Coachman Catalina sbx
Saw 2017 with forsale sign on it today. Anyone have any first hand knowledge of this model. Sorry failed to notice the model More interested in the pro/cons Thanks
Forum Discussion
Our first TT was a Catalina. Reasonable quality overall and agree with being a starter TT. Underbelly not enclosed but sure makes for easy maintenance & mods. One thing I did not like was how a lot of the cabinetry wasn't straight, plumb or level. The kitchen counter had an annoying twist/warp.
Biggest problem was with the brakes which did not work properly from day one. The dealer kept blaming our brake controller but a new Prodigy P3 made no difference. We sent numerous emails to the dealer and it wasn't until days before the warranty expired that they agreed to take the drums off for an inspection. Turned out it had leaking seals and warped drums. (The grease we had on the exterior of the rims was an obvious sign of leaking seals...) They rebuilt it all and it worked great after that. Do not know if the dealer pumped too much grease into the the axles or if it was a manufacturing issue.
If it is a new unit at a dealer, I would tell them NOT to pump grease into the axles during the PDI and maybe even put it in writing. The best thing to do is only remove the drums to add grease by hand (and do an inspection) and is even a good idea to do on a brand new TT.
We bought ours as a previous year's model at a blowout price. We only kept it a year because we found it was just too small for us. When we tried to trade it in on a new TT, the dealer simply looked up the Blue Book value for a 2 year old model even though we had only owned it for one year. If you keep it for quite a few years the depreciation won't matter much but if you may only keep it for a year or two it can.
Biggest problem was with the brakes which did not work properly from day one. The dealer kept blaming our brake controller but a new Prodigy P3 made no difference. We sent numerous emails to the dealer and it wasn't until days before the warranty expired that they agreed to take the drums off for an inspection. Turned out it had leaking seals and warped drums. (The grease we had on the exterior of the rims was an obvious sign of leaking seals...) They rebuilt it all and it worked great after that. Do not know if the dealer pumped too much grease into the the axles or if it was a manufacturing issue.
If it is a new unit at a dealer, I would tell them NOT to pump grease into the axles during the PDI and maybe even put it in writing. The best thing to do is only remove the drums to add grease by hand (and do an inspection) and is even a good idea to do on a brand new TT.
We bought ours as a previous year's model at a blowout price. We only kept it a year because we found it was just too small for us. When we tried to trade it in on a new TT, the dealer simply looked up the Blue Book value for a 2 year old model even though we had only owned it for one year. If you keep it for quite a few years the depreciation won't matter much but if you may only keep it for a year or two it can.
