Foretravel Owners' Forum For owners and Fans of Foretravel Motorcoaches September 13, 2025 ...

Slide Repair Budget

October 20, 2016, 07:14:57 pm

So let's say we buy a FT with a slide. And let's say there's an alignment and a bladder leak issue we want to resolve "once and done" for our anticipated 10!yr adventure. We decide to have the SLIDE removed, any needed or preventive work done including new bladder.

Who would best be tasked with this work and how many coach bucks reserved?  I'm looking for this as part of the worst case budgeting in our eventual search for our "adventure FT home".  Not interested in how little we might get away with...more interested in what a once done , right and complete solution "could" cost.

Thanks

Floridarandy

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Re: Slide Repair Budget

Reply #1 – October 20, 2016, 07:19:10 pm

I'd suggest you get in touch with the FT experts in Nacagdoches...MOT, Foretravel, Bernd, etc. They do this work and can probably give you an idea of what to expect. Each coach and it's needs are different but I bet they can give you a pretty good idea.

Good luck in your search!

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Re: Slide Repair Budget

Reply #2 – October 20, 2016, 07:46:05 pm

I would say in 10yrs plan on 10k and you should be close

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Re: Slide Repair Budget

Reply #3 – October 20, 2016, 07:58:37 pm

We recently had living slide bladder replaced at HWh $2818 out door .
Local Transwest prevost dealer quoted $10k plus parts !!!!
Hwh also cured a hydraulic leak , checked Levelling, filled in two holes to exclude mice etc
Just to give you reference

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Re: Slide Repair Budget

Reply #4 – October 20, 2016, 08:10:35 pm

INteresting questions. No easy answer - different years have different slide designs - early years came out of coach - later years pushed into coach - less labor on later years

My slide is a 12 hour R and R - at approx $110 an hour. I haven't priced parts lately. Really not worth doing until you have a problem - bad candidate for prophylactic replacement. Mine has been in 10 years, so far so good, why replace? When it causes problems, I will deal with it in the short term until I can get to a facility to get it replaced.

FIgure $3K - $4K is my guess, but don't fix what isn't broke.

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Re: Slide Repair Budget

Reply #5 – October 20, 2016, 08:56:27 pm

Jimmy and Tim

Jimmy So HWH would seem to know what/how to fix "right".  Iowa HWH?

Tim- again this a hypothetical but our interest is to avoid solvable problems.  Having your suggested numbers of 3-4K allows us to budget offers on 15 year coaches understanding that a 10 year hold on a 15 year coach raises the probabilities of this repair.

An anaology would be tires. A coach with 5 year old tires with low miles would warrant a reserve for new tires at purchase vs one with a new set and no miles. Doesn't mean I'd necessarily replace them on day 1...just that my purchase would need to factor this cos in sooner rather than later.

Id rather buy right and have the reserves than buy and hope. And we'll end up spending some money preemptively on items we don't have to backtrack a fix while underway.

Keep the ideas and experience coming.

Randy

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Re: Slide Repair Budget

Reply #6 – October 20, 2016, 09:19:06 pm

HWH in general highly regarded for people's experience ON SITE - less so on tech support timeliness and slide bladder inventory/quality control

Agree on planning for expenses - my bad I thought you were thinking about doing proactive maintenance - lots of good places on a coach to do that, I would not agree slide bladder is one of those places

TIres - $400 - $600 each installed 8D batteries - $500 ea
fuel lines - $3,000 in NAC
Airbags 0 $2,500 in NAC

Koni FSD Shocks - About $170 ea plus one hour install each - a DIY job upgrades - to personal taste - $5K to ? $20K does a pretty nice makeover of flooring and fabrics and residential ref rig

If you pay $100K for a well maintained coach, set aside $10-20K in first year and there will be no really ugly surprises, especially if you know the status of these and a few other major items, the coach has been regularly used, maintenance has been performed and records exist to verify the maintenance. Finally, have a Brett Wolfe type pre purchase inspection, and if the coach is in NAC, run it past Xtreme and have Rance give the exterior a good inspection with regards to the fiberglas, leaks, delam, etc.

Welcome!

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