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Topic: Why buy an used Foretravel over Monaco, need help in this discussion. (Read 8162 times) previous topic - next topic

Re: Why buy an used Foretravel over Monaco, need help in this discussion.

Reply #20 –
Quote from: kepeters link=[quote author=kepeters –

I have told my friend " from what I have learned from the Forum, avoid the ISX engine"



I would be cautious about making a blanket statement that someone should avoid the ISX. Depending on what size and year coach, emissions etc.  it maybe the only option in the Cummins power train family. The largest Cummins engine used in motorhomes is called an ISX, They have ISB, ISC, ISL ISM and ISX. They follow a convention that the higher the last letter of the engine model name is in the alphabet, the larger the engine. Yes, the ISX is pricey to repair If you have a catastrophic failure. Most Foretravel's built after 2010 have the ISX.

Great discussion.

Pat



I have told my friend " from what I have learned from the Forum, avoid the ISX engine"

Regards

Klaus

[/quote]

Re: Why buy an used Foretravel over Monaco, need help in this discussion.

Reply #21 –
Valid point, Mr Pat.

For a blanket statement, I certainly have insufficient  knowledge.

But, for telling my friend of what I have learned from the forum, I am on safe grounds.

Regards

Klaus


Re: Why buy an used Foretravel over Monaco, need help in this discussion.

Reply #22 –
If the owner had the ISX engine rebuilt, then there is nothing wrong with the engine. Not all the ISX have thrown the number Six piston. Some have performed correctly.  This is a case of checking the documentation logs on the coach. Having the engine checked for wear. There are going to be some nice coaches showing up in the near future. The culprit was the egr filter.
Our 2012 has been smooth as silk,since we got her back.

Re: Why buy an used Foretravel over Monaco, need help in this discussion.

Reply #23 –
Quote from: pugmom –
If the owner had the ISX engine rebuilt, then there is nothing wrong with the engine.

Not necessarily true.  It depends on what was done in the rebuild, what era parts, etc.  If you'll note, "MrD" on iRV2 had his rebuilt and it failed again, exact same failure. 

Cummins has gone through a couple of iterations of parts trying to "harden" the repair, but they don't address the fundamental issues with the ISX.

Re: Why buy an used Foretravel over Monaco, need help in this discussion.

Reply #24 –
When a valve fails because of a manufacturing fault, it's not possible to check it for condition in any kind of inspection, only to replace all of them. Valves are two piece, the stem and the valve head. They are welded together and it's this process that may not be done correctly or a substandard/contaminated metal being used for the valve or welding material. The more horsepower you produce, the more heat you create. High EGTs are part of the problem with correct timing, valve clearance, choice of gears on grades, helping to prevent valve failure. I'm sure Brett remembers VW exhaust valve failures. Part of routine maintenance was replacing the valves after so many miles.

Cylinder head design is also a part of component life. The coolant passages around the exhaust valve must be designed so the coolant has an unimpeded path for circulation. The temperature you see on your gauge only reflects the temperature at the sensor, usually at the thermostat housing. The temperature at the exhaust valve area may be much hotter and with high EGT and high coolant temperatures, the coolant may vaporize in that localized area. As a result, the valve seat may distort and not allow full contact of the valve when it momentarily seats. Incorrect valve settings may also reduce the time the valve is on the seat. Hot exhaust valve areas also mean the heat dissipation from the valve stem to the valve guide is less than the design calls for.  High enough temperatures may actually weld part of the valve or seat to each other. When this happens, the valve cannon fully seat and the valve head temp skyrockets.

So, no easy fix and even the cause is hard to pinpoint. That's why it's important to check valve clearance, timing, emission devices, operating procedures for keeping the EGTs within normal range. If there were a simple fix, Cummins would have done it long ago but since the percentage is fairly low, not much has been done. You would expect them to stand behind the failures and offer an extended warranty on these items.

When I was selling Mercedes in Germany, a higher than normal percentage of transmission failures in the S class cars occurred. All the owners got a letter from MB and every transmission in a batch of serial numbers was replaced at no charge.  They didn't wait untll the car was stranded by the side of the road to help.

