Monaco...The Good years and the bad...

gemsworld wrote:

Ocean Mist wrote:

gemsworld wrote:
I had a new 2008 and it was the most expensive piece of junk I have ever owned. The company went belly up the following year.

i'm sorry to hear that. What Coach do you have now?

I got rid of the Monaco and got a Winnebago. Out of the three motorhomes I've owned, the Winnebago was the best.

I have the feeling Monaco already knew in 2008 they were in trouble and going down in flames really fast so they were cranking out c r a p p y units out the door as fast as possible to get some money coming into the company.

Most dealers at the time would not do warranty work on Monacos unless the customers paid for the work since Monaco wasn't reimbursing them for the work. The family owned dealer that sold me the Monaco got stiffed $300K in unpaid warranty work by Monaco. From what I understand, that was small potatoes compared to what other dealers lost.

When Navistar purchased Monaco, it made the decision not to honor Monaco warranties or reimburse part of the money owed to the dealers by Monaco. That decision made have made financial sense at the time, but it was an utter disaster from the customers and dealers point of view. This decision angered so many dealers and customers that the Monaco dealership network and the amount of Monacos sold under Navistar plummeted to almost nothing. No wonder why Navistar had to sell Monaco even though it got a great deal when it bought the company for 5 cents on the dollar.

In short, I would definitely stay away from the pre-bankrutpcy '08, '09 models, and maybe even the '07s. Personally, I would not buy any Monacos made by Navistar, specially the ones with their own diesel engines.

Good luck!

We ordered our 2008 Monaco Dynasty in January of 2007 and took delivery in April of 2007. Ours was a good one when the economy was rolling right along.

Towards the end of 2007 and into 2008 the economy started to change. I looked at 2009 Monaco Dynasty and I could tell where a few corners were cut in detail design of the cabinets.

I have to say, our Monaco never let us down. Sure, I had to have things done but nothing earth shattering. Right up until we sold it (summer of 2014), I had to call Monaco as I had a fault come up on the air leveling system.

They were prompt and gave me the exact directions to correct the problem (turning off the batteries and then back on). It reset the system.

We never had any trouble with the particulate filter system and drove that coach almost 70,000 miles in 7.5 yrs. At 40,000 lbs, we average about 7.2 to 7.8 mpgs with our 425 hp Cummins.

I did find that the Roadmaster 10 air-bag chassis was a little rough riding for me but it handled great.

MM.