Motorhome / Caravan
Comments
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It's what you make it, David. The point I've been trying to make is that we all do things differently.
I'll not pick off every single thing you list but, for example, toiletries live in the bathroom cabinet and the TV is fixed on a wall bracket while my 100+ books are on a Kindle.
The key is adapting the way we live to suit the accommodation. No rights or wrongs but just making things work for ourselves and I'm all for travelling light and the simple life👍
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It's a very comfortable tidy existence and I'd not swap it for your way but, there you go, horses for courses. 👍
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Ours is safe where it is.
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We have both a caravan and a motorhome. There’s a lot less work involved with holidaying in the motorhome, and it’s fantastic for touring around, hopping from place to place, having lunch wherever the fancy takes us. The caravan is good for dumping on one or two sites and exploring an area with the car.
Layout and size will be the two most important things to get right. Too big a MH and you will possibly restrict using it as intended, and then have to rely upon walking, cycling or public transport, a common mistake often made. Too small, and you may not adapt from a caravan quite as easy in terms of living, particularly if you are less mobile. That’s why layout is as important as size. Cutting back on clutter, not carrying lots of equipment, is a good basis to enjoy the quick set up, quick pack up Freedom that a MH can give you.
We use both in UK, all year round, for short breaks and weeks at a time away, rural and urban based visits. Primarily CLs and small private sites, occasional Club Sites.
If we had to give up one or other? We would keep the MH.😁
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Coachbuilt or PVC makes no difference. It ain't bolted to the outside wall you know😂.
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All this talk about the work related to setting up, putting away, quickness in getting off the mark etc. I take all that as part of the process of the leisure pursuit and believe it or not I actually enjoy the process of doing it and we actually tour with stays ranging from 2 - 5 days dependent upon whats around us that may be of interest. Our tour of 9 weeks mainland Europe last year took in about 15 sites, 6 countries and about 5 hours between sites, nothing rushes me when I'm touring.
The only thing that would affect that is my ability to do those things, so my next step would probably be a small motorhome or PVC along with a different outlook to how I tour.
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We have been thinking of changing to MH for a few years.One MH advantage is outside lane motorway driving which is obviously allowed. With increased traffic density, and increased truck usage. Some three lane motorways can be a two lane queue of truck passing truck, and the caravan is stuffed. A question to MH owners re servicing at dealers, how do you get on with this and get round have to take the serviced vehicle there unlike caravanners who still have car to go off for day. The Brownhills idea looks very attractive staying night before and the service day night using their facilities. I would only be interested in a 6.5 m or less. Like the European ones for the garage, but miss the u shaped GB end sofa. Still cannot make decision as good arguments put forward from both camps. one other possible advantage is storage at home and planning issues. I stand corrected but with a Motorhome the neighbours could do very little about MH on the drive as it is a motor vehicle unlike the more fixed caravan. Decisions decisions??
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Wanderer
I suspect the answer to your question very much depends on the dealer. When we book our van infor a service at White Arches we also book the courtesy car (free) but not all dealers will offer that. Staying the night before might sound attractive if all goes well with the service but if a problem crops up you could be stuck there for several nights. When we initially got our first motorhome seven years ago Margaret used to follow me in the car so we didn't need the courtesy car. Increasingly over the years she has become a more nervous driver because of how busy the roads are hence the reason we have the loan car.
David
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Wanderer, don’t forget the advantageous speed limits and use of the outside lane only apply if your unladen weight is less than 3050kg, although there was talk of that being changed. That’s not a typo - it is 3050 unladen as opposed to 3500 laden for driving licence purposes.
Parking on your drive could depend upon any covenants attached to your property.
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It’s a bit of a mindset change in many ways. Yes, you can zoom down motorways in outside lane if that floats your boat, but conversely you can amble all those lovely smaller roads as well a whole lot easier and really get to see the places you are visiting!
You can get some very nice MHs with U shaped lounges, so just widen your search.
Keeping a van or a MH, and indeed certain other types of vehicle at home will be down to your house covenants. Hundreds of thousands of owners do just this, with no issues. We have had caravans/MHs for 36 years, never had one in storage.
Its a big outlay. Why not hire one, preferably a size you like, and try it out? Then you can see if it’s going to be for you, and what aspects are “must have”.