High performance valves may be read about here: high preformance exhaust valve - Google Search

Cummins does not manufacture the valves used in their engines. If I owned one, I would find out the company that makes their valves and choose another company to buy my replacement valves.

Low EGTs are one of the reason Detroit 2 cycles don't break valves. The 2 cycle EGTs are never high enough to cause failures. I won't post the dyno video again but you can find on YouTube the EGT readouts for Detroits putting out almost twice as much HP as the engines installed in our Foretravels with the EGTs remaining very low.

Pierce

Re: Why buy an used Foretravel over Monaco, need help in this discussion.

Reply #25 –
Yes. michelle,
If you check my info, you will see that I have an isx 500. This engine was down for 18+ months and to the tune of 30 k out of pocket to get it done right not including what good sam allowed for one piston.. That included fighting with Cummins. I am very aware of Mr D's problems. Cummins did not own up to the problem, but they have sort of come around to try and assist in fixing it now. It is buyer beware, but it can be fixed if caught early. This is a good case of not building engines out of country, i.e. Mexico and Brazil.
If the rebuild is done right it works, but rebuilding one or two of the pistons just leads back to having it done again in about 20 k miles as in Mr.D's case x 3. The crappy filter that the engine was supplied with does not function correctly leading to back pressure on the number Six piston. We had to go to an aftermarket filter to rectify the problem. That was after trying the replacement filter that Cummins recommended.  If the engine is rebuilt properly, then the ISX can do its job.
We were told to just fix the pistons, but that would not have worked ,now would it?

Re: Why buy an used Foretravel over Monaco, need help in this discussion.

Reply #26 –
Quote from: Pierce & Gaylie Stewart –
I'm sure Brett remembers VW exhaust valve failures. Part of routine maintenance was replacing the valves after so many miles.

Pierce


What-- failure of VW air cooled #3 exhaust valves (read that dropping of the head of the valve into the piston) ?  In Texas??? In the summer??? 

Yes, helped pay my way through University of Texas fixing these things.  Particularly the 1968 and 1969 models with both valve issues AND soft blocks that required line-boring and fitting of oversized main bearings.

Re: Why buy an used Foretravel over Monaco, need help in this discussion.

Reply #27 –
Quote from: wolfe10 –
Yes, helped pay my way through University of Texas fixing these things. 

My father must have helped your college fund.  We sucked valves twice on a Karmann Ghia and twice on a VW Micro bus back in the '60's. 

Richard

Re: Why buy an used Foretravel over Monaco, need help in this discussion.

Reply #28 –
As I remember, the oil cooler was in the way of the air flow to the driver's side of the engine so VW made the distributor cap a couple of distributor degrees retarded for #3 cylinder.

Cooling and high horsepower was a big reason to go to liquid cooling on engines. About 28 degrees was it for Porsche, VW while the water cooled varieties could advance the timing to about 38 degrees. Big difference.

Fun fact: Aircooled aircraft engine's magnetos (usually the left one) other than the impulse coupler, are set at about 25 degrees all the time with no advance mechanism. The FADEC System – Impulse Coupling

Pierce

Re: Why buy an used Foretravel over Monaco, need help in this discussion.

Reply #29 –
I got corrected. The retard was in the distributor cam, not the cap. Excellent!

Pierce

Re: Why buy an used Foretravel over Monaco, need help in this discussion.

Reply #30 –
 

I am something of a mathematics nerd, so indulge me.

Quote from # 24 by Pierce

  "When I was selling Mercedes in Germany, a higher than normal percentage of transmission failures in the S class cars occurred. All the owners got a letter from MB and every transmission in a batch of serial numbers was replaced at no charge.  They didn't wait until the car was stranded by the side of the road to help. "

Sounds reasonable for a well repudiated company, but the key phrase is ".... a higher than normal percentages.."

I once lost an argument with General Electric Gas Turbine Division on that issue.

I was in the late 1980's Maintenance Manager in the then one of the largest natural gas field in the world owned by Mobil Oil in northern Sumatra, Indonesia. We had a fleet of over 30 GE Frame 5 two shaft gas turbines, running generators and centrifugal compressors, and did most of the refurbishing in our own shops.

