Pilote brand

[wee_squaw]

We are thinking about trading in our W reg coach Fiat Kontiki Swift 640L for a Pilote G730DC Aventura A Class....opinions - anyone?? pro's cons

 

Ta!

Michelle

[alanmac]

We have a Pilote Galaxy 270 year 2000. It has the 2.8 Itd engine and regularly achieves 27/28 mpg. It has done about 52k miles and we are 2nd owners. Plenty of living space and a useful 725kg payload.

What went wrong - well nothing really other than new struts needed for the pull down bed and strange problems with one of the rear speakers for the radio. Servicing costs are reasonable and needed new tyres after 42k miles. Pleasant to drive and comfortable seating both for driving and relaxing.

The heater output on the passenger side is poor but my wife survives with the occassional use of a small supplementary heater ( cost £10 ) from time to time.

Realise this is not the model you are considering but the comments above are general not specific. Friends of ours had a slightly older model for 10 years without any problems and have now bought a Le Voyageur ( same stable )

Hope this helps,any questions pm me.

[Derek Uzzell]

Michelle,

 

Pilote has a habit of regularly re-naming, revising and re-jigging its model ranges, and I'm not certain whether the motorhome you are considering buying is new or second-hand. There also sometimes seem to be variations between the model-names of right-hand drive UK-marketed Pilotes and left-hand drive equivalents sold in France and (having looked at Pilote's 2008 UK brochure) I believe that may be so with the Aventura G730DC.

 

For 2009 model-year Pilote motorhomes marketed in France, the Aventura name is dropped and a new name - Avantura - introduced for a small number of entry-level low profile models. All remaining Pilote motorhomes will be marketed under the Reference, Reference Premium or Explorateur names in ascending order of specification and price. I'm not sure what the exact equivalent is in the French 2009 Pilote ranges to an Aventura G730DC as detailed in MMM magazine's latest Buyers' Guide, though there are 2009 French G730-numbered A-Class Pilote vehicles that match dimensionally the MMM-provided data.

 

Historically, there has been a tendency to offer in the UK the larger RHD Pilote A-Class designs on over-3500kg chassis. However, I note that MMM's guide and my 2008 brochure indicate that the Aventura G730DC has a 3500kg maximum weight. The MMM guide gives a payload of 470kg, but I'd be very suspicious of that figure: this is a large vehicle and there's no reason to believe ultra-lightweight building methods will have been employed. Similar sized 2009 Pilote "Galaxies" for the French market and on 3500kg chassis are stated in French motorhome magazines as having a significantly lower payload (either 305kg or 395kg) and it needs highlighting that the fresh-water tank size for those vehicles has been deliberately limited to a piffling 50 litres (a favourite Pilote ploy) to help gain any sort of useful carrying capability. So, if the Aventura you are interested in is indeed on a 3500kg chassis, you may find it difficult to keep the vehicle below its legal maximum weight and still use it normally.

 

According to the MMM listing and my Pilote brochure an Aventura G730DC uses the Fiat 2.3litre unit. Even though it would further reduce payload, the larger capacity 3.0litre engine (if available) would probably be a better choice in this instance given the vehicle's size.

 

Kitchen looks a mite 'dinky' and it might be wise to check the practicality of the bathroom, particularly the positioning of the toilet. Living-area and cab entrance-doors are on the 'wrong' sides for a RHD motorhome. I don't think this would bother me much, though it sometimes means, with an A-Class design, that access to the handbrake from the driver's seat can be a struggle. I notice from the report on a RHD Pilote Explorateur G730FC in MMM May 2008 that its windscreen wipers remain in LHD configuration. Not sure if that's true for all A-Class Pilotes nowadays, but (if so) it's not a great feature and won't help driving visibility in bad weather. Earlier RHD Galaxies had their wipers correctly 'handed' to maximise forward vision.

 

I've no hands-on experience of Pilote motorhomes (other than translating their UK handbook some years ago). From what I've seen of them, build quality is reasonable and layouts are generally sensible. I've known of a couple of instances (both relating to Galaxies, but not recent ones) of water ingress from new, but such things definitely aren't confined to Pilote. I guess it might be worth mentioning that the bodywork is mostly aluminium-skinned and consequently less resistant to the odd knock/scrape than the 'plastic' material used by some other manufacturers - Rapido, Eura Mobil, etc.

 

(I assume you've been following the ongoing 'juddering' saga relating to recent Fiat-based motorhomes, so I won't bother to go into details about that.)