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Old 03-09-2018, 05:44 PM   #1
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Join Date: Mar 2018
Location: Ft. Garland Colorado
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Coachmen Catalina Legacy

My wife and I purchased a 2017 last year. We are planning our first extended trip this summer. We are new to RVing and look forward to this new adventure in or lives. Any Catalina owners have any issues or tips?
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Old 03-10-2018, 11:13 PM   #2
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We have a 2016 Catalina 283DDS. Haven't had any problems with it that i can think of.
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Old 05-31-2018, 04:37 PM   #3
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We have a 2017 263rls, purchased new at the end of 2016. Most problems were minor and fixed by my husband and myself. There was putty everywhere. Easily cleaned up with a rag and warm water. First trip out we discovered that the shower had never been caulked. Water all over the floor after first shower. Hubby caulked. He also crawled around the underside and sealed all mouse holes he could find with expanding foam. We found that the sidewall around the bed frame was held on with one staple on one side of bed. Picked up some small paneling nails and fixed that. Then found a bed support in the “cellar” that was about 2 inches short and attached with a very long screw. Hubby fixed that with another piece of wood. The exterior caulking was done by a master craftsman on one side of the trailer and by a rookie on the other. One side is nice and smooth the other is just gobbed on. There were small metal particles and wood shavings all in the heater vents and all in the carpet, plus nails poking through the edge of the carpet. We recently eliminated the “mouse hole” where the electric cord comes out with a 30 amp screw-on shore power plug. The cord used to be stored inside the end table at the back of the trailer by pushing the cord in from the hole outside. When we took out the original, the cabinet for the table base was loaded with wood and metal shavings from the manufacturers build process. Almost like they swept up a pile and just installed the cabinet over it! Not great quality control going on at Coachmen! Glad we were able to fix most things ourselves or it would have spent our first season in the shop. Other than that, it’s been smooth sailing. Happy camping!
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Old 06-08-2018, 12:43 AM   #4
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We’ve had our 2016 Coachmen Catalina 333RETS for about 2 yrs and 100% same issues as Kleek62. We’ve had few other thing noticed that hopefully you guys check before it’s to late like it was for us. First take the cover off the ac on th roof. Inspect the small copper line; ours was resting against the compressor and wore a hole in copper and lost all Freon in middle of summer ( the ac for Catalina’s are 5-6 weeks to receive). Second look at the front of your shower insert; see a little access panel with 2 screws, pull it off and look at the quality craftsmanship under the shower. Our drain where the p-trap connects was never tightened all the way causing it to leak into the belly of the trailer. Winter came and guess what froze? Yep all that water; which split the tanks underneath (freshwater, black and grey tank). What a mess. Third and last for now. Pull the access cover off on the top vent for the refrigerator and make sure all the paneling was cut out. Ours was halfway done; which caused the refrigerator to over heat and go bad due to lack of ventilation.
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Old 06-08-2018, 08:51 AM   #5
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Thanks for the heads up on the problems with your Catalina. My husband took out that shower panel too because there wasn’t enough support under the shower floor. He added more support and made the shower floor more solid. The p-trap was connected although they didn’t have enough clearance for it so they cut a big hole in the floor to accommodate it but never sealed up the hole leaving a direct entrance for mice. He sealed that up with expanding foam. He also found another huge hole in by the water heater compartment floor. One hole for wires was sealed up, then there was another behind the water heater that was left open. That was sealed with foam as well. I ended up installing strips of heavy duty Velcro with staples to replace the screws on all of these panel doors so that we would have easier access to these areas to monitor for leaks and mouse activity. So far so good. We use fresh cab up under the coroplast under belly cover. Hubby cut some access holes in it so that he could tie string to the fresh cab bag and throw them up inside. Sealed holes back up with expanding pipe plugs. Worked great. We Also keep fresh cab around water heater compartment and cellar compartments. Inside we use cotton balls with pure peppermint oil in 3 oz plastic cups. We replenish all at least once a month. Happy Camping!
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Old 07-14-2018, 06:57 PM   #6
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We have the same Rig you do, and love it! A few small problems at start up, fridge doors didn't lock up properly, A/C panel rattled alot, Crimped fresh tank fill tube kept us from filling it up properly, but all smoothed out by the dealer. The sales rep saw us at a park this year and told me about a problem he had on his Catalina. The water line to the toilet was rubbing on wood for three seasons and finally sprung a leak at 2:00 am. The pump turning on and off woke his wife and they minimized the damage. Even though it's a different model than ours, I'm checking every line I can get to, and putting pipe insulation around them where the go through wood. Do you have any pictures and part numbers of how you changed the shore power cord and plug? That is a great idea!
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Old 07-15-2018, 05:48 AM   #7
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Thanks for the info!

Thanks for the heads up on the water lines going through wood. We’ll take a look at that as well. I no longer have the pictures of the shore power install, but we used this as a reference when we did it. https://www.loveyourrv.com/installing-a-marinco-30-amp-rv-power-plug-conversion-kit/
Roll down through the article and there’s a great video. We don’t have the on board surge suppressor that the guy in the video has, so just skip that part if you don’t either. We just use one at the pedestal. This is the kit we bought on amazon. Marinco (30ARVKIT) 30 Amp Detachable... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000NUYZQC?ref=yo_pop_ma_swf
There are several gaskets and extra parts for different types of installations. Don’t be confused by all the parts! It was fairly easy.
We also bought this adapter for plugging into 110 at home.
Epicord RV Adaptors 15A Male To 30A... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01CKRKWH6?ref=yo_pop_ma_swf
Good luck!
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