Road Air

[Barry Rooker]

We've had our 2001 Newell for some seven years now. It had 82,000 miles & 3,800 hours genset time when we got it, a former NASCAR coach. At first I was concerned about the high mileage & genset time but later came to feel the usage was GOOD for the coach, not bad. And we got an attractive price due to the "high" miles & hours.

Anway, we're now at 125,000 miles & 4,000 hours and still pleased with our Big Girl
Early in our ownership we'd made a small summertime trip down into Texas & out west into Texas too. Big state. Once back home in OKC I was showing a friend the coach & I opened the rear "door" of the engine & one of the road air "v" belt pulleys fell to the ground, the bearing had seized. I'd never known of the problem during our trip. Somehow the road air continued to work just fine.

I called Newell & told them I was stranded at home. Under warranty they sent me two new pulleys, cap screws & matching belts. Seems they call those pulleys the 25,000 mile pulleys. The pulley & the bearing & cap screw are assembled for Newell and the bearings have a failure history.

I tell you all this as about 25,000 miles later BEFORE bearing failure, I had the bearings replaced at Newell. They jiggled the pulleys a bit and found some "acceptable" play but I elected to have them replaced anyway as I'm not into replacing parts beside the road AFTER they fail.

Keep an eye on those road air bearings. I changed the serpentine alternator belt before failure too. I keep the pulloffs as spares.

I feel it's better to get 90% of a component's useful life without a breakdown than 100% & be stranded beside the road. It's an aviation concept.