just be aware of the refrigerator so this is my coach in converter only but the old system is this uh i put that light in here so i could see this is what runs my aqua hot my air conditioner my heat pumps and the fans and so it's like well why don't you change that this goes to a computer and it's from 2000 so it's like talking to a commodore 64 right or a atari this is the only front end if you want to call it that can talk to the computer that's running all of the air conditioners so i just left it um if you have to change air conditioners you need to get one of the same vintage because the new ones won't talk to the old computer if that makes sense so if you want to replace one air conditioner you may end up having to replace all four the computer system in your front end or if you just have one out might just say the hell with it because i've only i've had this a year and a half and i run one air conditioner in the front one air conditioner in the back and i put the other two on fan and it's fine i've heated it and cooled it in 95 degree weather and it's been fine so all four of mine work but i only run two because i only need two i can run all four it's just it's a lot of power on a lot of stuff i've rewired everything so it's fine but you know it's just it's a lot of a lot of unnecessary power use so just keep that in mind for your hvac system on top you might be able to buy an older one and get a conversion kit or a newer air conditioner and get a conversion kit so it'll talk to the old one but just be aware that this is the top of the line stuff 22 years ago and so sometimes it's not as easy as just taking something out and putting it in there's a lot of systems that work together to make it work one other thing is the tank monitor so you know this is back in uh 2000 this was probably like a um i don't know tesla or something it was probably pretty cool but it's pretty stupid now i mean you can tell if the tank is empty quarter or half or full it's kind of useless by the time it's full you're overflowing it it's 80 gallon tank so yeah you got to do a lot of something to fill the tanks up but one thing i've been looking at is i can add it to here and so if i go to another screen if i get some sensors i can show my i can show the fuel my water my gray and my black and it will tell the percentage of it but it's just i gotta i gotta buy it all i think each sensor is like fifty dollars and then the victron components and other hundred dollars and so it's just you know pick your battles um we've been fine not really knowing 160 gallon of water we haven't been able to use it all so it's it's pick your battles so another thing to consider is your washer and dryer so this one would have a washer stack washer and dryer in here this one uh didn't have it and i'm okay with it i put i put this in here so turn the light on we use it as a pantry um we've got four of us there's tons of clothes if we need we just we can never fill this camper up we just throw everything that we need in here if we if we're staying for a week we put in two weeks worth of clothes so we don't need a washer and dryer and if we do we just go to a laundromat so we use this for a pantry and so we'll fill this up with plates spoons chips water everything um but i guess all that to say if you've got a washer and dryer in here definitely run them make sure that they work and don't leak um you know do you not buy the coach if it doesn't work probably not just be aware i would check it because probably probably can't get it in and out of here if you got a problem with it the other thing these like the countertops are corian this is solid wood um in here it's not they call it sticks and staples this is residential i replaced it but i had a solid brass in here i put the brushed nickel this has got real fixtures in it uh the shower is glass [Music] this thing's only uh like five foot eight tall and i can't find one otherwise i'd put a brushed nickel in here and it works so it's like well you know pick pick your uh pick your evil pick your poison but anyway i changed all of these fixtures in here they worked but i guess i would turn everyone on and off make sure that the water comes in and out the other thing is just because water doesn't come out doesn't mean that it's a bad coach it could just be that the uh um line is uh dirty i had that once where i thought i had a uh the line um broken in between and it was just this thing it had uh just had a bunch of gunk in it i mean coach is 22 years old it's going to have some dirt in it so you know if you're going to buy one of these and your expectation is it's perfect i wouldn't look at an rv period but i've got a fixture here the other is the the toilet i would look like i was saying before this one runs off air and water and if you don't have air and water and you flush it it overflows it doesn't work right it's pain in the ass i think these toilets they they hold water they're really nice but they're what two thousand dollars i think you know 22 years ago that was who knows what that was worth is probably awesome today it it worked so i'm not going to change it out but just be aware that the toilet could be a nightmare i'd definitely make sure that it works so coming back here again so this is just my coach this is the electrical