New DP Owner. Maintenance Budget Question

It depends on who you have do the service. It can be as high as $2,000 or as low as $1,000 for a full service including LOF (Lube, Oil and Filters - DP coaches have fuel filters, oil filters, transmission oil filter(s), fuel water block filters, filters for the air system). You will not need to do everything every year just keep up with the manufacture's recommended service schedule and use recommended fluids. If you are handy and have the correct tools it can be very inexpensive. DP coaches will essentially last forever if you take care of them. Also keep up on the other service related items such as resealing the roof every 6 months to at least annually. This means get up on the roof and look for voids or cracks in the sealant on the roof and add the recommended sealant (I'm a big fan of EternaBond). By all means keep the roof clean it will be vastly easier to spot any potential problems if the roof is clean.
Don't forget to check the condition of your tires especially the inner dually rear tires and don't forget about tire rotation if recommended by your tire manufacturer. Enjoy your coach!

I don't budget myself. If something isn't right, I fix it or pay someone to do it. In my opinion, it's an investment that depreciates, and a hobby I enjoy. Until I can no longer afford the hobby, I will keep throwing money at the money pit.

Congrats on the new Journey. We bought our 2007 about 18 months ago, so I am not into it too far yet. Here is what I know....

Oil change and filter changes, 19 quarts of oil (depends on what you want. I use Rotella synthetic so $120. Regular a lot cheaper.). cat oil filter ($18), the two fuel filters ($34+$18). I do the work myself. I was due a valve adjustment which I also did. I've heard they run $350. That is a one time thing at 30k-40k miles. Next one way out there.... Chassis lube $5 for a tube of grease. Now I am looking at a transmission fluid/ filter change and coolant change. I may do the former, not the latter. Again these are not very often under normal conditions. Genset oil and filter and fuel filter about $60 to $75 using Cummings filters.

So, if you do your own maintenance, it isn't a whole lot different than a gasser. Paying somebody to do it will be more.

In our time so fare we've put on 13k miles or so. In the coach of the road a total of 17 weeks or so. We love it.

Hope this helps a bit.

Jeff

Budget between $3K and 4K per year for maintenance and tire replacement. This assumes you have someone else do all the work. You can save money by doing what you can yourself. For example, it is not hard to change the air filter. Even if you have someone else do the work, you should know exactly what they should be doing so you can make sure everything is done correctly.

To add to what Spizzer said, the allison likes Transynd which is synthetic at $40/gal. There is a non synthetic available. The filters need to be changed at 3 years, ~$75, if you do the labor. It will require about 2.5 gal of fluid to do the change. At four years a change or testing of the fluid is required. I plan on testing. The mileage is 300000/600000.

Don't forget your air dryer service! $40 for a desiccant cartridge, unless it's a Haldex pure air. $120 for that one.

Coolant, I went with the OAT stuff. Longer intervals. No testing.

We have a 2005 MH we purchased in 2011. Here are our maintenance costs per year since bringing her home:

2011: $4,223.00 The bulk of this was six new tires.

2012: $3,702.00

2013: $1,967.00

2014: $246.00

2015 so far: $1,500 The bulk of this one is a windshield replacement.

JetAonly wrote:
To add to what Spizzer said, the allison likes Transynd which is synthetic at $40/gal. There is a non synthetic available. The filters need to be changed at 3 years, ~$75, if you do the labor. It will require about 2.5 gal of fluid to do the change. At four years a change or testing of the fluid is required. I plan on testing. The mileage is 300000/600000.

Don't forget your air dryer service! $40 for a desiccant cartridge, unless it's a Haldex pure air. $120 for that one.

Coolant, I went with the OAT stuff. Longer intervals. No testing.

Forgot about the air dryer....did that last spring. Thanks for the estimates on the Allison maintenance.

jeff

over the 10 yrs I've had my class A DP, the annual routine maint costs have averaged $600 per yr. some yrs are higher than the avg when a once every 3 or 5 yr service is due. that number doesn't include tires, repairs or any upgrades. I do all the routine maint myself.
I bought 6 new tires for $3300 after 10 yrs service from the OEM tires. so an additional $330 per yr toward the tire fund.

IMO, there's the "chassis stuff" and the "house stuff":

Our DP is on a Freightliner chassis, and we have the annual chassis "stuff" (oils, lubes, filters, etc) done primarily at Freightliner service facilities. We got gouged once by one of them, so now we make sure we get an estimate before we have the work done. Costs are usually between $350 and $800 (told you we got "gouged" once).

House "stuff" includes roof inspection/maintenance, air conditioners, propane, slideouts, awnings, house batteries, and the like. I do much of that myself. I once asked a Camping World place what was included in the "$99 special propane system check" - guy said they connect a pressure gauge to the propane system, pump it to xx PSI, check it 8 hours later. if it still has xx PSI, "Thank you sir, $99 please" - otherwise, "Sorry, sir, we need more money now." So yeah, I do that myself. Most of the house maintenance stuff isn't too hard to learn. Obviously, if I discover something badly out of whack on a slideout or such, I'll take it in for repair, but most "regular maintenance" items are "look and see" or "look at and clean/lubricate it", and I'm not gonna pay a guy $125 an hour just to look at something. I'll look at it myself and (maybe) pay a guy $125 per hour to fix it if necessary.

I send mine (freight liner chassis) to a local truck shop and as of yet have never paid $500 even when they serviced the transmission. They do all the filters, oil, service the diesel gen set, and check everything else--even pressure wash the bottom + I trust them.