Penthouse and the Promaster? Help!

[VocalVirgo]

Originally Posted by MountainBikeRoamer

Hi (and welcome!) Marz.
Suggest you read this post (from only two days ago.)

If you somehow acquire a Promaster with a penthouse roof on it, you'll have the second one in existence......yep, there's apparently only one of 'em ever built.....and it doesn't sound like it was a lot of fun for the owner who had it built along the way.....

Hello! Wish I had found this forum sooner!
http://www.sportsmobileforum.com/for...ner-22115.html

I’m the guy with the only ProMaster with the poptop and loftbed set up that the previous member was talking about (although some girl on here said she had one done before mine, but SMB told me mine was the first and only... so not really sure). So here’s my thoughts... The ProMaster is great. Drives great and FWD is great for crappy weather/road conditions. And it’s also proving to be reliable with some owners already having put 300K to over 500K miles on theirs. And most people are getting 18-20 MPG. My average is 21 combined.
I have the 136” low roof and I did what you are looking to do. I had the poptop and loftbed installed and I did the buildout myself. I indeed had many problems with the top during the first 8 months, but just recently, *finally*, everything is working like it should (after a lot of drama with Sportsmobile West. I stuck to my guns to get things fixed and my perseverance paid off). I don’t want you to go through what I went through. I don’t want to bash SMB because my nightmare seemed to be a pretty extreme one. BUT you need to be aware that so few, or just mine, has ever been built and, well, you never want to be the beta tester for something so important, so permanent, and so expensive. If I were to do it again, I would just get a high roof. Maybe you have a few extra people (kids) and need to get crafty in design about sleeping configs sans having a penthouse top on it. Also, you should know that with no way of installing a roof a/c unit, the penthouse loftbed gets VERY hot as soon as the sun starts hitting it. It does not hold out heat like SMB claims it does. It just doesn’t. So let that be known. I use mine as a daily driver because the MPG is similar to any SUV. So, learning what SMB learned from my insane amount of problems, maybe they are wiser and have worked out the kinks. Mine is A-OK now, but to have all the problems I had and the fighting I had to do to get things fixed make it so that I wouldn’t recommend it. BUT, in keeping it 100, they may be able to build yours perfectly after learning what went wrong with mine. I want to be as positive as I can when sharing my experience, but mine was so extreme I wouldn’t feel right telling you to do it. (Sorry Sportsmobile West!). But you should call them and ask them if they know that all the problems are worked out. Talk to Peter DelToro because the salesmen gave me so much misinformation (to the point I felt lied to). Anyway, I highly doubt they would install another for a new client if the tops for the Promaster haven’t been corrected yet.
But in general, good daily driver, FWD, good MPG. And if Sportsmobile has tweaked or fixed their tops/instal process, it a viable option. I always say “nothing goes off without a hitch, so expect to have to go back a few times for minor stuff, but anything more is unacceptable, for ANY RV or new car etc.

I’ll be posting videos in the next 2 weeks of my penthouse top pointing out the good, the bad, and the ugly. I would say watch them. You’ll get a tour of what yours will be like and a completely honest review, I promise. The good is good, but the ugly was pretty, well, ugly.
My YouTube, if I’m allowed to post it is YouTube.com/VocalVirgo

[Wowbagger]

Third, actually: I have a low roof Promaster with a penthouse as well. However, my penthouse isn't the normal one for the Promaster, but one for a Ford, since the Promaster penthouse was too tall to allow the van to fit through my 8' garage door, and the Ford top is just barely able to (1" clearance).


I do have a couple of problems with the manual lift - the springs are getting just weak enough that with the bed stowed on the roof, there isn't quite enough tension to hold the top up. I've talked to Sportsmobile Tx about adding more spring tension, but they say it's not possible - there's not enough room for more spring, nor to put the springs under more tension. I am contemplating getting them to put an electric lift on the top, which hopefully would not have that problem.


As for the van being used as a daily driver: from the standpoint of size, it's not much worse than my sedan, save for the rare cases where I would want to park in a parking garage. The top does not add any meaningful height, so it's the same as driving an unmodified Promaster. My main reason that I would not want to use mine as a daily driver is that driving a $90k vehicle on the road with all the idiots out there is always a bit more stressful than driving a $30k car (and with depreciation, a $3k car).

[Mount Branson]

I'm not sure where Vocal Virgo got his information about having the only Promaster with a penthouse. We just had a penthouse with bed installed in our new 2018 ProMaster at the SMB North in Indiana. They have done these before and neither SMB nor we have experienced any problems with it so far.

[VocalVirgo]

Originally Posted by Mount Branson

I'm not sure where Vocal Virgo got his information about having the only Promaster with a penthouse. We just had a penthouse with bed installed in our new 2018 ProMaster at the SMB North in Indiana. They have done these before and neither SMB nor we have experienced any problems with it so far.

I got my information from my SMB salesman. I did not say that mine was the only one out there, I said mine was the first one. And SMB may have been mistaken about that as well. Somebody seems to have a 2016, and I have a 2017. Or, I should clarify… My SMB top was completed, installed, in 2017 on a 2107. The other user said hers was completed in 2016. So that would make her the first SMB ProMaster.
Listen, I’m not looking for bragging rights, I am just passing along the information I was told. Had I not joined this forum, I would not have known that there were other ProMaster SMB‘s out there. I was literally told by salesman that mine was the only one ever done. But then again, he gave me a lot of misinformation, LOL.