Fact and Perception
Comments
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Good Question DD - I await the answers with interest. I have a 2008 Abbey which I keep being told is top of the range - but I am sure if it had been a RR I wouldn't have had so many problems! I can see better quality in it than some others that I have
seen though so its not all bad
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Must manufacturers have a hierarchy within those own ranges and I would suggest that main stream manufacturers are like comparing Ford with Vauxhall with Nissan etc.
If you go by purchase cost then there are some very expensive vans out there, Vanmaster springs to mind, but I don't think that they offer much more than any other brand in practical terms.
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A good friend, worked for RR before, during and after the VW take over. It seems that many of the issues that beset the caravan manufacturers all applied to RR.
He described the quality prior to the take over as pretty rubbish. Only he didn't use the word rubbish
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Top for caravan build quality has to be the legendary Airstream caravan range. Closely followed by most of the German manufacturers. -- Bottom has to be Bailey with Swift ever so slightly better. Other British manufacturers slightly better again.
As far as coachbuilt Motorhomes are concerned - Hymer has great reputation for build quality - followed by other German manufacturers -- Bottom has to once again Bailey then Swift with other British manufacturers ever so slightly better.
On PVConversions,----- British Built are as good as anything obtainable elsewhere. Especially from the small specialist conversion companies.
Cheers ..................K
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A good friend, worked for RR before, during and after the VW take over. It seems that many of the issues that beset the caravan manufacturers all applied to RR.
He described the quality prior to the take over as pretty rubbish. Only he didn't use the word rubbish
An interesting comparison considering VW have the highest re-work rate off the line of the european assemblers. How many VW's are delivered on time is the key metric.
Another interesting thing about RR is that employees call them Roycers, the man in the street often refers to them as Rollers
Is the word your friend uses carp?
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Top for caravan build quality has to be the legendary Airstream caravan range. Closely followed by most of the German manufacturers. -- Bottom has to be Bailey with Swift ever so slightly better. Other British manufacturers slightly better again.
As far as coachbuilt Motorhomes are concerned - Hymer has great reputation for build quality - followed by other German manufacturers -- Bottom has to once again Bailey then Swift with other British manufacturers ever so slightly better.
On PVConversions,----- British Built are as good as anything obtainable elsewhere. Especially from the small specialist conversion companies.
Cheers ..................K
Airstream has got be the most recognisable caravan. But as it is USA manufactured unlikely to be the best built. Speaking purely personally I couldn't live with the American dinner styling.
Atn Keefy Sher it wasn't carp or any other type of fish but it was a 4 letter word so half marks.
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Avondale were very good in their early days but allowed their build quality to suffer later and went to the wall as a result.
Never quite understood why other manufacturers didnt then take up their excellent spare wheel stowage system. It was the best ever solution to that age old problem of spare wheel storage.
TF
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We've had 7 caravans and never had to have any warrenty work done on any of them, never had water ingress either, all but one was UK made. We have had 1 M/H it has had lots of warrenty work required and water ingress twice while still under warrenty also
UK made.Which is the best, well for me its the one that doesn't have any problems but nowadays they seem as if they are part of the build and you should except them. Bessicar was supposed to be a good mack back in the day.
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It depends a bit on how you look at this. From a status point of view Freedom and the new French units from Marquis Caravellair would be bottom. If it is quality then assuming the PC surveys are right and the answer is consistent then Eldiss are a clear bottom by several percentage points. and the rest are all much the same except for Sprite and Adria who have a small lead.
Hobby and Knaus did not make it in to the results though so no real evidence as to if they are ahead or not but I suspect so.
For those that can afford them and have the means to tow them Fifth Wheel and Vanmaster are possibly the top dogs on site now.
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Curious phenomenon with motorhomes is that if you ask most folk who perhaps have some but limited knowledge which are the best motorhomes or more specially what they aspire to, it will be a Hymer. Yet many other vans - and a good many of them under the broader Hymer umbrella like Neismann & Bischoff, Laika - etc are equally as good or better. This appears to be, because like early Hoovers, Hymer seized the best bit of the UK market early. All the others play catch-up, particularly with often only intermittent importing dealerships.
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Our first new caravan in '79 was a Sprite Muskateer, in the showroom was a VanRoyce I suggested to " Our Jean " we would one day aspire to one of those ( just shows how things change ) we then owned new a Trophy, 2 Bailey's, Eccles, 5 T.E.C., Geist, Hymer and now a Coachman V.I.P 560/4. and after 3 mths ownership though there are no ( I believe ) major problems with build, it tows like a dog and I really can't see it lasting, so now back to looking at Hymers.
The T.E.C's were very robust caravans, the Geist was a great innovation, the Hymer though slightly expensive is very near the top.
Money no object I'd go for the KABE.
