After owning my 1998 Beaver Patriot Savannah for around nine years now I am moving on to a 2021 Renegade Verona 36VSB.
First off I would like to personally thank Fred Brooks and Eric McLean for all the help and advise you have given me keeping my coach running, repaired and improved. Thanks also to others who have helped, but Fred and Eric have given me the most help. Thanks Guys!
So what brought this about?
From 17 Apr to 18 May my wife and I traveled from NC, through Texas and New Mexico, and then up to Utah before following the a similar route back home. Going through Albuquerque was slow but doable. I 70 in Utah on the way to Moab from Kodachrome was painfully slow at times. It has 104 miles with no services, 6% grades for miles, and a 80 mph speed limit. Now I of course was stuck in the right lane with/behind the tractor trailers. Several times I was down to 20 mph with the engine getting hot lugging up grades because the tractor trailers could not maintain enough speed to keep me in my RPM range. Several tractors pulled off the road to cool down, I did once also. The left lane had people driving 80 plus! I did however, continue on and made it into Moab. After that I just told my wife I wasn't driving the Beaver back out west. I do believe I cold have maintained maybe 35 mph if no one had been slowing me down. I also met another person with a 2001 Beaver Patriot 37 foot long that had only slowed down to 40 to 45 mph, but he was using Propane injection to add a little extra power.
On the way back home I started looking at Super C's. I looked at Jayco Seneca's,Dynamax DX3's,Nexus Wraith"s and Rebels Used and new. Every time my wife would examine the inside of all the above brands she would state that they were built cheaply especially compared to to our Beaver. We were also going up in price for each of these other coaches and besides the power the Beaver was better.
When we got home we went and looked at new Renegade Verona's and Valencia's. The interior quality was close the the Beaver, and the 8.9 Cummins had the power that I wanted. They also offered us a very attractive price on a end of year 2026 Verona which was what I had settled on.
I then found a lightly used 2021 Verona that I made a offer on that was about 130K less from a private seller . Well we just got it home from Fla on a route I have driven many times before. The Renegade is the winner hands down on ride , driving and power!!! Now I guess I need to Sell the Beaver, but That can wait a few more days. Along the way I realized that I also have enough money to buy this so why not enjoy the ride.
This MH has taught me a lot about what it takes to keep one running, and how the systems work. The Beaver has taught my wife and I what quality looks like! My coach is almost 30 years old and things get dated after 30 years but it did just get me to Utah and back! I am also getting older so comfort counts.
I also don't plan to go anywhere any time soon as I like this group and enjoy occasionally being able to add to the conversation.
