Chassis build versus motorhome build

I was looking at motor homes at the Foretravel dealer in TENN, Alcoa?, and saw a unit across the lot and the saleslady said it was a 2003 or so on a Ford chassis. I mentioned that the wheels looked awfully tiny for a 1999 or newer chassis and sure enough it had the 16 inch wheels. there were several years different between chassis and body. some yearly changes are important, some not.
bumpy

Bumpyroad wrote:
I was looking at motor homes at the Foretravel dealer in TENN, Alcoa?, and saw a unit across the lot and the saleslady said it was a 2003 or so on a Ford chassis. I mentioned that the wheels looked awfully tiny for a 1999 or newer chassis and sure enough it had the 16 inch wheels. there were several years different between chassis and body. some yearly changes are important, some not.
bumpy

I suspect she was a bit off on the coach year on that one. The last 16" wheeled F53 chassis was the 1997 with the 460 V8 engine. The 1999's came with 19.5's and the Triton V10. There were no 1998 F53's.

Dutch_12078 wrote:

Bumpyroad wrote:
I was looking at motor homes at the Foretravel dealer in TENN, Alcoa?, and saw a unit across the lot and the saleslady said it was a 2003 or so on a Ford chassis. I mentioned that the wheels looked awfully tiny for a 1999 or newer chassis and sure enough it had the 16 inch wheels. there were several years different between chassis and body. some yearly changes are important, some not.
bumpy

I suspect she was a bit off on the coach year on that one. The last 16" wheeled F53 chassis was the 1997 with the 460 V8 engine. The 1999's came with 19.5's and the Triton V10. There were no 1998 F53's.

yep. don't see where we disagree at all. it was built on a pre 1999 ford chassis with 16 inch wheels. but the model year of the motorhome was several years into the 1999 chassis vintage.
bumpy

Bumpyroad wrote:

Dutch_12078 wrote:

Bumpyroad wrote:
I was looking at motor homes at the Foretravel dealer in TENN, Alcoa?, and saw a unit across the lot and the saleslady said it was a 2003 or so on a Ford chassis. I mentioned that the wheels looked awfully tiny for a 1999 or newer chassis and sure enough it had the 16 inch wheels. there were several years different between chassis and body. some yearly changes are important, some not.
bumpy

I suspect she was a bit off on the coach year on that one. The last 16" wheeled F53 chassis was the 1997 with the 460 V8 engine. The 1999's came with 19.5's and the Triton V10. There were no 1998 F53's.

yep. don't see where we disagree at all. it was built on a pre 1999 ford chassis with 16 inch wheels. but the model year of the motorhome was several years into the 1999 chassis vintage.
bumpy

No disagreement, Bumpy, I just think she was a ways off on her "2003 or so" guess of the year. More likely, it was no newer than a '99 coach model year, with a '98 being more likely. In that time period, it would have been highly unusual for a chassis to sit around more than a model year without going into production, two model years at the very outside. Even during the 2007/2008 down turn period, RV manufactures were selling off excess chassis inventory to other specialized vehicle manufacturers, rather than having them sitting around for extended times.

The LAST Dodge Class A chassis was 1979. There was a severe glut of Dodge Chassis back then. There were 1982 titled motorhomes with 1979 Dodge chassis. The CORRECT Year and Title date is the COACH Date, NEVER the chassis year. When the Motorhomes are manufactured, they issue a MSO (Manufacturer Statement of Origin). There is NEVER a title issued as that is a function of Government. The Dealer gets the MSO and once sold, it is given to the local Gov. office that issues Titles. The MSO WILL have the correct Year date for the Motorhome and will NOT be based on the Chassis year. MOST Gov Title people know how this is done, but you always run into untrained or ignorant people that do not take the time to do their job correctly. Then you have to jump threw hoops to get it corrected. Dealerships run into this all the time on used units. Doug

path1 wrote:
http://www.winnebagoind.com/resources/service/pdfs/2009-08%20Q%20&%20A's%20on%20Split%20Model%20Years%20for%20Motorhomes.pdf
Your hardest part will be finding someone that actually knows their job. Print this out and give it to them.

Excellent link! couldn't state it any clearer!

Dutch_12078 wrote:


No disagreement, Bumpy, I just think she was a ways off on her "2003 or so" guess of the year. s.

well when I asked her what it was, she did look at her sheets of paper and told me the year. I doubt that the company would list a 1998 coach as a 2003 or 4 or whatever it was. the only point I am trying to make is that this discrepancy can be more than one year.
bumpy

Bumpyroad wrote:

Dutch_12078 wrote:


No disagreement, Bumpy, I just think she was a ways off on her "2003 or so" guess of the year.

well when I asked her what it was, she did look at her sheets of paper and told me the year. I doubt that the company would list a 1998 coach as a 2003 or 4 or whatever it was. the only point I am trying to make is that this discrepancy can be more than one year.
bumpy

Ok... I won't press the point. It's all good... :)