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This sort of subject matter has raged on internet forums for the last 20 years to my knowledge. At the end of the day we all buy what we can afford and whether a particular brand supposedly comes at the top or the bottom of the list it matters not if you are happy with the product that you have. The what if question of what you would buy if money was no object, if I was in that position would I still be caravanning or motorhoming?
David
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I asked this sort of question at the dealers when we bought our S/H Coachman Amara in October.
Having not caravan'd for about 27 years I was totally out of touch with what was what. The only thing I do remember is the Sprite Alpines & Musketeer's where the no frills budget ones.
The dealer said, when I asked where he would place Coachman, that it was the Bentley of the caravan world. (not my words
) ?It is very well built and still looks nice and fresh inside and out. the only things showing there age are the tow hitch, stabilizer plastic parts and jockey wheel. Prior to buying it I would have guessed looking at and around it, it to be about 5 years old if asked and not the 14 years it actually is so was built very well I would have thought.
I have also had a camper van in the past, it was a 73 Mk1 Transit Wayfarer with rigid pop up roof. It was a dark yellow with wide white stripe on the side so was nicknamed the Custard Cream
Wish I had it now, have seen what they are worth now, especially old Fords. As for Air Streams, I think they look like catering units so not for me.
We will replace the Amara in a couple years for something much newer but don't know what other than it will be another fixed bed layout.
Merry Xmas all.
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Rolls Royce were not taken over by VW (VAG) but rather by BMW .
Volkwagen Actiengesselschaft (VAG) took over Bentley
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If as our friends did when they had "live in?" test vans on their sites ask the "testers" which new van they would have if they ever had to buy one,it was always in the past a Bailey ,but in recent years it was a negative of all makes from all countries for veriose reasons,but would have a used van with a decent service record
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Yes you are correct and I did simplify the position slightly because the current ownership has been in place for a relatively long time and the original VW/BMW ownership was short lived.
I would love to know the inside story about how the intellectual property rights to the RR name were lost and how VW finished up with Bentley. . I have a feeling that lawyers may have been in big trouble along the way. I have a contact in the management of Bentley but I have never plucked up the courage to ask. What I do know however is that Bentley are immensely proud of their product and do go to inordinate lengths on quality control. If their practice was translated to the caravan world we would have a fantastic product which almost nobody could afford !
Back on topic I visited the Hymer factory in Bad Waldsee in 2010 and saw a Coachbuilt Motorhome and Caravans being built on the production line albeit with a significant degree of pre-assembly from start to finish in the 1.5 hrs the visit lasted. At that point we decided to buy a van conversion because irrespective of quality a coachbuilt caravan or motorhome is a relatively flimsy structure. Our Hymer Van (sic) was not that well built. For example the heating ducts seemed to be made from paper with insufficient rigidity to say attached by a "jubillee" type clip to the heater outlets.
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Of the continental vans, Knaus are generally reckoned to be the best according to many Dutch people that I have spoken to. Hobby are the most popular and are the largest manufacturer in the UK. Very difficult to compare UK to Europe as they caravans are made for different markets.
Despite problems we had with the Unicorn range I would rate Bailey as one of the top in the UK. Of, course, they are the largest UK manufacturer.
For motorhomes, again, the European style is somewhat different so it is difficult to compare. If you read the anecdotal evidence it would suggest that Hymer are somewhat over-rated but the ones I have poked around in seem very sound but with a price to reflect. Our Auto-sleeper I would rate as very high quality but, again, the price reflects that.
At the end of the day you generally get what you pay for and the features you want, bearing in mind that UK vans all use much the same accessories (fridge, cooker, heating system etc.)
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Correction .... Hobby are the largest outside of the U.K.
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I believe Hobby is the largest caravan/motorcaravan manufacturer in the world. Swift Group is the largest in the UK, but not even runner up in the the world market.
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The Hymer group recently went as far as publicly list the pecking order of there products, much to the disgust of many UK Hymer owners who through some very clever advertising and publicity in the early days of Club Brownhill etc thought the Hymer was the top of the tree in the Hymer product list.
I spoke with the CEO of Niesmann Bischoff who of course is part of the Hymer group. We were discussing the changes to the Burstner Elegance. He explained that as you go up in price the market gets tighter with fewer units sold. Therefore, in the +100K market Hymer were in effect competing with themselves in so many areas, they have trimmed it back with a more focused marketing approach.
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We have had many makes after over 40 years of caravanning.. The first being a Sprite 400 a good basic caravan and no problems in fact no problems with all the caravans we have had being a first of the Lunars, 3 Ace Awards were excellent an Avondale Sandpiper, Coachman Amara 2003 and our present Elddis Crusader Storm 2005 no problems either.
Would buy another Elddis, Coachman or Swift but never a Bailey. Would buy British as prefer the designs, equipment and colours.
DianneT
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