Monaco Motorhome

We’ve had other RVs in the past before getting the 40 foot Diesel pusher we now have.  We started years ago with a 34 foot motorhome on the then current Ford chassis with the old 460 cu. in. V-8 engine, and no slide outs (I don’t think they existed back then).  Later on, when we got back into RVing, we tried a 28 foot travel trailer.  We had a Dodge Ram pickup and used that for the tow vehicle.  That all worked OK, but I really thought that it was more work and less convenient having two separate units than an all in one motorhome.

So we updated ourselves from the trailer to a 32 foot Tiffin with two slideouts.  Still on a Ford chassis, but the updated version with the Triton V-10 engine.  Similar to our original unit, but more spacious and an overall improvement.

When we decided that we were going to go full time after I retired (Chris was already retired by then), we started looking for a larger Diesel unit that would be a better place to live.  We spent some time looking around and found the one we call Mona (for Monaco) and put a deal together for her.

It is a different world with turbo diesel power, air brakes, and 8 air bag suspension.  Cruises down the road very well and is much quieter with the engine in the rear.  The only big thing I don’t like is that they didn’t put the generator on a slide, so any service work requires pulling it out.  If I ever have that done, I am going to try to get it installed with slides when they put it back.  We’ll see how that works.As we’ve lived and learned about full timing, we’ve had to do some pure maintenance items and done some upgrades to the unit.  We’ve had all of the slide toppers replaced (maintenance item) along with replacing the tires.

We’ll add posts with details on some of the upgrades but briefly we’ve added solar panels for battery charging, a satellite TV system, a new full surround sound theatre system, and a residential refrigerator.