panels i'd definitely go through here and you know see if anything's turned off if it is ask why some of my stuff that's turned off or spares i found my aqua hot this is the electric and then this is the fuel found out they had these labeled wrong and so the electric was on all the time and it burnt out a high limit switch so i spent fifty dollars tore it apart and fixed it but some of these these are spare um these are spare this is the insta hot this is the stove top that we never use and this is the refrigerator so i turn it off they also have a phone that talks to the front end these of course are a bunch of switches i can turn the generator on the aqua hot all of these buttons are up at the front dash too and this is just my coach like this that's what's so hard about you know trying to help somebody out on a coach this is just american coach and this is a simple coach you get into the vanitary i think that's how you say it and marathon and some of the others they could be completely different some of them are works of art they do beautiful beautiful work i liked it this because it was simple you know we're corian countertop real cherry cabinet four air conditioners two couches it was simple and i can fix it and maintain it you know not to say those other ones are bad coaches it's just it's going to take you a little bit to figure it out so i hope you know i didn't cover everything i didn't do an inspection on this bus but you know if you're out looking just be aware i definitely look at the date codes simple things you could do you know find the date code on the tire you know if you're going to buy this bus it's a 17 so you know within a year or so you're looking at new tires um the other ones i think are newer for some reason the this is a 17 i don't know so there's 8 000 in tires i just replaced the start batteries at uh six eight hundred dollars so that's done the generator batteries done the house batteries are fine but that's thirty six hundred dollars batteries my inverters i bought them for 1200 a piece and put them in myself but i have no idea what somebody would charge you to do what i did um the air system like i said i've been fighting a leak and come to find out it's the stupid piston for the door in the back but uh you know get in the coach because what we found is is you know if you're in a campground and i've got the girls sleeping up here i've got the auxiliary air compressor trying to keep air for the stupid toilet i don't need air for anything else i don't need it in the seat all of that it's just for the toilet and so it's running every half an hour and it's making noise and so that's why and my inverters quit and i had a part on the air compressor quit so i tore everything out and i put my new system in and so it only cycles once a day and that keeps my toilet going but i guess all that to say check out your air system and like i said these are engine driven and this is uh this will be filled up from your engine once these hit a certain psi they'll dump back and forth but just be aware you know of how much it cycles the fluids make sure that the fluids have been changed the engine holds 10 gallons of oil i don't have any way to change it but i don't have anything to hold 10 gallons of oil so that's probably 600 it's not not hard to change the oil in here just don't have anywhere to put it i think there's 24 gallons of uh antifreeze and so i think that was like twelve hundred dollars to change it i didn't know when it was changed last and so i just paid prevo to do it so and then the transmission oil you know check it like i said i would run your generator and have your generator run and run all your air conditioners everything should run off the generator generator produces more power than shore power and so turn your generator on make sure it works the other thing is if you have a quarter of a tank or less the generator will run dry and that's not a good thing because then you got to prime it but i'd definitely run your generator run all of your air conditioners i would run if you have the over the road air i'd turn the engine on make sure it works and it's blowing cold air not air because the the fan motor will turn make sure it blows cold air so go take it down the road the other is your air conditioners make sure they work in air conditioner and heat pump and they should all work at the same time i don't like to run them all at the same time but they it should it should work fine i'd stress your i'd run unplug everything and turn the generator off and make sure that your inverters work off your batteries and what works inside of your coaches as well so these are the manuals so prevo they do a good job this is part of what you want to get you can go on the internet and uh prevos has a beautiful website uh you can download any of this but i've got a printed version so this is the parts manual for my bus so you can go in here and you can find anything you want so you can go in here to engine you can find this belt you can go get the part number you can get a part you can make an account on prevo parts enter in that number and it'll come up with the exact part and you can order it and the stuff is i shouldn't say it's cheap but it's not like uh a mercedes you know where you're paying 400 for a 10 brake