Stainless Steel Coach Upgrades
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Personalizing, or customizing a motor home, is a relatively popular thing today. While for many this consists of choosing color schemes and interior swatches if ordering a new coach from the factory, or perhaps locating a unique color graphic on one in the market place, new or used. Add-ons like chrome exhaust tips, fancy mud flaps and wheel dressing are also popular choices. At the high end of this craze is customized re-painting and graphical color designs. But one item, probably in the mid add-on price range, that is in my mind the best bang for the buck, is stainless lower body trim. This chrome like accent to the rocker panels can provide a striking look to any motor home as well as adding lower body protection from road grime and debris.
The material used is generally a high quality stainless steel. It can be ordered with a plain flat polished surface or with folded ridges running horizontally. It is glued to the body with no need for any mechanical fasteners and is normally guaranteed never to come off. It is also available in various sizes depending on how high you would want the material to be from the bottom edge of the body. Further personalizing can be selected as to how the entrance steps would be trimmed, if the rear departure lift will be followed or horizontally ran out and additional trim to body contours.
So, where do you get it and how much does it cost? There are several manufacturers and suppliers in the U.S. One of the more popular is Summit Products of Johnston, Iowa. At Summit they design, laser cut, and install a top quality product built to the individual’s needs and wants. Costs, on say a 40 foot coach, can generally run from under $3,000 to $5,900 or more, all depending on what the owner wishes. Ridged material can run a bit more than flat as the ridges may require to be angle ground at the basement door edges to provide clearance when opened. Of course, if you would prefer your coach be stainless trimmed to resemble a Marathon Prevost XL, it can be done, but at a much higher dollar. The choice is entirely yours.
There are many more options and additional add-ons available from Summit, like fuel door trimmings, interior step faces, jack pads, etc. In fact there are so many options and variations that can be tailor made, it is reasonable to assume that one could virtually customize their rig to be a one of a kind.
One consideration when getting this done is the extra basement door weight. In some cases this may exceed the ability of the existing gas shocks that hold the doors open. Either larger stronger ones or the addition of an extra one may be required. In the above picture, an additional shock was added. These are available from most RV supply houses and possibly also from Summit themselves.
So, is there a return on the investment when sale or trade time comes around? While it is possible that a portion of the original cost may in fact be recovered, it is doubtful. It may however, sway a buyer when comparing a choice of a similar coach. Either way, you may have a coach that will uniquely stand out from the others.
With An Upgrade Idea - Lug_Nut - Peter Mercer
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Thank you for writing such an informative article about the custom upgrades that we make for motorcoaches. Your customers may also be interested in our new beta web-site. The new site, http://www.rvstainless.com, is the first web site that we know of that offers coach owners the opportunity to shop for products that are coach specific.
Great article
Hi Lug_Nut,
Once again great article. Stainless is one of the easiest to maintain.
Today, I went on a factory tour of Monaco Caoch in Oregon and noticed that they use aluminum on their bay doors on some models like Dynasty and Patriot Thunder and other upper level models.
I wonder why they don’t offer the stainless panels as a factroy option.
I was tempted to go across the street and tour Mararthon’s plant but tours are very limited as far as frequency is concerned.