Caravans.

TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsSTR
Full Member
What were you paying?

£455pa for an ‘XL’ width pitch. Standard was £419, very tight and involved a 90deg turn and push into the space – loose gravel meant a struggle even with 2 adults and a 1400kg caravan. Wider pitch location allowed me to reverse it in using the towing vehicle, by myself. Storage was “CASSOA Registered with the GOLD AWARD” but I still heard of two thefts of vans.

Access times were the real issue: I could’ve accepted the cost if access was 24hr but it was pathetic, not helped being a 25min drive from home.

Summer
Mon to Sat 8.30am to 6.00pm (Out by 6.00pm)
Sun 10.00am to 6.00pm (Out by 6.00pm)

Winter
Mon to Sat 8.30am to 4.00pm (Out by 4pm)
Sun 10.00am to 4.00pm (Out by 4pm)

We live on a main road with nowhere to park caravan, even for one night to allow an early morning departure, so really impacted on our use.

@benz – if you don’t buy your neighbour’s caravan, could you send me some details please, size, price, age etc. I’m interested.

I would skip spending a wedge of cash on a modern (or realtively new) british built van and go for a Hymer or similar (Adria/Knaus etc.). Even one 15+ yo will feel solid and be more attractively designed inside relative to most British vans. My Hymer is going to celebrate its 21st birthday later this year and despite every year going to the factory open day (We live opposite a caravan factory) I still can’t find any good reason to change. Aside the weight penalty for buying a hymer (it is built like a tank) everything just seems better on them. As mines old it doesn’t have some of the fancier stuff like auto-levelling but hey, levelling takes only a couple of minutes, and it never goes wrong. It does have built in everything inside, motor movers, really comfy beds, nice lighting & interior finishes, all built with high end parts that are easy to service and replace… the list goes on. Ive done some work to it like a new, bigger battery, solar, battery monitor, added some high power USB C sockets, but even at 21 years old everything still works as it should, even stuff you might expect to go a little like the cabinets are still straight/close nicely. I would say that unless you feel you need a new caravan £10k would be the max you need to spend if you bought a private sale Hymer or similar to get a really nice example.

Even one 15+ yo will feel solid and be more attractively designed inside relative to most British vans.

I don’t think this is true these days, to be honest. 21 years ago it would have been.

@Benpinnick *waves* we love our 20 year old Hymer Nova. Don’t have to worry about it having a beating by our 3 young boys.

Those of you with primary-age kids, how often do you use it? Every school holiday?

Our camping kit has ballooned to 65kg of tent and an MPV+roofbox of other gubbins and even then it’s realistically only May-August, been wondering if a caravan is the right move so we can do Easter, Feb/Oct half terms as well as the summer holiday and the odd weekend. We’ve got enough driveway space for one as long as it’s not enormous.

Do it, I doubt you’ll regret it.

Those of you with primary-age kids, how often do you use it? Every school holiday?

no primary aged kids, but me & soafgirl use our 2 berth van from end of feb through to end of october, far longer period in the year than we would consider camping. take weather out of the equation really – the ability to be warm, dry and comfortable whilst it’s lashing it down outside truly is a joy compared to years of tent suffering

Those of you with primary-age kids, how often do you use it? Every school holiday?

As a child of the 70s and 80s ours was used too bloody much – every holiday in the ruddy caravan – never saw the inside of a hotel till I was 18. Hotels were strange exotic places that posh people went too! Trips to the elsan point were always a holiday highlight!

No caravan will ever be town behind our car!! 🤣 🤣

I don’t think this is true these days, to be honest. 21 years ago it would have been.

I would still reckon our hymer to be better built than the newer UK vans. That’s not to say shinier, or with more toys, but in terms of outright build quality British vans are still playing catch up on the 20 yo Hymers. Which is bonkers since Elddis is owned by hymer for some years now. Example – I’m on a couple of forums and someone was asking about moving a bed support on on a fairly new bailey. Seeing the pictures it’s made from raw lumps of 1*2″ wood screwed together like I would do if I was making a caravan in my shed, and looks pretty Heath Robinson under the bed. Mine on the other hand is a full metal frame work, and then finished with the same wooden finish as the visible panelling. Sure it’s not actually seen, but its just a different way of building stuff. One is built quickly and cheaply, one is built to last. Yes you paid a fortune for the built to last thing new, but now the premium is gone and you’re left with excellent quality at a bargain price. For me that’s the perfect starter caravan. Easy to fix if it does go wrong, but super reliable and comfy, without massive outlay.

Weve just done 20days in France. Will do a few more in the October holidays I suspect, and then I’m hoping to site it somewhere good to ride for the winter and get a few weekends in. It stays plenty warm enough in even deep snow/freezing temps with the heating on @1kw.

