3901 Aria

[redline]

Hi All,
Looking for info good or bad on the 3901 Aria. Not big on Thor but many are saying they have come a long way and the Aria is supposedly quite nice, but I have not been in one yet. Need help as soon as possible as the BIG show is coming next week in Pomona, Ca and I have been driving my wife crazy looking at different rigs, back and forth between gas and diesel and all the different models. Was focused on a Ventana LE but then...... I feel there is a considerable difference in quality from what I have seen on earlier Thor products but the floor plan and all the rest of the standard equipment is hard to beat, not to mention the drive train upgrade over the LE. I appreciate any input I can get!!
Thanks,
Russ

[jpmihalk]

We have only seen one at an RV show but thought pretty highly of it after looking. The Aria 3901 has a nice floor plan and looks to be in a good price point for what you are getting.

[redline]

Yeah, we think so. How has your Hurricane been? Any real issues?

[CSR]

We enjoy our Aria 3901 so far. We're still in the process of shaking it down and plan to write a detailed post about our experience when we finish. We've been on a few trips (approx 2k miles) with no major issues, just a dozen or more tedious items/kinks to work out. The floor plan is a BIG plus. It's very spacious, functional and comfortable. It drives and handles great. Power is good, but it is not going to win any races. Overall, we're happy with our choice. We will post more soon.

[jpmihalk]

Originally Posted by redline

Yeah, we think so. How has your Hurricane been? Any real issues?

No major issues with our Hurricane. We now have over 16K miles on her and going strong.

Good luck in your search!

[redline]

Thanks! Good to know. tedious issues won't generally ruin a trip for me. What type of issues if I may ask? How do you like the tile floor? We spend most of our time in the desert and tend to track some of it into the coach! I'm fearful of scratching it.

16k on your 2015, that's fantastic! That's another issue i'm struggling with. Our 2004 Flair has 19k, hardly gets used. I'm about 3 years from retirement, wife about 4 and I'm not sure if we should wait until the time gets closer. We're hoping we will get out more but something always seems come up.

[jpmihalk]

We actually just retired on July 1 and have been full timing since. It was one of those things where we already had an RV (a much older "starter" model) but had been looking around and found the right one. It gave us over a year to get ready with the Hurricane since we could always leave it in the shop if need be (but we only returned it once early on for minor stuff.) We love our Hurricane for the floor plan and the value.

I think the right time is when you find the one you like and everything just works out.

[CSR]

Examples of tedious issues = a few crooked cabinet drawers, some cabinets not staying shut while traveling, missing wall molding, insufficient weather stripping on the basement storage doors (does not seal completely in some areas around the doors), road dust coming up into rear bath cabinets, etc. Nothing that can't be adjusted/fixed.

Tile floors - We like them fine. They look sharp. We've stayed a few places with gravel and sand and have not had any issues with scratches. They can be a little cold in a cooler climate. I suspect that would be bonus in a warmer climate.

[redline]

Good advice, I do tend to jump to soon at times. I am showing some restraint with this one though, especially due to the fact this is going to cost more than my house did!

Well, we did go check it out today, spent most of the day checking it over and as far as fit and finish, I was impressed overall. The layout was perfect for us. Drawbacks for us were access to bedroom with slides in. We normally use laundry baskets to load and there is not enough room to go through the hallway with them. No biggie, just find another method to haul the goods. Exterior storage for me was lacking, 3 pass throughs are nice but there is only one smaller compartment. Again no biggie, can add some slide outs or make dividers to contain things and keep them from sliding everywhere. Now the real issue! We took it for a ride and the rattles and squeaks were atrocious!! Mind you, the only other pusher I've driven was the Ventana and it was pleasantly quite. Obviously there are going to be some rattles and noises but this thing sounded like it was coming apart. Typically, the salesman said they could take take care of it, but I have to take that with a grain of salt. Had it not been for that, we would have tried to make a deal. So, as there is no time for them to go through this coach and sort this out and they are certain it will sell at the show, the next one is due in mid month, it was agreed to go through that one and call us back out to drive it. So, CSR, how is yours in the squeak and rattle category? And out of curiosity, have you checked your mileage? Just wondering. Thanks!

[CSR]

NOTE – We’re still in the shakedown phase. So far, we find the overall interior sound of the coach to be okay/fair. It’s not as quiet as a passenger car/truck, but we don’t expect it to be. To-date, we have not found any noise issues that cannot be resolved (see below). Overall, we’re pretty satisfied with our Aria so far.

INTERIOR - Squeaks, Rattles and Knocks:
We have experienced a few minor noises inside the coach while traveling, but nothing (so far…) that we have not come to expect with an RV. In most cases we’ve been able to identify and resolve the noises with a minimal time and effort.

