Hi Betsy, and welcome to the forum!
As you might imagine, asking that series of questions to a forum largely populated by Phoenix Cruiser owners, I think that the feedback that you get will be strongly skewed to folks happy with their Phoenix Cruiser purchase--but that won't only be because they happened to buy a Phoenix Cruiser! I don't know how many of the 125 pages of forum "General Discussion" topics you have reviewed, but while researching my own decision of what RV to buy, I read most of them. There are many, many experienced RVers in those pages that have upsized, downsized, and resized into a Phoenix Cruiser--from camper vans, trailers, Class A's, Class B's other Class C's--and largely, largely, largely, they extol their move into the PC as a good decision.
I always knew I wanted a motorized RV rather than a trailer, and once I knew it would be a Class B+/C type unit I went through the same considerations as you regarding diesel; after considering the $15K+ premium and potential upkeep challenge for the Mercedes chassis, I arrived at the Ford gas unit as most practical for the same reasons you have. I did review a lot of other Class C units in my search for an RV, but except for a couple of visits to large dealerships where I looked at several brands, most of my research was online. I was taken, however, with how uniformly the mass manufactured and mass marketed Class C units were identified with terms such as poorly built, cheap materials, thrown together, superficial, etc, by more experienced RVers and buyers. There are two or three exceptions which consistently stand out, of course, and a quick review of their pricing shows that in RV's as in many commercial things, "you get what you pay for". To make a long story short, after about three years of careful and extensive review, I was convinced that the Phoenix Cruiser units might be the single best combination of a quality-built coach (built one at a time in a small manufacturing setting by a handful of long-term, experienced employees) with reasonable factory-direct pricing. The other 2 or 3 generally recognized high-quality, carefully-built B+/C units are considerably more expensive than Phoenix, and the Cruiser quality/price sweet spot, along with being able to deal directly with the factory to customize my build and for future support sealed the deal for me with Phoenix.
I'm unsure where you're located in Illinois, but if/when time permits, a trip to visit Phoenix "next door" in Elkhart would assist you greatly in understanding the company and their RV's. They are glad to welcome guests, show you their manufacturing operation, and provide the opportunity to thoroughly inspect their units.
Again, welcome, and all the best, Mike
