Diesel Engines/Chassis - Preferences and Why?

10forty2 wrote:
Thanks for the great information so far! Any feedback on the Roadmaster chassis? How about the Mercedes engines for bigger RVs? I've seen several advertised for sale that have the MB engine, and many others with Roadmaster chassis. So many combinations out there.....it probably WILL take me 6 years too, Chainwright..... ;)

Monaco's are very very fine Rigs. I just couldn't find a floor plan to tickle my fancy, but they are in my top 5. Like I said, Freightliner customized certain chassis' for your top brands and the Roadmaster (Monaco chassis) falls in that category. I really haven't heard or read many complaints about freightliner products, may a few individual ones, but when you Mass produce something, you are bound to have a few bad apples. As for MB motors, I'll tell you this. I spent many yrs in Europe, many of those Double decker city buses you see, have a 3.0L and 3.6L MB engine! I couldn't believe it when I found that out. You're driving a double decker with a 80 person seating capacity 8-10 hrs a day, 7 days a week on a 3.0 MB diesel! That speaks volumes about how good and trustworthy that motor is. Anywho, Pervost loves their volvos and the other rigs seem to trust Cummins a whole lot. Detroit is owned by Mercedes (Daimler). I just don't see where you can go wrong if you choose a Cat, Cummins, detroit, volvo or daimler. If you an expert opinion you best ask you 18 wheeler truckers that have 100's of thousands of mile experience with just about any engine. But IMHO if you're just doing 5K to 15K miles a yr the above engines are more than sufficient.