Folding Campers…any good?

Thinking of getting a folding camper….can’t quite bring myself to go for a caravan. Are they any good / what should I buy?

you mean trailer tent?

Stop kidding yourself and buy the caravan

Caravans are much better and far more available second hand…

but dont fold he did ask about folding ones
Rapido come up on ebay but i dont know if they are any good was also tempted a while back

Had one back in the early nineties, they are great for towing and fairly easy to set up.
If you go for one with an awning that adds weight and considerably increases the setting up time

Not as well insulated as a caravan, but mine had a nice enough kitchen/dining area and the beds were of a good size and comfortable.
It was made by a company called Conway and the model was a Cruiser, no doubt even more luxurious now and also handy if your storage space is limited

Folding Campers as opposed to trailer tents are great large fixed beds good sitting and cooking areas. We had one for about 10 years before getting a caravan. The only advantage the caravan has is to extend the season as the heating is far better. I would look for a Pennine Pullman or Pathfinder easy to tow and pitch. You don’t need the awning for weekends which is just as well as the awnings are a pain to pitch. You can get top mounted bike racks, for up to 4 bikes.

We have a camplet – trailer tent. Use it for three weeks each summer, usually France and assorted other shorter breaks. It was a huge investment tbh, great if you can get it secondhand. We got one that accommodates a large awning on the front (Royal) which is good for extended holidays. The others seem a bit small to me for family of five. It works very well, beds off ground, duvets, proper sleep. Very light so you don’t notice your are towing. Can put bikes, surfboards etc on top. Easy to put up – I reckon many trailer tents are not. Now we have it holidays are cheap. Last summer did the Channel tunnel on Tescos vouchers, so just a few hundred quid for petrol and campsites. Its a big improvement over camping in a tent – in my opinion. Downsides – the initial outlay, year round storage (no where near as bad as say a caravan). Have to camp each summer – need good weather – have to drive to south of France/Spain.

Do you mean at trailer tent:

Or a proper folding caravan?

If its just the image thing/holding up traffic, just go for a caravan as towing anything will cause you to hold people up, if its a storage/small tow car issue, then they make sense.

Folding camper, not trailer tent is what we are after. Just had a look at caravans..bloomin heck, they are expensive! We don’t have cars which would tow a caravan at the moment, so I think a caravan is out of the question.

Spooky, that picture is a folding camper, not a trailer tent isn’t it?

If its just the image thing/holding up traffic, just go for a caravan as towing anything will cause you to hold people up

Not necessarily true – the camplets are just a small trailer. Drive at 70-80mph easily enough.

Drive at 70-80mph easily enough.

But not legally enough.

Just had a look at caravans..bloomin heck, they are expensive!

Are they? What’s expensive then? Lots of old but good vans for cheap out there.

And you don’t need a big car to tow – what you got?

lodious, should be two pics. The first is the trailer tent, second is the folding caravan. Once the roof is up they do clever things, like the kitchen unit hinges up from the floor to create a traditional height worktop, the bog/wardrobe fold up to full height, etc.

Towing anything at 70mph is stupid, towing at 80mph is lunacy!

Mines a Mondeo estate (big enough, but petrol and only does 28mpg without a caraven), Her’s is a Tiguan, which I understand will only tow 1,427kg, and with 3 kids, I think we would struggle to get a 5 berth under that weight?

A folding camper is not a trailer tent a trailer tent needs pegging out usually loads of pegging out a folding camper only has pegging points on the awning same as a caravan.

Wow. Mondy estate is plenty as is a Tig. A Tig is a top notch tower actaually.

We’ve been looking at new vans and there are beautiful 4, 5, and 6 berths for that kind of weight. The old guideline was 85% of your all-up weight for the all up weight of the van (MTPLM). However now people are saying 100% because cars and vans are much better than they were. You could easily find 5 berth vans towable by a Tig, in fact there aren’t many that would NOT be towable IIRC.

Older vans are smaller and lighter mind. Serviceable and sound but naffly decorated vans for 5 available for 3, 4, 5k I think. Ours was 1k – old but dry and all the extras (which all work) but only 2 berth. 1250kg MTPLM and tows no bother at all with our Passat.

I looked trailer tents/popups for fuel economy reasons, and decided they were nothing like as good. Oh and with a large engined petrol you will notice the MPG drop relatively m uch less than with a smaller one I reckon. Petrol engines become more efficient at wider throttle.

Re the kids, the load in the car is counted separately to the load of the van. According to my Dad the more loaded the car is the better it tows – more stable.

That’s my Dad who drove the four of us with five weeks of holiday crap all around France in a 1.6 petrol Nissan weighing all of 1100kg 🙂

The average weight of a caravan is 1200-1400kg maximum weight, you should be able to get a 4 berth for that. If the kids are small then the three will fit in the other double, if not just bring a pup tent along. My parents had a 6 berth, no real additional weight as it had 4 bunks instead of a double at one end, but I expect they will be harder to find.