Because I had  an interest in failure analysis, we kept meticulous records on failure frequency and cause. From these I concluded that we suffered from an abnormally high percentage of power turbine blade failures.

Suspecting a reoccurring technical problem, I contacted GE.  They shared with me their worldwide failure data on their Frame line gas turbines, and I had to conclude that our failure just showed a random anomaly and our sample size was far too low to make conclusions about the cause.

What is the connection to the Cummings ISX engine failures?

To make statistically valid statement about the expected failure rates of a piece of equipment is a very complex process.
But in real life, nobody forces you to make statistically valid statements, if you have alternatives,  hearsay and gut feeling are OK as long as you state them as such.

So I told my friend, that I would personally stay away from the ISX engine if I had an alternative.

Regards

Klaus


PS 1:

In case anybody is interesting in the subject of failure analysis, I recommend Nassim Talibs book "Fooled by randomness"
Even more valid in these times of virus tests (false positive vs false negative tests) is the story in Leonard Mlodinows book (The Drunkards Walk), and how he was incorrectly diagnosed with an incurable disease.

PS 2:

If this interests you at all, google : " An infinite number of monkeys with typewriters"

Re: Why buy an used Foretravel over Monaco, need help in this discussion.

Reply #31 –
Why Buy a Foretravel over the other brands...
Well ,Because they aren't Foretravels.
And you dont get this kind of internet fambilly with other brands..What more can you ask for, A great coach and all of us! ^.^d

Re: Why buy an used Foretravel over Monaco, need help in this discussion.

Reply #32 –
This Forum family

Re: Why buy an used Foretravel over Monaco, need help in this discussion.

Reply #33 –
I have owned several coaches over the years starting with a 1973 Travco, then a 1978 GMC, 1995 Beaver Patriot, 2005 Monaco Executive and now a 2015 Foretravel ih-45.

My wife wanted a coach with a bath and a half. So the research began. At the Tampa, Florida RV Super Show Foretravel introduced the 2012 ih-45. We were impressed with the quality of the build and all the amenity's that the coach offered. I knew nothing about Foretravel, so my research began. We looked at the Prevost, Newell, Newmar, and Entegra. I could not justify the $$$ for the Prevost and Newell when almost all the components were the same that were used in the Monaco Exec and the ih-45. Our list shrunk to three coaches, the Entegra Cornerstone, Newmar King Aire and the ih-45. I could not find much negative results about Foretravel. Most of those that I communicated with that owned a Foretravel praised the coach they owned, the company and the support they had received from Foretravel.

In the summer of 2015 we decided to do a Factory travel tour and go to the factory's and check out how each brand was built. The Entegra factory tour was about 2 hours long. To my surprise Entegra only assembles the coaches at the factory. The only components of the Entegra that are built in house are the interior components, Everything else is built by offsite vendors including the fiberglass. The other surprising thing about Entegra is they do not have a parts department. All the parts on site at the factory are for the production line coaches. The quality at Entegra was good and each coach had to pass a QC before moving to the next station in the build.

The Newmar Factory tour was about one and a half hours long and our tour guide was not up to the task. The factory assembly plant was a pig sty and almost no quality control from station to station. Like Entegra, a lot of the components are built by Vendors offsite and assembled at the Newmar factory. In the completed QC bay there was six coaches that were going through QC inspection. One was a King Aire going to a dealer in Florida. It had four 11" X 17" inch sheets of paper taped to the passenger side slide out with over125 issues that needed to be corrected.

Needless to say we were not very impressed with either manufacture. We visited both factory's in June and would not get out to Foretravel until the end of July.

The Foretravel Factory tour lasted about four hours and included all the different phases of manufacturing and construction of the coaches. When the tour was over we were satisfied that the ih-45 would be the coach to replace our Executive.

A little bit about myself; I am a corporate pilot - Retired. I still own two businesses, an Aircraft Modification business and a Chrome Plating business.

I am also the owner/moderator of the Monacoers.org group. We started the group in 2004 to help Monaco Coach owners with technical help. I have aver 5000 members to date. We are not a Social group, but more of a technical and help group. I put together a rally once a year and bring in vendors from Cummins, Detroit/Allison and others for seminars for the five day event.

