In the market for used smaller RV

We had an opportunity to see a 2002 Concourse and I, more than the wife, fell in love with it except for the sofa bed (this was the club chair model). We were not able to lie on the sofa bed so I would like to hear from owners about how they deal with, like or dislike the sofa bed. We are mid 60s (me 6 ft 215, she 5'4" 120). Thanks in advance.

Alta, re adding rear air bags... I don't know how well this will translate to the E-450, but they sure improved the ride on my 2500HD Silverado-chassis'd Tiger (19' C). Loaded, it's near max GVW, and the thick heavy short rear leaf spring was pretty much always engaged. There was a distinct 'bang-thump' jolt as the rear hit expansion joints, let alone real bumps. I had an older AirLift compressor and dash controls, and bought the 5K# bag-only kit to fit my chassis. Just 20-25 psi of air smoothed out the ride a bunch. The jolt was replaced by a gentle bounce.

But first check your axle weights at a truck scale, and research needed tire pressures. Michelin has a good, easily pressure/load chart for E-range tires online. If you happen to be running 80 psi 'because it says so on the sidewall,' that's part of the issue.

Jim, "Mo' coffee!"

Good points pnichols!

Alta Volunteer,

There's a couple things that can eliminate one's feeling that, in a motorhome, the V10 lacks power;

1) Drive it all the time in the transmission's Tow/Haul mode - it will feel like a different engine. This assumes you have the 2005 or later 5-speed (6 speeds internal) computer controlled transmission.

2) Don't be afraid to rev it. The V10 is a high RPM (relatively speaking) truck engine ... which is a rarity. To tap it's horsepower you have to get it going and it can run all day long at 4500+ RPM. We have run ours for long periods above 4000 RPM in Eastern Wyoming on high altitude highways and kept right up, or passed, the turbo diesel and V8 powered RVs that were thumping along. Most folks are used to good old chugging V8's or diesel truck engines, so rev'ing a truck engine makes one feel like they're going to ruin it. Not the V10 - it's high spirited and is built to be durable whether purring or screaming. And as a bonus - it can idle smooth and quiet as a kitten for hours to provide ultra low noise battery charging, A/C cooling, or heating in an emergency.

Alta Volunteer,

You bring up a number of valid points. I do feel that many of your issues exist because you have a "special ordered" model 2350 on an over-kill E450 chassis. That rig is normally built on an E350 chassis. Your house could be getting beat to death from a very harsh ride. I don't have much to offer in the way of recommendations except to try some of your ideas out and maybe install Koni-FSD shock absorbers to help with the rough ride. I do not think air bags will offer a softer ride, but removing a leaf or two per side could do wonders. I always wondered about Sulastic Shackles to soften the ride. A few people here like carringb have them and like the results. They are expensive but non-evasive, an easy installation too. If I had the money to toss around, I would get them to further reduce the feel of the road in back with my own rig.

A few things you can do immediately to reduce the rough ride.
- always travel with a full tank of fresh water to add weight to help dampen the roughness.
- set your tire pressure as specified on the driver door sticker that Phoenix USA stuck there. On my rig, I think it states 60psi in the front and 65psi in the rear. I tried 75psi all around and the ride was much rougher.

About your lack of power, you are the first person I ever heard that their E450-V10 lacks power, especially considering your rig weighs not much over 9000 pounds. READ THIS technical bulletin on the 2010 Ford E-Series chassis and make sure you do not have the air intake obstruction.

About the battery tray, I don't know what PC-USA is doing today but I think they have since implemented something similar to what I came up with years ago to resolve the problem. CLICK HERE to see it. It would nice if I replaced my stiff ground cables with easy-bending cables like my power cables are.

I agree about the mattress. It compresses too easily for my comfort too. I'd get their memory foam one if ordering a new unit today. I'd order one now but my wife likes the current mattress very much so I tolerate it well. We had the same situation with our dinette cushions. I got replacement cushions from PC-USA, leather-covered memory foam cushions, and oh what a difference for me. I can sit more than twice as long at the dinette now before needing to get up to stretch.

Our 2007 Tripp-Lite 2000 watt inverter seems to do the same with our batteries. When at home I disconnect the batteries completely, both the house and the chassis. It does seem that when one battery is weaker than the other, the charger tends to over-charge the good one in trying to recover the weaker one. I think that is why it is advised to replace batteries in pairs. Some people switch to two 6V batteries in series which I understand may eliminate that condition.

I also noticed that when one battery has gone bad and can't get fully charged, the acid boils out of both batteries because the charger keeps trying.

If you need any specific hardware or other parts for your PC, call the factory in Elkhart, IN. They will get you what you need fast, and at a lower price than most anywhere else.

BTW, the factory typically sells their rigs "at least" 20% off MSRP. Nobody would pay $120k for a 2350. More like $90,000, maybe a bit more pending demand at the time. The best negotiated pricing is had during their slowest time of year which is in October/November.

Good luck in smoothing out the ride on that over-stiff E450 suspension. I think if you can smooth out the ride, some of your other issues will settle down.

I have a 2010 Phoenix 2350 on an E450 chasis I bought used with 16,000 miles on it at less than half the original cost, and I am basically satisfied with it, but have had quite a few repair issues I didnt expect, and also learned along the way that some unanticipated modifications would be necessary.

