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[JohnB]

Originally Posted by Sunline Fan

For example, your 2499, I remember a 6040 and a 1 with a circle around it. That's 100% from memory so correct me if I'm wrong. The number one indicates the first of x coaches (probably only one or two though, in this case) to be delivered to Ferris Industries. Some dealers, like Dufour's RV in Fitchburg, MA, would have taken quite a few more at one delivery. General RV here in MI would have had higher batch numbers in previous years if they hadn't given up on Sunline ahead of time and sold more than the like 15 2007's they did.


Jon

Jon

WOW..... Cool read.

Yes, your memory of my frame number is correct.... I had to go look it up

John

[ihsolutions]

Jon, great post. I learned a lot. I'm curious, where'd you learn all that? Did you work for a sunline dealer at one point?

The dealer in Vermont where I bought my 293SR told me that he had been a Sunline dealer for many years, and that the Sunline people convinced him to "try one" of the fifth wheel units. So he did, but I don't think he tried very hard to market it and once it had sat for a couple years, he kind of forgot about it. Then he took it on a trip personally (some nascar race somewhere) but still didn't remove the plastic from the carpet, etc.

Based on the size, compared to other brands, it's heavy. Maybe that was part of the issue. At just under 33' it's over 10k pounds. For comparison, you can get other full profile fifth wheels a couple feet longer coming in around the same weight.

Still, I love the coach, and continue to be impressed at the very high quality of such things as the cabinetry, faucets, and especially how nice the carpeting is, even in comparison to current production 5th wheels costing $100k+.

[kanyonkitty]

Gary & I went to the Chantilly, VA RVshow this past saturday. I think the only thing we saw that we felt was equal to or better than our Sunline was an Excel. WOW, are they NICE. The Sunline has to last a lot of years, so when it becomes mandatory to replace, we have enuff saved for an Excel. Another brand, "Open Range" did have some nice features, but would need to research more about it. There were some really beautiful rigs there, but as we all know, beauty is only skin deep, and "most" of us are looking for nice appointments, PLUS a quality built/equipped rig. Right now, Excel leads the pack from what I saw at the show.

Kitty

[Sunline Fan]

Hi Jeff,

I did work at General for about a year, but after they had sold all their new Sunline inventory. They didn't seem to know a whole lot about the product or company, and a lot of it could probably be contributed to the fact that they had dealt so little with Sunline in recent times. I do also think as a dealer, they really didn't get to learn a whole lot about the company itself. Had I had the opportunity to talk to someone more in corporate who would have dealt with the company more often, I may have found out more. One salesman who became a parts associate I talked with the most, and salesmen really only get to talk to the factory reps when they came in. I did work near an employee who was responsible for submitting warranty paperwork to get things approved and he was very willing to talk about Sunline. I think Sunline was probably his favorite. For one, he never had many warranty claims for Sunline's to begin with. The one thing that he told me at one point and that another employee in the cubicle agreed with is that Sunline was by far the most conservative RV company of them all. I had to do filing at one point and saw the file folder where they put Sunline warranty work orders. Of course it was empty at this point, but they said it never had more than like one or two in it at any time. Compare that to the Keystone folder...which was exponentially larger.

A lot of it I learned through e-mails back and forth between Sunline employees, with quite a few conversations having taken place after they closed. One time just after I decided to create this production record thing, I set out to get the best description of VIN's that I could, as well as the frame number. The one e-mail response I got to that has been, without a doubt, the most important e-mail of all.

Jon