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W, just to answer your couple of specifics...
base vehicles only need to be serviced to a specific level, eg any Fiat Professional dealer can do it and maintain warranty, and it will only need doing onece withing that period, at 24months.
by the time the next service is due, younwill be able to choose your local chappie if thats what you want.
re Habitation or Water Ingress checks, these can be a bit more problematic, dependign on location of purchase...
i have mine done at Southdowns in Portsmouth...its a two hour drive, so ingo down the night before, park in their customer bay (theres even a hook up, tho not required) and then into the service bay while i either walk the Portsea perimiter or take my bike with me.
a quick phone call and i head back and then off home....not a dreadful experience....other than the bill
Re: the design/layout point you raised....these days you can have ypur cake and eat it (garage and rear lounge) in several Continental models.
the 'trick' is to use the extra floor height gained by the double floor to provide a deep garage under a rear seating layout....not possible with UK single floor vans...
these can even be done within quite a small footprint, check out the
which is under 7m and 'slim' at 2.22m.
Pilote have a nice rear lounge (and front dinette) version at 6.5m but wont have the larger 'bike' garage....although the through storage under is quite reasonable.
for the full fat 'how to do this layout' see the Carthago Liner For Two.
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Some observations about the last few posts. The limit in the outside motorway lane is 7.5 tons not 3048. Of course if you are towing a car the same rule applies as for caravans.
Servicing may well be every 24 months but MOTs come annually. I at least have an oil change annually when the MOT falls due. I use a commercial garage for the chassis service and MOT and use the bus pass to leave it there until ready for collection. The habitation service is done at home by a mobile caravan medic. Of course if you keep the motorhome in storage then attending to service requirements can be very different.
peedee
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lets not put Ginny off with a 'yes it is, no it isnt' series of posts....
except to say that some folk are tidy in their vans at it really doesnt take but a few minutes to get underway...
...and that Alan and CY should take a trip out in a 'proper' MH..no rattles, no creaks and no raised voices even at 70mph in the outside lane
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Some great advice here and it’s a long thread so apologies if this has already been mentioned but one of the things we noticed immediately on our fist trip was the panoramic view with the high up driving position. We spoke to somebody who had hired a motorhome for the first time and he said it was like being in a cinema.
Except for visits to supermarkets we tend to stay put when we arrive on site and have stayed as long as 3 weeks in one place in both France and Italy. We walk to shops, use local transport or taxis but generally happy to soak up the local scenery. 30 years of caravanning and now 4 years with the motorhome and we haven’t looked back.
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My whole aim has been to show Ginny how it can be.
Rattles can be silenced but we need to remember that MHs are based on commercial vehicles so will inevitably be noisier than some cars.
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Rattles and most comercial based M/Cs can be minimised ,one way that is not often mentioned is tyre pressures and,that very few need to run at the high pressures shown on the base vehicles door pillers? and can be at several PSI below , which will give a much more pliant and quieter ride ,
On the Autocruise we had ,all models had the recomended tyre pressure and none even the largest model needed the full base vehicle PSI ,and they were all at diferent PSI for front and rear tyres
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Again some very good points raised. We are seriously considering the hire route. Servicing I would get oil change done every year. Dealer point very good point got to see where get it from. Re motorway, I don’t intend batting down outside lane at 70mph, but the flexibility is there if I require it, especially to escape trouble, I have an extra lane to use. Raised position very good point. I still cannot see MH being problem on a drive, it is a motor vehicle, same legally as a car, and you cannot park that there. Be interesting to test a covenant in law regarding vehicle usage, but there is always a first. I like the van conversions, but OH not keen. Also there is another motor vehicle to insure, has anybody found a company that will take caravan NCB ??
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As was mine TW. You have a small PVC, you don't carry bikes and by your own admittance you travel light.
We on the other hand had a 6.6m Coachbuild MH, we carried 2 bikes on the rear of it and we didn't put the tv on the wall as we preferred it on the centre chest. Chairs were stowed inside, along with the ramps. We used screens in winter months (although some use them all year round) So yes we did take longer to pack up as do many other's that have MH's
All MH's are different and when giving information to someone I try to think back to how we did things. Hopefully the OP will see that there is not one method but many options.
While we managed to get the van nice and quiet not all can achieve that and by quiet it never was as good as a car of course, so when moving from car to MH you need to know these things.
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Thankyou. I’m pleased you accept I was telling it as it is for us.
Incidentally, for info, it’s a 6m PVC and was preceded by a 6.4m coachbuilt.
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