Thor Forums

[DenverTransplant]

We have a 2017 ACE 30.1 that we’ve had for about 2-1/2 years and put about 8000 miles on it. We’ve had minimal problems so far, but have made a lot of improvements. Overall, the coach is pretty much what we were looking for and we expected to need to do some upgrades.

Two only things I might like to have known about are

The overhead bunk is only rated for 250 pounds. I think the Hurricanes (which are much the same coach) have a 500 pound rated bunk design. You might look at the 29M and see what they offer.

I didn’t appreciate what a pig the F-53 chassis is when it comes to handling. Power is OK, but requires some patience climbing the big passes. I had to make several suspension upgrades to get it to where its drivable without having to fight the rig. These are described below.

Problems - all of which I fixed myself. We bought it a CW and I’ve avoided even trying to get warranty work done. Fortunately that wasn’t an issue.

I found that 3 of the 120 VAC breakers had wiring landed on the wrong breakers. The hot water heater, converter and the driver’s side outlets were on the wrong breakers. Fixed that myself

One of the blinds had one of its cord guides pull out of the wall. DW didn’t like them anyway and she replaced all of the blinds and the front curtains with new ones she made. From what I read, the front curtains don’t stand up to the sun and need to be replaced after a few years anyway.

The batteries only lasted less than 6 months. I replaced them with a pair of Interstate 6 volt batteries. I changed the OEM WFCO converter with a Progressive Dynamics. Harris (battery OEM) usually doesn’t honor warranties and point to the WFCO converter as the battery killer. So I replaced both

You will want to improve the suspension as the F-53 chassis has handling issues. The steering wanders, the shocks aren’t really up to the weight of the box that Thor puts on the chassis and the coach is really sensitive to passing trucks and wind gusts. This is going to apply to just about any gas motor home on an F-53 chassis.

Suspension upgrades I did (so far)

Had the coach aligned (Thor doesn’t do an alignment after putting several tons on the chassis)

Installed a Safe-T-Plus steering stabilizer - took care of steering wander

Installed a SuperSteer rear track bar - locks the box to the frame so passing trucks and wind gusts won’t wag the tail and try and drag you off the road. Massive improvement

Replaced the OEM Bilstein shocks with a set of Koni FSD’s. Improved the ride and reduced porpoising when crossing bumps and expansion joints.

Current looking at putting on a set of Sumo Springs as I still thing sway on turns is too much - we drive on a lot of mountain roads.

We also changed out the jack-knife couch and installed a pair of RecPro recliners. Big, big improvement. Bunch of other more minor improvements which weren’t related to coach quality - mostly electrical such as solar and battery monitors.