Born Free vs ??? Class C Coaches

Born Free Motorcoach, located in Humboldt, Iowa, shuttered it's doors and business May 2017.

We looked at a lot of class C when we decided to give up full-timing in a 40' class A pusher. We ended up with a Coachmen Leprechaun on the Ford 450 chassis. A couple of things made the difference for me, one, it has self leveling jacks, and two, it has adjustable air shocks in the rear. We also liked the floor plan with the two slide outs with the bedroom have a queen sized bed that you can walk around the sides. Happy Rving All :)

PghBob wrote:
Bumpy, regarding the sizes of our LD vs the BF we looked at over 5 years ago. I believe the sizes were similar, but perhaps not the same. Things could have changed since then, and now that BF has new owners, other changes could be in the future.

I asked because adding one or two feet can make a big difference in a corner or walk around bed, size of bath, etc. I know when I bought my TT adding 2 ft would have been a more livable unit but I had weight issues with my TV.
bumpy

Bumpy, regarding the sizes of our LD vs the BF we looked at over 5 years ago. I believe the sizes were similar, but perhaps not the same. Things could have changed since then, and now that BF has new owners, other changes could be in the future.

ron.dittmer wrote:

I feel Phoenix makes well built motor homes, but I have experience with only one other brand motorhome seen HERE. That one we owned for 24 years. We hope to own our Phoenix Cruiser way longer than that. From all the horror stories of poor quality I read on RV forums, the Phoenix is a winner.

that is one "cute" unit.
bumpy

Our PHOENIX CRUISER seen HERE is coming up on it's 10th birthday in June. We ordered ours without the optional slide-out. Nearly every model offers slide-outs as options. You can order a NO-slide at a reduced price. They have a nice pricing web-tool HERE which calculates the price based on the options chosen. One thing nice about Phoenix is that they are extremely good with customer special requests. If you look, see, and wonder..."If Only This, or That", ask Earl at Phoenix to see if it can be done. They do lots of special requests for their customers and they don't jack up the price, except to cover residual expenses, if any. Some special requests reduce the price.

I feel Phoenix makes well built motor homes, but I have experience with only one other brand motorhome seen HERE. That one we owned for 24 years. We hope to own our Phoenix Cruiser way longer than that. From all the horror stories of poor quality I read on RV forums, the Phoenix is a winner.

Coach House is probably about the top of the heap in ClassB+/C quality in the U.S.. However, there are some U.S.-sourced mid six figure expedition grade chassis-mount motorhomes that leave even Coach House in the dust.

Here's a link to a model that Coach House calls a Class B+, that many of us might consider a Class C. Note that it's built on an over-kill chassis - i.e. built on a Ford E450 chassis, when raw-weight-wise it could be built on a Ford E350 chassis instead:
http://www.coachhouserv.com/line-platinum.php

The Phoenix Cruiser website has a great build video that was one of the main reasons we bought ours. They also do a side by side comparison with a similar class C highlighting the differences in their coaches. We have a 2011 PC 3100 and love it. One thing I would like to see improvement on is the window sizes. They are a bit small.
Good hunting
Nancy G

I've generally heard good things about Phoenix Cruiser. I'm afraid I can't really speak from personal experience or examination, though.

tarnold wrote:
Chinook. Even though the original company quit in 2006. One solid piece of fiberglass, no seams anywhere.

Very good + important. I really like the Chinook models for this reason. It just leaves a lot of "leaky mysteries" out of the picture. Also it usually makes them a bit more aerodynamic.