Examples of noises remedied:

• We make sure the exterior door, all windows, vents, cabinet doors and drawers are closed securely. In many cases, it’s the simple things…
• The overhead bunk bed was squeaky, but was resolved by our dealer before we took delivery. No problems since.
• Initially, all of the shades rattled/clanked against each other and the window frames, but we remedied that quickly by applying felt/soft Velcro tape to the back of all the shades. Problem solved!
• I also added some felt tape to the inside of a few cabinet doors.

Quaking Slide:
We have occasionally noticed a slight (not alarming) quaking sound coming from the top of the slide behind the driver seat. From what I can tell so far, it goes away and/or settles down after a few miles down the road. I’m still looking into this, but I suspect it may be the slide settling into place after being retracted. This is one of the items we will have our dealer look at.

EXTERIOR – Shuddering Noises:

We’ve experienced some shuddering noises coming from the outside front passenger side, mostly during strong cross and head winds. After inspecting the underside of the front cap/hood, I noticed two things:

1. Although the front cap appears to be sufficiently secured to the coach on the top and sides, my coach does not have a brace to secure the BOTTOM of the front cap on the passenger side to the frame of the coach (near the generator fan). However, THERE IS a brace on the on the opposite side (driver’s side) of the bottom of the cap that does secure that side to the frame. The lack of a brace on the passenger side allows for more play in the cap on that side while under stress, hence the small crack that is developing on the lip of the cap in that area.
2. The bottom of the front hood on the passenger side does not securely latch shut like the driver’s side does. As a result, the hood appears to be shuddering under stress. I suspect this may be the primary source of the noise we are hearing.

We are confident our dealer will be able to resolve both items.

[redline]

Good to know, Thanks! We did note the shades smacking the door and window frames, easily remedied. The slide almost felt as if it were 2 panels with a void in between and something was knocking back and forth. I wish you all the best and let me know if you would how things progress. Unless something else really wows us, we most likely will end up with the 3901.

[CSR]

Hi redline,

I recently posted a review you may be interested in about of our experience with our Aria 3901. The thread is titled: Aria 3901 - Initial Thoughts/Experience.

[redline]

Hi CSR,
Sure it's something I'm doing, but can't find post even when I copy the link. Hope it's all good though as we pulled the trigger Sunday! Is it possible for you to send it to me? It's unclear as to when we will see it which is tough. A couple questions I do have, Does a regular 90 degree water hose adapter give enough room to close the compartment door and on the sewer drain, were you able to connect straight to it or do you need a 90 degree elbow for it?
Thanks!!

[CSR]

Hi redline,

Congrats!

A 90 degree water line adapter should work. We connect the hose directly to the fresh water intake and bend the hose slightly to close the wet bay door. No hassle and no mess! Works well for us.

We've connected the sewer hose directly to drain with no trouble. That said, I plan to pick up a 3-5 inch clear straight adapter.

Here's the link to the post:
http://www.thorforums.com/forums/f17...ence-9680.html

[vkb]

[QUOTE=redline;91053] How do you like the tile floor? We spend most of our time in the desert and tend to track some of it into the coach! I'm fearful of scratching it.
QUOTE]

We do not have the Aria ... but I would like to give you feedback regarding the flooring... We have had 2 previous motorhomes with carpet...older, before they decided to put in vinyl. We wouldn't have it any other way...easy to clean..sweep rather than having to vacuum carpet. We have a small rug at entry...and a runner in front of the couch...so easy to keep clean...I shake out the rugs whenever needed...and when we arrive home, vacuum them and are ready to go for next trip.

[redline]

Hi vkb,
Thanks for the input. The coach we have now is carpet and vinyl and the combo works pretty good, but to keep clean, I agree , more vinyl would be better. With those polished porcelain tiles in the entire coach, I have visions of hitting a wet spot and landing on my butt and/ or getting rocks in my shoes and scratching it. My wife, like you, has runners in our coach now and has already laid her plans for the new rig. I have to say that with the R/V show traffic and no protection, after 2 days it looked great. Just nervous and tend to be a worry wart!

[m1noel]

We picked our Aria 3901 last month. At speeds that don't generate wind noise it is eerily quiet, like driving an electric car. Love it.

[redline]

Funny you say that, that's what I told my wife when we drove a Newmar Ventana LE! I had never driven a pusher before, very strage. Hopefully when all is said and done, ours will be the same as yours. That is a contingent on our purchase, it has to be reasonable free of squeaks and rattles.