The following is a list of repairs I've had to make to keep the unit in working order, and modifications I've made to improve performance and comfort:

1. It was under powered in my opinion and I spent almost $2,000 on a Banks exhaust, K&N intake, and SCT download, improving performance as much as is practical without diminishing reliability - probably improved it actually. But all stock Class C's with the Ford V10 will be the same in this respect.

2. While the solid (for the most part but not as much as claimed) cabinets look nice, the drawer construction is terrible, the drawer guides are flimsy, and the door and drawer catches are cheap plastic and routinely fail. I dont have experience with other brands so this may be consistent at this price range, but all my drawers have failed and Ive eliminated two of them out of frustration with the design. Also while the doors and drawer fronts are solid wood, the face frames and cabinet sides are cheaper material with ultra thin laminate simulating solid cabinets, but in reality pretty cheap stuff. This was an expensive option so they should have followed through with all quality materials.

3. The battery tray should be a battery box and the drawer guides it slides on have already failed. Im I'm the process of redesigning it so the batteries are properly supported and not exposed to the stuff rear tire slings up. This is a safety issue as the batteries could drop out in front of the rear wheel if the problem goes undetected.

4. The low profile Dometic "Penguin" AC (with horizontal compressor) failed twice. I finally replaced it with a standard unit at my expense. The warranty is one year from the time of purchase of the original, not the time of purchase of the replacement, so even though this was the third AC unit in just over two years, I had to pay for it. I installed a conventional 15,000 btu Dometic unit and used the heat strip and control module from the last one that failed so I would still have wall thermostat control and electric heat.

5. I couldnt sleep on cheap factory mattress - I weigh 230 and it was like sleeping on the OSB below. I replaced it with a custom made mattress from Mattress Insider. Wonderful improvement!

6. The battery charger over charges the batteries; when it should be in float, it is still providing 5.8 amps and cycles every 15 minutes or so with no demand on the batteries. It may be a charger flaw or installation flaw, but it boils the batteries in just a couple of days if left plugged into shore power. This is on my short list as I am in the third set of batteries in four years and they should last five or six years. Also some outlest are powered by the inverter, and some aren't - wierd but not crucial.

7. The power step has wiring exposed to the elements and I've had to repair it several times - Im going to do a permanent fix by re-routing and improving the wiring harness.

8. This is important: the TV mount failed while driving. It looked like it was made by a group of kids with scrap wood and simple tools. The TV fell in my lap while traveling at 65 mph in six lanes of traffic. I improved it, and I dont like to ridicule, but honestly, this was just plain lame, and a real safety hazard.

9. There is no filter for the water inlet - this is an easy modification but should be standard for this price range.

10. The sheet metal microwave front mounting plate is cracked in three places and I will have to buy or build a replacement. It would be easy enough to spec the thing from metal a few guages heavier.

11. Molding and mounts for smaller items are constantly failing - I carry a variety of hardware and tools to repair things and I have to do this on every trip.

12. The E450 chasis sounded good in theory, and the 4:56 gears help with pulling power, but it is too stiff for the weight. Im going to install air bags to try to improve the ride, and I might even take a couple leafs out of the 13 spring stack - need a little more research there.

Many of these things may be common to most Class C units - I dont know, so Im not blasting really Phoenix (for the most part) and I am satisfied to the extent that I have a lot of fun with the unit, and I like working on things. Also a lot of what I think is "cheap" is probably light weight for economy and load capacity. But this thing had a price tag of around $120,000 new, and at that price, most of the above items, in addition to a few smaller ones I didn't list, should have been resolved by better design, workmanship, and materials.

So hopefully this will give you an idea of what to look for when examining potential units. I like the size and manuverability of a 24' rig, and post engine mods, the thing has really decent performance. It has lovely cabinet doors, nice counters, HWH leveling, nice leather seating, nice appliances, Onan 4kw gennerator and xantrex 2kw inverter, etc. When looking at prospective rigs in the future, I am going to look deeper and better scrutinize the things you cant see on a walk through.

Also if you are looking at 2010 - 2012 units with original Michelin tires, check the date code for re-calls. Mine seemed fine but were re-called and I got six new tires at 37000 miles free of charge. The recall was due to tread failure which can do a lot of damage.

The pleasure to drive part sure helps make for an enjoyable trip.

I would have to agree that the regular B's a are bit on the narrow side. The Chinook Concourse i have is 21 ft and I'm very happy with the build quality as well as the craftsmanship of the interior. It comes with the E350 which is plenty of power and some change to tow incase we need it. 21ft is not large by any means but it works for us. Me and DW have no trouble using the "wetbath" and prefer it over the campsite showers. Just like yourself after considering all the factors such as storage, drive ability, reliability, serviceability, our needs and value retention we ended up with this one. Oh and lastly, it's a pleasure to drive.

best of luck

+1, nice writeup Ron, thanks for taking the time.

Thanks for the compliments, both of you. It's nice to know that others actually read my very long winded post. I re-post it when this subject matter comes up. It's been around for a number of years now. I try to keep up with the clicky-links and data as things change over time.

I've debated if I should include the new Dodge Promaster chassis but it's Single Rear Wheel axle (SRW) limitation does not make it applicable for many of the rigs being compared.