A lot of the cheap interior wood is there to save weight though. I’m not sure I’m bothered about what’s under my seats and I’m not sure I can afford to pay someone to make the unseen parts look really nice. In the past, the same level of build quality was applied to the structure of the van too, which is why they eventually rotted so easily.

But interior design has now caught up with European vans, mercifully.

EDIT just searched for a random van, found a three berth Hymer Nova 570SL from 2007, 50cm longer than our 5 berth double dinette from 2000 and it has an MTPLM of 1700kg! Half a tonne more than ours. I’m sure it’s in better shape but it had better be. I couldn’t have towed that in my Passat, not even close.

True, but what’s your mlro? The Hymer will be 1300/1350 or something like that with a massive payload allowance. The difference in real terms for towing will probably be smaller than 500kg.

Nothing to add but I hope everyone plays the caravan anal game? You spot a caravan and place ‘anal’ in front of its model name.

The Hymer will be 1300/1350 or something like that with a massive payload allowance

It said 1550 MIRO with a 150kg payload. Mine is about 1080 with 175 payload IIRC

Nice. Will try that. We normally play counting unicorns. They’re everywhere.

By mlro on that post up thar ^ I mean MIRO. Doh

It said 1550 MIRO with a 150kg payload. Mine is about 1080 with 175 payload IIRC

Sounds a bit heavy but could be right. Nota fab of that model as it seems like Hymers (bad) attempt at a UK layout van. Bad colours, layouts not as good as the continental models, dated interior even when new. Looked nice for a 2007 model on the outside though.

Mines a 545 (continental style) with 1350/1700. Tbh I need the payload! Some older vans didn’t even allow for batteries and sometimes not even lpg (I suspect mine does tbh), so on mine that’s 40kg straight away of they didnt. Awning is 40ish too, motor movers the same, so I’m at 120kg payload before I actually put another damn thing inside it! I reckon mine probably is 1600+ loaded, but then I also firmly believe most caravans on the road are illegally heavy so I’m ok with it being heavy. Heavy but legal.

I still have the manual, it lists the deductions I need to make from payload for the optional extras I have… 118kg!!

That’s without the dealer fit stuff like motor movers and other stuff like water hog and waste carrier. That’s nuts. On the plus side I do have a 40kg or so water tank allowance in my favour and because I’m not mental I don’t tend to drive round with 40kg of water sloshing about behind the rear axle.

Ours is a Nova 535BB, MIRO is 1150kg, MTPLM is 1700kg. We could use it to shift aggregate, we call it big Bertha. Luckily we already had a Tourneo Custom to tow the damn thing.

We have primary age kids and use it all year round when we can, as said above. Not being worried about the weather is great for happiness levels. We have progressed from tent camping via a campervan into the caravan (5yrs now) so appreciate the various options and pros/cons. For us it’s far the best option. Before we had kids it was the camper van.

We have had tents and a campervan, when our daughter came along we got a folding camper for a while but the season was short so moved to a caravan eleven years ago. We have had nearly seven hundred nights in it as a family at all times of the year.
it sits in the garden so generally gets used two nights of the week by our daughter all year and often one night in the week by the wife whilst the daughter and I watch an action movie. We have definitely had our monies worth. Just thinking of replacing it with something slightly bigger at the moment

I had a new caravan,a hobby I drove over to Germany Hobby Hexel and picked it up was slightly more expensive than a secondhand U.K. one but way cheaper than new had aircon and you could stand on the roof.

Best part of a caravan is caravan club.

First rule of Caravan Club is that everyone gets some. Second rule of Caravan Club is. don’t tell anyone about the first rule

Ours is a Nova 535BB, MIRO is 1150kg, MTPLM is 1700kg

@snowrock that’s a payload and a half! We should start a Nova owning MTB club. Could be very niche.

We’ve had four vans – two Bailey’s, a Compass (Elddis) and our current Adria and tbh I wouldn’t go back to a British one. It’s not just the build quality that is better but Adria UK have been an absolute pleasure to deal with sorting a couple of warranty claims without question and it’s easy to speak to an actual person for info or just advice.

Contrast that to Elddis that I had to fight every step of the way to claim for a cracked rear panel (a known issue) as well as several other problems.

If I’m honest I also quite like the fact that our tin box is a bit different to all the others that you see.

Nothing to add but I hope everyone plays the caravan anal game? You spot a caravan and place ‘anal’ in front of its model name.

Yes although some sound, quite violent. Anal marauder, anal challenger

Lol just did the anal trick with my motorhome. Anal pulse 😂

Ours is a Nova 535BB, MIRO is 1150kg, MTPLM is 1700kg.

That’s more like it for that size of van!

Tbh I’d struggle to fit 550kg of anything I would want to take in it. There isn’t that much storage!