[redline]

Hi All,
This has been a long time coming as one issue after the next pops up with this POS, but today takes the cake. First off, to those of you who have a 3901 with little or no issues, I couldn't be happier for you. After waiting 5 months and assuming more care and consideration would be put into this build as there was a name on it, no such luck. Despite a huge list of issues on initial inspection, we chose to take the coach and bring it back after a couple outings. One issue they tried to fix was the ice maker line to the back the fridge that flooded the rig. Get it home and start prepping to go out at Easter and it still leaks, flooding again. OK, turn off the valve in the access box. By the way, did you know your whole house filter does NOT filter your fresh water tank, only filters when hooked to the spigot. Also look carefully at the window behind the pop up TV, you may see daylight where some of the frame corners meet the wall. Saw 3 like this, including mine.
So off we head for the desert. Turn on the dash air and didn't get any!! not a big deal as it was not too hot yet. Found water leaks under the sink though and the pullout faucet getting stuck in plumbing. Found hardware falling out of bath room slide out cabinets, privacy door doesn't close right, Island has to be lifted up to slide back in and other things along the way.
So next trip is to Mule Days in Bishop, Ca over Memorial Day and things are getting a bit warmer now. Parked in a friends yard that has 50 amp service but I could not get close enough so I had to drop to a 30 amp cord and back up. Thought I should have 30 amps but unit showed 15? Oh well, maybe me, not real sharp on that stuff. Run the generator to cool things down. 4 hours in the afternoon, both units, and I could not get the coach below 76 front or rear, ambient was 87 degrees!!!! Stopped at a campground, plugged into 50 amp service, showed 50 amps, plugged into 30 amp, they had both, showed 15 amps still!!!
So now we were getting ready to head to the Sierras for a few days dry camping. After this trip, it was going back to get a major list of work done. Leave early and beat the heat, get what I can from the gen during the day and the evenings are cool enough that the fans will keep us cool. Trying to leave my driveway, I have an issue with the jacks, which by the way have a leak around the pump. Can't get them to work. After doing a bit of poking around, I have no power to the pump. Looking around, there is a solenoid by the inverter, power in, none out, and a 100 amp breaker in the coach battery box that won't reset, seems there is a major short somewhere and i'm not sure where else to look. Well, more looking finds no generator, slides, step, shades and power loss to the fuse box in the jack compartment.
So now, I can't even drive this thing. Will call them tomorrow, but feel the end result will be that it gets towed out of here. I always leave myself open to pilot error as maybe I did or overlooked something but all I've done is drive it. The list we have is huge, but for the most part is small stuff but this is crazy and i'm afraid it will never end or be fixed. Best of luck to you all.
Russ

[m1noel]

Wow Russ, sorry you are going through all of this. Hopefully when you call, they can direct you towards a simple fix for your electrical issues. I can maybe help you with a few minor things. While the firefly control sometimes figures out what hookups we have, it usually doesn't. But pressing the readout will allow you to manually set the amps. It seems to default to 15. If you fill your fresh water tank through the city water hook up instead of the gravity fill, your water gets filtered. Our Fleetwood was the same. It takes longer to fill this way, but you do get filtered water. When we first got ours, I found that almost all of the under sink water connections were not even hand tight. It was an easy fix, but one that should have been done right at the factory. They say they check for leaks with air pressure. I don't know how they could not have caught all the loose connections. Also, in the mid bath, the gasket that should have been installed between the drain and sink, was installed below the sink, around the drain pipe. I only found this when I needed to refill the toilet paper. I found the open Costco pack of TP weighed in around 40lbs. All of the leakage had been contained in the rolls and the plastic packaging, so it didn't ruin the cabinet. Luckily. We have always had to lift the counter top extension also. I don't know why, but when looking at it, it appears to have been designed that way. When you pull it out, it drops into a slot, maybe to make it more stable? Our door frame on the shower had not been caulked, so it leaked horribly first time out. No daylight around our window behind the TV though. Our first 5 months were pretty horrible. Everything our dealer fixed wasn't. I got pretty irate and the service manager got involved, and stuff started getting fixed. Even stuff the first service writer said couldn't be fixed, was. Oh, they have since fired him. A couple of things I have called Thor about and they have shipped me parts that I could install myself. This was way easier and took much less time than taking it to the dealer. The people at Thor have been excellent in my opinion. Keep after the dealer and Thor to make it right and explain to them that you don't have time for them to just keep it for months on end because you need to use it. This has also started working for us. The last time at the dealer, to fix a leaking compartment, they took it in and fixed it while I waited. We are coming up on 7000 miles on ours since delivery. I still find something here or there that needs tightened, but we've been out in it on 6 or 7 multi night trips this summer and everything is just working. Just got back today from 5 days, nights and I enjoyed every minute of it. I really hope you will get to that point, and I hope ours just keeps working the way it is.
Good luck,
Mike