A folding camper is not a trailer tent a trailer tent needs pegging out usually loads of pegging out a folding camper only has pegging points on the awning same as a caravan.

Correct.

We have one of the above, it’s a Conway Crusader and we call it a folding camper. When erected it has two double beds permanently made, and the middle bit where the dining table is can also be made into a bed; in all it offers (a cosy) 6 berths.

It has a toilet\sink, fridge, gas cooker with hob, a cupboard and hot and cold water.

Putting it up takes about 15-20 mins, the awning adds half and hour at least – all depends on how much shouting I have to do 😆

We didn’t fancy a caravan for towing reasons (never having towed before) and this was a lot cheaper than a 6 berth caravan.

OK, sounds like her’s might be OK for a caravan (I have driven mine w/bikes on the roof and the economy drops to c25mpg, so i guess a caravan would take it to c.22mpg? That would cost a lot to get to Holland :-()

Ah I see what is being said about trailer tents and folding campers, never really noticed the difference before! 🙄

Even with a 300 mile trip, the difference between 22 and 28mpg is only £30-40. For the overall cost of the holiday it sort of pales into insignificance, I would just take the car that is best suited. (which I’d guess is the Mondeo, used to have one and although I never towed with it, its got one of the highest towing capacities for a fwd car. (or at least the TDCI did)

What engine does she have in the Tig? My Passat went from 50mpg to around 30mpg, but SUVs drop less because they are already less aerodynamic to begin with.

I would still think the Tiguan is a better tower, it’s probably heavier. And rating isn’t the same as capability.

These folk are getting 30-33mpg:

http://www.caravantrekker.nl/whattowcar/gebruikservaring.php?merk=Volkswagen&serie=Tiguan

According to the VW website today’s Tiguan can tow 1660ish kg which is loads, puts you into double axle territory. It also has a towbar load limit of 100kg which is actually very useful, and will be better than your Mondeo. Means you will not have to be as picky when loading your van. (Although it’s still a good idea to get as close to the towbar load limit as you can).

In fact, in 2009 it won the Towcar of the Year award in AWD sub 1800kg category. So no excuses 🙂

Forget manufactures max tow weights for safe towing limits you should be looking at no more than 80% of the tow cars kerb weight have a look here http://www.whattowcar.com/ to see what your car and tow safely gives an idea of the towing performance too

Forget manufactures max tow weights for safe towing limits you should be looking at no more than 80% of the tow cars kerb weight

Again that’s not the advice I was given. The 80% rule was a guideline years ago but is no longer necessary.

That website says you can tow a double axle Bailey Pegasus 624 at 1660kg 🙂

That website says you can tow a double axle Bailey Pegasus 624 at 1660kg

That’s cool, but they are 16 grand 🙂

Who gave you that advice, a dealer looking to sell you a van above 85%?

I’ve not heard anything about it being ‘old advice’. A cars towing capacity is worked out via a very crude method…park the car on a 12% slope with an increasingly heavy trailer, and find out the heaviest weight the car can pull away with. The limiting factors being power, or grip. Hence fwd cars rarely exceed 1400kg, rwd usually have higher limits (like BMW and Mercs), pretend 4×4’s not much higher, then the proper 4×4’s with low ratio boxes tend to get towards the max 3500kg.

It doesn’t take into account handling or stability, hence the 85% guideline, as caravans are large boxes that tend to be affected by side winds and passing traffic. Its a guideline, not a rule, but that doesn’t mean you can just brush it aside as irrelevant.

[That website says you can tow a double axle Bailey Pegasus 624 at 1660kg]

What it actually says is that the van is rather heavy for the car. Both the Caravan Club and the Camping and Caravanning Club recommend the 80% limit. You pays your money and takes your choice but if you get it wrong the debris of your car caravan and family may spread over your local motorway. Sally Traffic warns of delays caused by overturned caravans nearly every day.

What it actually says is that the van is rather heavy for the car

Yeah but after that it also gives it 5 stars and says everything would be fine.

It doesn’t take into account handling or stability, hence the 85% guideline

I thought the guideline weight was 85% of the car’s kerb weight, not 85% of it’s towing capacity. That towcar website and the software that matches cars to vans (I think it’s the same thing, looks like it anyway) goes by kerb weight. So it says okay if the van doesn’t exceed the car’s weight. Which does take into account stability, really.

The thing is, nowadays vans have shocks and other self-stabilising features that they never used to. And tow cars are better too. Hence the 100% weight guidance I got.

It was two massive dealers in South Wales I spoke to, and they both said the same thing (that matches with the website). If they were giving out bad advice and there was accidents I’m sure they’d be for the chop in no time.