Advice on motor home diesels

tangoparson

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This isn't about Fords but I know there is a huge amount of knowledge on this forum about diesels in general so I want some advice and education.

My wife and I are thinking of buying a diesel pusher motor home. It seems most of the used ones in my price range use 300-500hp Cummins or Cats.

Which is better? More reliable, parts availability, cost to repair and maintain. Is one better suited to the application than the other. You know, all the things a broke guy living above his means care about.

I have seen a couple that had 5.9 Cummins with a whopping 600 lbs of torque. Since my 6.7 laughs at that I didnt save those ads.


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WHY NOT

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It depends on what cat or cummins is in them. Guess the Cats are mostly C7's but cats can be very costly to fix.
 

mandkole

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From my experience...

Most RV pusher chassises come with some tuned flavor of the ISB 5.9 (300 or 350hp) and they have a lighter weight Allison (2500). It gets by if you are a flatlander and don't pull anything.

Since many of these rigs are overloaded to start, if you pull a car trailer, you will struggle where power is required. We had a 02 36' Foretravel coach and although they weigh a tad more than most 2 rail chassis (typical Freightliner/*******), they were a little more money but most came with the ISL400 or had an ISC (earlier models) and the Allison 3500 with a retarder (assist with braking). We grossed at about 40K (with trailer) and could still pull heavy grades at 50 @ 70% throttle with no issues.

New Freightliner chassises will begin to soon come out the new Detroit medium duty engine (DD8) and some of the premium rigs already have the DD13.
 

Tom@BigTimeKustomz

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Family had a 2000 Coachman Catalina diesel pusher a few years ago. It was on a Freightliner chassis with Allison trans and 5.9 Cummins. We never towed with it but it had enough power to get up to speed. We never had any issues with it except the battery wires being fried by the exhaust, but that was a manufacturer mistake.


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