Hello everyone,
My wife and I are considering the purchase of a 2000 3851 Dutch star 49,000 miles. This will be our first purchase of a coach. We have plenty of camping experience but nothing like this. We have decided to go with an older coach to skip the depreciation and we don't mind putting in the elbow grease to update paint etc or things that we need to do to update it to our liking. It has a cat 320 hp engine Freightliner chassis. We are just in the beginning process of looking at this coach, I would like any insight on anything special to look for. We will be having an inspection done on the coach if we decide to proceed. We are buying it from a private seller, not a dealer. I had the opportunity to look at it one time so far. A couple of things to note, there are no Service records for the coach. We are buying it from the second owner. The current owner claims to do all of the service himself. He and his wife just drove it from Alaska down to Florida without any issues. I will say the coach at first appearance is in very good condition for the age. I was pleasantly surprised walking inside to see nothing faded or cracked no wrinkles in the ceiling no cracks or fading on the dash area carpet flooring countertops cabinets are all in wonderful condition. The outside of the Coach does have some fading on the decals which is understandable given the age. The coach fires right up without hesitation along with the generator also. I did educate myself on date codes on tires and found that the rear tires have a date of 1204, which if I'm correct is the 12 week of 2004? really old for RV tiers? I could find no signs of oil leakage or rust on the coach. The roof looks good also. The coach has been here in Florida for 5 months at an RV park they live in it full-time and not driven. The current owner says he stars it every so often to let it run.
Does anyone know of any great RV inspectors in the Tampa area? And are there any things I should have the inspector pay close attention to on a Dutch Star?
Thanks in advance for any info
My wife and I are considering the purchase of a 2000 3851 Dutch star 49,000 miles. This will be our first purchase of a coach. We have plenty of camping experience but nothing like this. We have decided to go with an older coach to skip the depreciation and we don't mind putting in the elbow grease to update paint etc or things that we need to do to update it to our liking. It has a cat 320 hp engine Freightliner chassis. We are just in the beginning process of looking at this coach, I would like any insight on anything special to look for. We will be having an inspection done on the coach if we decide to proceed. We are buying it from a private seller, not a dealer. I had the opportunity to look at it one time so far. A couple of things to note, there are no Service records for the coach. We are buying it from the second owner. The current owner claims to do all of the service himself. He and his wife just drove it from Alaska down to Florida without any issues. I will say the coach at first appearance is in very good condition for the age. I was pleasantly surprised walking inside to see nothing faded or cracked no wrinkles in the ceiling no cracks or fading on the dash area carpet flooring countertops cabinets are all in wonderful condition. The outside of the Coach does have some fading on the decals which is understandable given the age. The coach fires right up without hesitation along with the generator also. I did educate myself on date codes on tires and found that the rear tires have a date of 1204, which if I'm correct is the 12 week of 2004? really old for RV tiers? I could find no signs of oil leakage or rust on the coach. The roof looks good also. The coach has been here in Florida for 5 months at an RV park they live in it full-time and not driven. The current owner says he stars it every so often to let it run.
Does anyone know of any great RV inspectors in the Tampa area? And are there any things I should have the inspector pay close attention to on a Dutch Star?
Thanks in advance for any info