Selecting a caravan that matches your needs

We purchased a caravan as indicated below in Caravanning 101, and over time have found we would have liked a number of things different to what we purchased.

We are currently looking at what may better suit our needs, and will relate that search here as it progresses. The navigation icons at the top are the ones we've looked at so far.

Caravanning 101

There's so many lessons to learn when you take on something the size of a caravan! (May I suggest joining a caravan-related forum if you are chasing information from people who are out there and doing it...)

You start out with a bit of a mindset on what it is that you are after: "A full sized van that you can stand up in when you have just pulled over on the side of the road; that is big enough to be able to spend time inside (like on a long cold, rainy week) and not feel too claustrophobic; that has it's own toilet and shower (which ideally are separated sufficiently so that you do not have to dry seats and floors, etc before you can sit and relieve yourself).

Simple enough? Yes, said the salesman! Just the model you need - a Jayco Heritage 65-5 is the ticket! "Sells itself, doesn't it?" he proudly announced.

So, you do some sums and consider the finances, the current tow vehicle, and whether you liked what the salesman was showing you. "Do you have this in blue?" asked Shona. "As a matter of fact we do..." And so we took delivery.

And now the lessons begin....

Since taking delivery of the van we have had continual problems with the hot water system exploding, the slide-out lounge leaking every time it rains, low spots on the roof which allow puddles to form and then either splash or run in through the roof vents, and the general finish and preparation of the van was not up to what we expected. After 3 attempts to get these problems rectified, the van has been back to Jayco and we are currently assessing the success of their latest attempts. It seems 40% of the vans they manufacture come back to get things sorted out!

Why we chose a "home" on wheels

We used to get away a lot of weekends and stay in motels. Some of them had minimal in them apart from a bed, but the price was still premium per night. On a couple of occasions, when we'd asked specifically for non-smoking rooms, we were put in a room that reeked and had only had a spray with some sort of scent (which hadn't worked)!

We wanted to take some leave from work and do a trip around half of Australia, so we booked all the motel accommodation via the Internet. That quickly got up to $5000 for ONLY a bed each night. From our previous experiences, we weren't too sure that we'd be getting much value for our $5000! There was still food, travel and sight seeing to go. We ended up deciding that we might be a whole lot better off to take our bed with us, so we cancelled the bookings.

A little more about the selection

We actually first started looking at second hand camper vans. The selection that we viewed made us realise that we would struggle to live in such a confined space for a few months, and we couldn't really be bothered with the idea of having to assemble a bed out of a table or similar before we could make it and then go to sleep each night. The second hand ones all seemed to be in such poor condition or smelt really badly of either cigarette smoke or mould! So we progressed to looking at new ones!

We first saw some of the Sunliner range, and were particularly taken by the Monaco. This has an island bed so no need to kick out visitors at bedtime or climb ladders or crawl across mattresses when half asleep. It had a shower and toilet on board, but it looked like the toilet seat would get wet when the shower was in use. (That part wasn't too appealing to either of us!) Sad part was that we figured we'd need to sell our home in order to buy one. When we considered the idea of living in such a vehicle fulltime, it became less appealing. We felt we would need more space. (2004 update: Sunliner have now brought out a rear bathroom version of the Monaco - Monaco RBR, and also a big brother - the Monte Carlo. These look to be full of cupboards and are more akin to our needs once again!  However the big hopper windows have 5 latch points and you need to open them all the way before you can close them again.)

To move home permanently from two storeys into a motor home - hmm! Maybe a bigger one would be more practical? Our sights for our future "home" moved to Winnebago. We started looking at the Alpine range which are based on a truck cab-chassis and has a crawl-way from the cabin to the motorhome. Whilst the size was more like it, neither Shona nor I could imagine crawling between the the cabin and the motorhome. 

We started to look at a bit bigger again. Where you can walk between the driving seats and the motorhome's facilities. That took us up to the Explorer range. There was still a problem in climbing over the engine and transmission hump in some of these, but almost all the rest was looking fine.

