Mechanics Corner

Please note that on a Prevost H3-45 VIP motor home, the bay door latching system is made up of four catches, in each of the four corners of the door.  In order to keep your underbays dry and secure, you must ensure that all four are engaged.  Letting them slam down closed is entirely appropriate and often necessary to be sure the upper catches of the door are fastened.  If the door panel appears to stick out past the body, the catches are probably not secure, allowing water, dirt, ants, etc, to enter your storage bay.  This is not an alignment problem with your coach.  This is an inherent situation encountered by all H3-45 VIP owners.  Simply do a visual check of the alignment of the body panels versus the door panels before driving the coach.  This ensures the clean environment of the underbody bays is maintained.

Now we would like to bring to light some facts about different slide-out room designs you may have seen on coaches by other manufacturers.   Many of you may have encountered what we call a “flat floor” slide-out room.  The main disadvantage is the loss of storage compartment volume.  The floor has to retract somewhere.  Besides just loosing space, the lack of compartment height also displaces items to the “patio side” of the coach.  The generator is the most notable item that usually ends up right beside where people sit.  Even the quietest generator installations still make noise, usually air noise from the radiator and compartment exhaust fans.  The Parliament Coach compartment  layout includes having the generator and inverters on the driver’s side of the coach.  This keeps noise from the blowers and the generator itself away from the patio area.  Our arrangement, with the generator mounted longitudinally on an “end-slide” rack puts most of the generator weight at the coach centerline.  What weight is not on-center is offset by the battery placement on the passenger side.  We ensure the weight distribution overall as a balance of slide room weight, cabinets we place on the opposite side of the coach to compensate, as well as the above-mentioned underbody item placement, to ensure the coach is balanced.  Our arrangement affords our coach owners the entire first bay, half of the second, and a third of the third (on H3-45 VIP models) to do with what they wish.  They can elect sliding racks, storage cabinets, barbeque grills, ice-makers, refrigerators…the possibilities are limited only by their imaginations.  The “flat-floor” slide-out room greatly impacts what we have tried to achieve in underbody layout and customer customization.  The trade-off may be worth it for a select few, who value having no step-up into the slide-out room above all else, but for the majority, the overall consequences do not outweigh the single benefit.

 Another major drawback is the increase in slide-out related weight added to the coach, as well as the increased number of moving parts to accomplish this flat-floor goal.  That is the same argument I make against having four (4) slide-out rooms rather than Prevost Car’s larger two (2) slide rooms, which equal the same interior volume gained when all slide rooms are out. 

The combination of the Prevost Car factor slide-out room design and size, along with Parliament Coach’s underbody layout design afford coach customers the greatest advantage in weight, lack of unnecessary moving parts, and interior volume with rooms in or out.  This combination also affords the most useful underbody arrangement in the industry…at least that is our opinion.  Take a good look and decide for yourselves.  Make sure you compare all the advantages and disadvantages in slide-out design before jumping to a conclusion.  You must not judge just one aspect without weighing all the factors that are affected in achieving an individual “advantage.”  We use the phrase, “apples to apples,” to tell the story simply and concisely.