Spartan

The Busse Bus II has a Spartan Chassis compared to the Freightliner chassis that we had on our first coach. We didn’t know much about the Spartan other than Newmar charges an $8,000.00 premium for it. In the past we had taken the Buss Bus to Freightliner headquarters in Gaffney, NC and the annual maintenance costs were around $1,200.00 (depending on the year and what needed to be done. We called up Spartan at their headquarters in Charlotte, MI to get our first maintenance completed. Here’s a picture that we took as we drove away from Charlotte:

Looked like a nice downtown area that we didn’t get a chance to visit!

We found out that the Shyft Group actually owns Spartan. We got an estimate for the 5,000 mile check up at $3,400.00! Seemed really expensive to me! When we were there I only had them do an inspection ($500.00), perform a four corner weigh (let’s us know how much weight is on each axle and what tire pressure we should be running), and expand our Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) to include our towed vehicle. We also purchased their “kit” that included all the belts and filters that we could use. The inspection and TPMS modifications only took about three hours to complete but we had to wait another two hours to have them deliver the kit to us and pay the bill! Crazy! With the kit in hand, we headed back up to the Hockstra’s as Roger has the know how and equipment to change the oil and filters for the chassis, the generator, and the Oasis (furnace). Thank goodness for good friends with knowledge!