East Neuk Fifer Touring M Campervan

[tiger885]

Hello, I've just joined the forum so hello to All! Can anyone offer me some advice before I take the plunge and buy a new Camper Van? Firstly has anyone any experience with a Fifer Touring "M" medium wheelbase campervan? Good, bad and the ugly?

 

Secondly should I buy a 5.4 meter van or a 6 meter? Price is one thing of course but I'm most concerned about issues relating to parking in the UK.

 

Thanks for any responses!

[Brock]

I understand the standard parking space in the UK is 15.7ft (4.8m) in length, by 7.8ft (2.4m) in width. Therefore, both the lengths you are considering will stick out in car parks meaning that you may need to pay for two parking spaces. You will also come across height barriers which will stop you parking in some places. The shorter van will be more manoeuvrable.

 

Personally, unless I intended spending most of the time manoeuvring in tight situations or I had difficulty storing he van because of its length, I'd choose the longer van if money is not the object. It provides more living space. Choose the layout that best suits you and don't worry about the difference in length.

We find in our van that we have to be organised, polite, and avoid bumping into each other.

 

I have a 6m motorhome which is a foot wider than the Fifer. We limit ourselves to Britain, touring for 10 weeks over the year plus days out. Providing we avoid going to supermarkets in towns that obviously have a traffic problem, avoid height barriers and peak times for shopping, we don't tend to find parking difficult. The same goes for visiting points of interest. Quite simply, you will find it harder to park in a busy area than in a quiet area.

 

Never heard any negative comments about East Neuk Campers but I have not had one of their vans.

[colin]

Well I'm going to disagree (to an extent) with Brock, but then I have experience of driving all the different length panel vans, which I suspect Brock doesn't from the post.

The 5.4m van is undoubtedly easier to park than a 6m van in places like a supermarket and some other car parks, I have often found it possible to fit a MWB in a standard carpark space(esp. if you can overhang the rear), but you can't guarantee that will be the case and there are some carparks (Ely being an example) that have a 5.3m restriction.

 

Another but, is that both vans will be the same width, and if the bays are narrow you will be a tight fit whichever you are in, and often times with on street parking you will be wider than allowed.

 

 

Where I wholeheartedly agree with Brock, is choose the layout that suits, as much as I would like to have a MWB van there's just not one on the market which has what we want so we have a XLWB van.

 

 

 

[Don636]

We looked at the East Nuek range of vans when buying 4 years ago. We were impressed by the quality but in the end went for a Vantage Neo, which is a 6.36m van, as we thought the quality of build was even better and we preferred the slightly less fussy style but that is personal taste of course. We were originally going to go for a 6m van but went for the longer Neo in the end because we thought the layout and space would work better for us in practice and we were right. Even my Volvo V90 estate car won't fit in a standard parking space at 4.94m long so you wil have no chance with a van at 5.4m+ In saying that we rarely have any problem finding a suitable parking place by taking up two spaces or overhanging verges etc so I would not worry about that - within reason layout is far more important I think than worrying about 1/2m or so.

[Derek Uzzell]

Andrew Bromley (who is one of MMM magazine’s motorhome reviewers) owns a 2017 East Neuk Fifer M (mentioned in this earlier discussion)

 

http://forums.outandaboutlive.co.uk/forums/Motorhomes/Motorhome-Matters/Oil-Change-or-not-/48689/

 

Andrew is an occasional forum participant (user-name “brom”) so should be able to comment on the model - warts and all.

 

Potentially, it’s bound to be simpler to park a 5.4m-long Boxer/Ducato/Relay than the 6.0m-long variant, and the former’s shorter wheelbase and resultant reduced turning circle (12.46m versus 14.28m) will improve comparative manoeuvrability. But whatever the length chosen the width will be the same and, where parking in the UK is concerned, a vehicle’s width is often a critical factor.

 

 

[brom]

 

 

You're interested in a Fifer? - a pretty sound choice in our opinion! We have just sold ours, as we wanted something still smaller (a VW T6 SWB). You will find Darren and David Lynch really nice, helpful people, and they will make various modifications from the standard, if requested. A visit to their factory at Anstruther is always fascinating, and you'll get a warm welcome.

Fifers are very well made and designed; the Fifer S (an even shorter version) won its class at the Design & Drive competition pretty well every year it was entered.

