RV is a 2017 Prism 2200 25′ Class C Motorhome made by Coachman … who is owned by Forest River … who is owned by Berkshire Hathaway … who is mostly owned by Warren Buffett. Can’t wait to meet him!
We wanted to stay on the smaller (shorter) side as we like to go places and on roads with corners that might not be as friendly to a 30’+ unit and, with just the 6 of us (2+3+1), there’s plenty of room inside. The over cab bunk provides ample storage, about 58 cubic feet, and the closets in the back hold more than enough clothing.
The Mercedes Sprinter is a pleasure to drive and, if the wind isn’t blowing, it’s easy to forget that it’s not just a van. This is my first experience with a diesel engine and after learning to not get the DEF (Diesel Exhaust Fluid) on my clothes or worry too much about whether or not the next gas station actually has diesel, it’s been pretty much like operating any other vehicle. I’m a little disappointed with the mileage. This is a turbocharged, 3 liter V6 and I was hoping for at least 15 MPG. However, after 3,730 miles with a good mix of flats, uphills, downhills and mostly highway driving, we’re averaging 12.262 miles per gallon. With a 26 gallon tank, that gives us a range of about 300 miles but since we’ve been driving in the no-mans lands in New Mexico, Wyoming, and South Dakota, I fill up anytime I see a station when the gauge hits half a tank!
We did have a bit of a scare with Sprinter. Since the day we picked it up, it’s had a “Bulb Out” warning light on. I’ve checked all the bulbs on the chassis and the motorhome and they all work. A bit of googling and looking through the past repair orders that we got with the unit and I figured out that this is a known problem with Coachman rigs, possibly due to an non-spec bulb. All the lights are on so I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. Then on day 7 coming down the mountain from Gunnison into Montrose we went over a bump and I felt the back of the rig give a thump, nothing special, at this point in the trip we’ve been over plenty of bumpy roads and this wasn’t anything to note except that at that exact moment three warning lights came on at once: Anti-Lock Brake System, Electronic Stability Program, and Brake Assist System. And since we were still at the top of several miles of 7% downhill grade, I was understandably concerned. But the brakes still felt good so I geared down and let the engine do most of the work until we got to the bottom. We made a sight-seeing stop and were relieved when the lights were out after restarting. At least for awhile. After a couple miles, they reappeared along with the “Check Engine” light which was understandable since the computer was probably pissed off with all the codes it was getting. Interestingly enough however, the “Bulb Out” light was nowhere to be seen. We stopped by a couple of RV repair shops to get this looked into but apparently RV doesn’t include the chassis and since the closest Mercedes dealership was 260 miles away in Denver we decided to press on to Grand Junction. So the end of the story (we hope) is this; after sitting two nights at the campground (we rented a car to go exploring) all the codes were gone when we headed north to Wyoming and thus far, 4 days later, they have not reappeared … well … except for the damn bulb out light.
