I had the chance this week to attend what is known as Camp Freightliner down in Gaffney, SC. I really was not sure what to expect, what I was going to learn or even what the heck this was. I saw it online after I bought the 2016 Tiffin Allegro RED which is built on a Freightliner chassis. I decided to look up this class and make it a point to find a time to attend. I wanted to provide a quick review of the experience and provide some insight for those that have a Freightliner chassis motor coach, and encourage you to take this class!
What’s Camp Freightliner All About?
There is actually two versions of this on the Camp Freightliner website, but in a nutshell here is the major things they promote you will learn in the first class.
- Air brake system
- Electrical system
- Maintenance intervals
- Weight distribution
- Vehicle storage
- Plus much more!
The first class costs all of $175 for the full two days for the pilot, which includes lunch both days and dinner the first night for you and your co-pilot. What you learn in those days is like drinking from a fire hose and the list above does not even scratch the surface.
Camp Freightliner Learnings
There is no way I can cover all the things I personally learned but I will cover a few of the major stand out things I instantly walked away with.
- Get your coach serviced by a Freightliner Oasis dealer
- When hill climbing 1900rpm and above is the best….keep downshifting….no cruise control
- Descend a hill in the same gear you climbed using the engine brake
- Don’t use engine braking in bad weather
- You can get back to automatic shifting from manual by pressing the “D” button
- Understand how the ATD (After treatment device) works is pretty important
- Your generator won’t run with below 1/4 tank of fuel
- Treat your fuel with additives only as needed, but using STA-BIL Diesel is never a bad idea
- Know where the chassis ends and the body builder begins
- There is full 24/7 support call center just for Freightliner Custom Chassis….USE IT!
- You can get access to a ton of stuff online!
This is just a really quick list from my notes of things that were interesting. If you don’t own a Freightliner Coach, well this is not going to mean much, but if you do maybe you just picked up a nugget or two. The trainer was awesome and so were all the people that worked in the Gaffney service center. I did not have my chassis serviced there but I did find a local Oasis dealer near me.
I took away that I pretty much knew nothing about the chassis and where the Tiffin components started and where the Freightliner ones stopped. I had never called the support center before but turns out today I needed to in order to get a part that had been painted over on my coach. They were awesome to deal with.
Camp Freightliner Tools Online Access
There are a few websites you may want to make note of that you can register for as well to get all the information about your on Freightliner Custom Chassis based coach. The two main ones are:
- DTNA Connect Online
- You can click “New User” and register for access under Customer Order Form or just Click Here. Be sure to use Owner/Operator when you register and your name for Company Name
- This is mobile friendly
- Cummins QuickServe
- You can register but you need to know your Engine Serial Number to get the details on the engine. That’s in your coach paper work or available once you have access to DTNA Connect
- There is a mobile app for this but the engine serial is not stored.