As to which length to go for, the M is easier to turn in crowded car-parks - we find 6-metre vans are too large for our requirements - but everyone's priorities are different, as you'll soon see from reading the Forum! The Fifers are built on Citroen Relay/Fiat Ducato, which we find rather wide for the narrow lanes we explore, but there are new east Neuk designs in the pipeline on other base vehicles....

Have a look at the videos on YouTube which we made for ENC - they will give you an idea of what they are like.

Good luck!

 

[Don636]

I see the comment about the width of the Fiat Ducati and narrow roads but I have never found this to be a problem and have been down some very narrow single track roads with passing spaces - we went down the Gap of Dunloe in Ireland last year by mistake. Not easy, but possible in a 6.36m van although the locals in the pony & traps were not impressed with me doing it.

[arthur49]

tiger885 - 2018-07-23 3:03 PM

 

Hello, I've just joined the forum so hello to All! Can anyone offer me some advice before I take the plunge and buy a new Camper Van? Firstly has anyone any experience with a Fifer Touring "M" medium wheelbase campervan? Good, bad and the ugly?

 

Secondly should I buy a 5.4 meter van or a 6 meter? Price is one thing of course but I'm most concerned about issues relating to parking in the UK.

 

Thanks for any responses!

 

East Neuk is near us and we have considered and viewed their vans in the past. The service and quality of product is excellent. My only reservation is that the fridges are compressor type. We hate them as they use a lot of battery power if not on hook up. And the cooling fan can be noisy in our experience (Autocruise Rhythm with Waeco compressor fridge)

If your plans are sites with hook up compressor fridges are fine. But if you plan no hook up, the power consumed by the fridge can limit your stay.

[brom]

I am a light sleeper, and very sensitive to noisy fridges - but our experience of the Fifer compressor fridge, being at low level under the offside bed-foot, was that it was very quiet, especially if the beds were made up as a double.

[Deneb]

Our van is not an East Neuk model, but we do have an Isotherm compressor fridge, with 2 x 90Ah bafteries and 100W solar panel. The fridge is quiet and doesn't disturb us at all. I never notice any noise from it unless I intentionally listen for it. Our consumption averages about 26 - 28 Ah a day according to the Victron BMV, fridge, LED lighting, a couple of hours TV use and charging 2 phones included.

 

We can easily last 3 days on batteries spring to autumn, and usually find a site for a night after that time to empty and refill tanks etc.

 

We are currently parked up on the Pe.brokeshire coast and the solar input is more than compensating for the fridge consumption, even at this time of the morning, although obviously the weather is not normal for the UK!

[Don636]

We have a Vantage Neo and I would agree with Denebs assessment on the fridge - never really notice any noise. We find that having to empty the toilet cassette roughly every three days would limit wild camping (which we don't do anyway) more than battery capacity as a visit to a site would be required in any case and we could get a hook up to charge up the batteries.

[tiger885]

Thank you to everyone who has offered advice and comments. I suspect like anything else a lot comes down to experience and confidence with regard to the size of vehicle, albeit interior space and function are equally important. My plan is to go again to the NEC show in October before making a final decision although, like last year, we'll probably come back overwhelmed with too many choices!

[colin]

Hire a van and then you will see what suits.

[HymerVan]

Have just seen this thread as we have been away for 61 days in Scandanavia in my Fifer "M". Its is my second one and I fully endorse Broms comments. The 5.4 did everything we needed and carried everything we wanted (including masses of food and some wine). It is very easy to park and now has a standard reversing camera which is the icing on the cake. The L has some advantages. More storage than we could use (but thats a personal thing) a second area at the front, good for breakfast if the other half is still asleep a more powerful engine and a second solar panel.

So the 5.4 can get into spaces the 6 metre can't but its often the width which is the determining factor as you can overhang grass etc often. Personally I think the combination of design innovation, build quality, component quality and the integrity of the Darren and Davie is great and I voted with my feet (or rather my wallet) by buying a second one which was another "M" because although the "L" had much to admire the "M' did the job and was big enough but easier to park. Some the tunnels in Norway were unlit and had limited passing places. We were glad to have an "M" in these.

On our trip we encountered temperatures from 34C in the daytime to -8C at night on our journey of about 10,000km. The van behaved faultlessly (the driver didn't) and there were no habitation issues at all. We did need our heavy duvets at night but otherwise we were snug and warm and the diesel heating got the van up to temperature in no time.