Then they brought out the Bundaleer (amongst the hills) and we could imagine one of those in our upcoming retirement! So we wrote to Winnebago via the "information" e-mail address they provide on their Website. Either it is either not monitored, or they don't need our business as three e-mails have gone unanswered. It seems they build these only to order (it takes 18 months!) according to the sales outlets. To get one built seems to require a 1/3 deposit and also progress payments!

Another item which has an impact in this decision is that I would need to get a truck licence. In order to get a truck licence, I would need to find an automatic truck that has a left foot accelerator! As these are not easy to find, the other option is to order the desired motorhome and get the licence in it once you've taken delivery. (The question that remains in my mind is "What do we do with the motorhome if getting the licence does not prove to be too easy, and the commitment to that lifestyle has already been made?) We recently saw one of these and realised just how big they are. Whilst the slide-outs and extra living space might be fine in principle, its rather daunting to imagine navigating one of these in city traffic.

Meantime, we are exploring the lifestyle as well as the places nearer to Melbourne on holidays and weekends. Whenever a patch of leave comes along, we venture to places that are a bit further away.

Now that we have the problems almost sorted out with the caravan, and have a reliable, safe tow horse, who knows we may forgo the motorhome and make do with our current combination! Saves selling the house, and I'm still disappointed in Winnebago's lack of response to multiple e-mails.

On a recent trip we called in to the Emu Plains factory of Winnebago and went on the tour. There are great numbers of the little units being churned out for the hire trade, and a few larger units. Overall, we got the impression that they are not too helpful if you want anything different from the standard build as it is too complicated for the assembly line to cope with without incurring likely errors.

Point to note:

When you are new to all of this, it can be easy to be swayed by the prospect of the great outdoors and alternate lifestyles. You get to picture how it would be to strap all your worldly goods into a new van and head off into the sunset with the family car and just start the adventure. 

Keep in mind that most large family cars or even 4x4s can only take a load of between 400 and 650 kilograms, and most caravans can only take a total load of 400 kilograms too. And you can't just add these two together!

Start with the van:

• How much does it weigh before you put anything in it? This should be on the compliance plate (but is often understated by the manufacturer as they possibly haven't weighed it with the options you've got them to fit!) Our compliance plate suggests a tare of 1996kg for our van.
• What does your compliance plate show as the aggregate trailer mass (ATM)? Our's shows 2396kg.
• Is the ATM more than the maximum your car can tow? If so, replace ATM with your car's maximum towing load in the below.
• From the ATM subtract the following:
  • Do you have water tanks in the van? How many litres? We have 120 litres (which equals 120 kg if we fill them).
  • Do you have gas bottle/s? We have 18kg.
  • Do you have a Porta Potti or Thetford cassette toilet? Is there a tank of water to flush it with? Is there anything in the cassette? Say an average of 10 litres or kg here again.
  • What does the collection of chocks and blocks of wood and hoses and cables, etc weigh that go in the front boot of the van? Add the weight of the jockey wheel too! Our's are about 25kg all up.
  • How much do the accessories weigh that you ordered from the distributor rather than the factory? We had a 90Ah gel battery put in, and we take a Waeco fridge away with us. Another 11 kg there.
  • So far, we are up to 184kg BEFORE we take a single plate or change of clothes or TV or such. There's only 216kg left before the van is overloaded, and most people do NOT make it in under-weight! (We've met some lovely people, but they are toting around an amazing collection of hardcover books, or some other weighty collection of items. And they have not sacrificed anything else to offset the extra weight of their "must have" collection that they are carrying. Remember Lucille Ball's "The long long trailer" movie and her rock and preserves collections?)
• Okay, so you loaded the van up with it's 400 kg, now let's hitch it onto the vehicle. In our case the 2396kg will give us a weight of 240kg on the towball. (In Australia it is usually around 10% of the trailer mass).
• Now before we put anything else in the vehicle, the load on the towball needs to be subtracted from the maximum load we can take in the vehicle. Our vehicle allows us to take 635kg when towing (and 515kg when not towing! German design, and worked on the basis that 120kg is the German standard for towball weights!?) We can therefore take another 395kg in the car (including Shona and me), or another 220kg of luggage.