pad this stuff is very reasonable price they uh they help you out but you can get anything in here and so anybody looking at a prevos the parts you can get from prevos so this is just the parts manual this is a big book this is the maintenance manual so you can go through here excuse me and uh you can um they tell you exactly how to maintenance the bus not saying everybody should do what's in here but a lot of good reading here this is this is a big book the other component is just some books on the converter side and so i got i shouldn't say dumped handed uh some good information on it so i've been going through here and i'm in the process of uh this part of my stuff i haven't finished but going through here and trying to update this so anything plumbing related i've got the exact part numbers and pieces contact information appliances air conditioning so i can go here and i can pull up exactly my front air conditioner i've got the year the model the serial number i've got everything here heating so i've got aqua hot stuff i've got the cable master piece i have all of that information mechanics decor and so i've i've updated the bus and so what i'm working on is putting together a manual of kind of what i've done to it since i've owned it and these are these are all of the things that i've bought so i'm working on getting that information into a book and getting the stuff updated there's also this stuff right here is stuff that i've removed um so those old inverters i don't have there anymore and some of the stuff i'm fighting with like my victron inverters stuff's all online so i was going to put some detail in of the exact make model of the inverters but i'm not going to i'm not going to print out this whole book for it a lot of this stuff is ancient uh cd players um just stuff that nobody wants anymore but i don't want to throw it away so this is the old inverters the trace inverters so i want to keep it but it's not part of the bus and so i'm just breaking that out so this is uh some information that you want to have kind of another thing is just the service uh information i've got that in in here title uh information insurance information uh stuff like that so if you're looking for a bus you don't have to have it but i recommend you know a lot of this information it helps you stuff's gonna break down i mean the buses aren't perfect um stuff just wears out and it's nice to be able to come in here and grab it facebook pages is awesome facebook page takes takes care of any of this you can ask a question you can send a picture kind of note the uh year model of your bus and there's some guys on there that that know everything so just sharing some of this information you know like i said i'd make sure your fridge works you know is it a deal killer killer if your fridge doesn't work but no but just be aware you could be two to three thousand dollars to get it out and get the new one back in does the washer and dryer work is it a deal killer if it doesn't no but i don't have any idea how you'd get one in and out just i would run everything that you could i'd i'd check like all your outlets make sure all of those work because if something doesn't work it's either it's not a deal killer but just be aware of it right it's like why does that outlet not work is there a short where did the outlet just go bad outlets go bad so it could be something just as simple as that do the lights all work and it could be the bulbs out but just be aware of it right you just need to know what you're kind of getting into so i hope this helps you know the prevost frame itself you've got your airbags your air brakes that big system and then the converter you know adds everything else on top of it so those manuals i showed you are very helpful so if something goes bad you have an idea of who to call how to get it fixed or try to do it yourself so not the best video it didn't go into too much detail um probably it's probably a long video so thanks for uh bearing with me and watching but try to answer some questions um if you have some questions comments uh leave me a note like i said i'm not an inspector i just after uh working on this thing for a year um year and a half kind of know what to look for i didn't even get into the frame into the u-joints the the frame stainless steel and aluminum it's not going to rust but you know like all of your ball joints you know make sure uh those look good i'd have somebody inspect that but just big picture if you're going to go look at a coach you know you can look at a lot of this stuff and uh not have an inspector just kind of have an idea big picture you don't do i got tires i got batteries i got water leaks air leaks you know it is the roof leak look at some of the seals on the windows uh stuff like that um it all adds up you know these coaches are pretty pretty awesome but i mean they uh some stuff just wears out and you you you gotta expect that so hope this helps uh catch you on the next one

Channel: Camp Prevost

Views: 24,241

Keywords: Prevost, Prevost H3-45, Camp Prevost, camp Prevost, Class A, Class A RV, RV Inspection, How to buy a Prevost, how to buy an RV, Prevost Review, Camper Review, Top RV, Top Gun RV

Id: OpqG_dt0jYk

Length: 78min 54sec (4734 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 04 2022