I am very familiar with the valve issue of the ISX engine. The ISX is just about the staple engine installed in most of the high end production coaches, so the problems with the valve train were not just limited to Foretravel and the issue was present mostly in the ISX 650HP engine prior to 2012. After 2012 Cummins eventually reduced the HP to 600 and the ISX was built with a new cylinder head configuration which has fixed the problem.

We purchased our ih-45 and after almost four years of ownership I can honestly say it is the best coach we have ever owned. The quality is what you expect for a luxury coach. The support from the factory is surprisingly the best. We have had only three issues with the coach and all were covered and repaired under warranty. we have over 40,000 miles on the coach and other than a few operator issues I can find nothing to complain about.

Our Monaco Executive was also a very good coach and the only coach that we found that was equal to or better as far as Equipment and quality to replace it was the ih-45. The other choices just came down to that I would be giving up to much.

Monaco built great coaches up until 2006. Their high end coaches all had the best components and the quality was very good for a production coach. In 2007 Monaco was in trouble and lost it credit with many vendors and they were using whatever they had on the shelf to build coaches, so quality and product suffered greatly. 2004 thru 2007 were actually the best years for the Monaco high end coaches. After 2007, not so much. Monaco was sold out of Bankruptcy to Navistar in 2009 and the brand has suffered ever since. Navistar sold Monaco to the REV Group-(American Coach) and the decline continued to where now any Monaco coach is nothing more than a rebranded American Coach.

Now that I have had the experience to have owned both a Monaco Executive and the Foretravel ih-45 and from what I know and have experienced with both brands I would definitely purchase a Foretravel Coach.

Once you own a Foretravel you won't go back!

Re: Why buy an used Foretravel over Monaco, need help in this discussion.

Reply #36 –
We looked at *lots* or coaches when we decided to go ahead and replace the P30 chassis class A we had for 19 years. If you are loking for a 10+ year old RV I think FT is the only choice. Parts availability and this forum seal that deal. And once you drive one, and notice how Foretravel built their chassis to not have bump steer, and how the others require constant steering correction because they dodn't, it quickly becomes a non-contest. Of course, I'm kinda biased, but geez I remember one Monaco I looked at wherein the entire battery inventory, as designed, was 2 standard car batteries. Sorry but that is unacceptable. I mean, ypu wpuldn't even be able to tailgate parth with that, much less boondock for even an hour...

Re: Why buy an used Foretravel over Monaco, need help in this discussion.

Reply #37 –
I have owned more than one Monaco Signature RV.  I have yet to own a Foretravel, but plan to do so one day.  I agree with people here which coach is better, but I wouldn't expect otherwise considering where the question was posted.

I don't think the Foretravel is the better value coach.  Every four slide 45' coach I looked at was over $100k more than the same year Monaco Signature.  I don't feel it's THAT much better of motorhome considering the Newell is $100k over the Foretravel, and beats it handedly.  I'm also considering the 2006-2007 year range due to it being the better Signature years (and Monaco closing it's doors shortly afterwards).

If we compare coaches in the same price range, We get a four slide Signature competing with a two, maybe three slide Foretravel, which I would not consider a fair contest (comparing apples to apples).  It's also hard to find a large used Foretravel selection which makes the prices stay higher whether it's worth it or not.  Foretravel is a better made coach, but my money is better spent on the Monaco for now.

Re: Why buy an used Foretravel over Monaco, need help in this discussion.

Reply #38 –
Looks like you answered your own question with your last sentence,we chose quality over quantity you choose quantity over quality.

Re: Why buy an used Foretravel over Monaco, need help in this discussion.

Reply #39 –
Quote from: TGordon –
Cummins has designed a new cylinder head for the ISX engine. It's purpose is to eliminate the number 6 valve sucking problem. $4K, no core charge.
NEW Cummins ISX 15 Cylinder Head For Sale - City Of Industry, CA - Alliance...

Tim

That seems like a smoking good deal for that head if it accomplishes all it claims.  A pre emptive retrofit would make sense for some.