Tomo3090 Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 Hello peeps! I'm back from our 5 month and 3 days tour of France, Spain and Italy and can report that all who went out came back, still together and still hopelessly in love! :-D Our Autotrail Cheyenne 660 did it's job very well, with just three faults. None of which spoiled or affected the trip in any way. The interface unit that controls the automatic fridge failed and wouldn't work on 12 volt, ( it worked fine on gas and 240 volts so the mark 1 finger had to be used when we stopped.) The Remis rooflight winder "dropped a cog", (good old gaffer tape saved the day!) and the door handle broke, (we just opened the door window to reach outside to open it.) All are being fixed by our dealer, Spinney Motors next week. The van performed faultlessly in both directions and was an absolute dream to drive. I only drove for a maximum of 3-4 hours a day anyway and didn't feel at all tired or fatigued at all. In total the trip was 7,786 miles door to door. The fuel cost us £1,400, sites & aires cost £1,964, LPG for our re-fillable tank cost £84.18, road tolls cost 201.70, (most of these were in Italy), food cost £2137, sightseeing and museum entrance fees were £650.00 and ferries cost £451.00. The biggest reason this figure was high was because we caught the ferry from Palermo on Sicily to Livorno. The roads and driving standards we found appalling and they got worse the further down Italy we drove, and neither of us wanted to face a return trip. The motorway road surfaces were well below the standards in Britain, France and Spain. In places whole sections of the surface, to a depth of 25mm and over was missing. Not just in small potholes but right across the carriageway. The whole van shook and our teeth rattled! I don't know if you know this but Italians don't seem to have heard of the phrase "Keep your Distance" when driving! No matter how fast you are going someone is always about 6 inches from the car in front trying to pass. If they can't get past on the outside, then the inside will do nicely! Speed limit signs mean absolutely nothing! In the end we decided what we thought were speed limits were infact notifying you of the depth in millimeteres of the potholes in that section of road. Junctions, pedestrian crossings, bends and traffic lights are all ideal places to pass other vehicles for Italian drivers because that's where tourists slow down! On Sicily even red lights seem to be optional! And then there's the kids on scooters! No helmets, no rules and absolutely no sense of direction! We couldn't wait to get back to the sanity and civilisation that is France! Of the three countries we found Italy to be the dearest for fuel, food and day to day living. We had set ourselves a monthly total of £1,300 for everything, and apart from the extra spending on sightseeing in Barcelona, Rome, Venice and Florence we managed to stick to that. There is a wide variation in site fees, especially in Italy, and the higher price doesn't mean better standards. The ACSI card saved us a fortune, infact with that it was, in quite a few places, cheaper to go on a site than use sostas, (Italian aires). France too is expensive for site fees but again the ACSI card and municipal sites helped. We mostly only went on a site once a week to do our weekly wash or when we were having a "holiday from touring. We used the motorhome parking places in Barcelona, Florence and Venice, though with hindsight Barca. and Venice would have been cheaper to have used a nearby ACSI site and travel in. We had no problems with our personal safety or that of the van anywhere apart from Rouen on our first night in France in January. The aire there might be okay in summer when a lot of people are there, but we had a guy watching the van from a car at midnight for an hour before we drove off and found an aire just 20 minutes outside the city. He might just be a fan of Autotrail Cheyennes and was "starstruck" at ours, but in the middle of the night on an empty quayside I for one wasn't going to offer a guided tour to anyone, even Mr. Autotrail himself! The only downside is that I am home! Ann was beginning to get homesick and missing her family, but as far as I'm concerned if we were setting out again tomorrow I'd be well chuffed! :-D Non van problems included a MP4 player that didn't work South of Birmingham on the way out, so we had no music for 5 months. Our laptop caught something terminal in Spain and packed in and has cost £200 to fix. On that subject we found it to be very handy when it worked for e-mails, info on sites and sights and banking. Paying for internet access on some sites is a rip off and internet cafes can be expensive too. A call in at Morrisons in Gibraltar while we were in Southern Spain was also good because we could stock up on pasta sauces and Weetabix, both are expensive or virtually non-existant otherwise. I can't think of anything else at the moment so I'm off to try to remove 5 months of dead flies off the front of the van! If anyone wants any specific info on places or is thinking of going out that way and wants some pointers please feel free to e-mail. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malc d Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 Welcome home Tomo - sounds like a great trip. Nothing changed much here - I'd leave again as soon as you can ! ;-) ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michele Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 I am green with envy . Glad your back safe and sound . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hopesy Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 Nice to see you brought the weather back with you! *-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordThornber Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 Stephen, welcome home and thanks for posting such a comprehensive write up of your travels. We're looking forward to extended travel, (still full time workers boo), and I was particularly interested in the figures you've quoted. Of course we're all different and we'll all have different needs to meet but being the sad git that I am, (so Howie says), I totted up your numbers & your hols work out at little over £300 pw. I'd be very interested to know what sort of numbers other long stayers come up with? Martyn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tracker Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 LordThornber - 2009-06-08 5:11 PM Of course we're all different and we'll all have different needs to meet but being the sad git that I am, (so Howie says), I totted up your numbers & your hols work out at little over £300 pw. I'd be very interested to know what sort of numbers other long stayers come up with? Martyn Something very similar - more or less - about covers it for us too Martyn. Howie is the acknowledged expert on sad old gits Martyn - so he should know! Having had three longish holidays abroad in recent years where NOTHING failed or went wrong I would not be too happy with the van suffering three failures in one holiday - but that's just me - I always was an unreasonable sod in that I expect expensive things to work properly! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LordThornber Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 Hi Rich, thanks for that, it's just something, (the money query), that's pecking at my head and it's great that I can get some ideas on what folk are coughing up on these trips. Martyn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tracker Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 The biggest influences on cost are long distance ferries, site fees and the amount of fuel used in very long distance holidays. As long as the ferry is cheap - like Dover to Calais - and the distances modest - like Southern Spain with a bit of touring - say 3000 miles - and Aires or free camping is mainly used in place of full facility sites - the cost could come in at well under £200 per week - especially if you are not deeply into tourist attractions and eating out at expensive establishments - particularly in France. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hymer1942 Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 I do agree, you dont have to spend a fortune to have a great time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keithl Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 Tomo3090 - 2009-06-08 1:12 PM The fuel cost us £1,400, sites & aires cost £1,964, LPG for our re-fillable tank cost £84.18, road tolls cost 201.70, (most of these were in Italy), food cost £2137, sightseeing and museum entrance fees were £650.00 and ferries cost £451.00. ..and to post on the Forum: Priceless Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mel B Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 :D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Big Momma Posted June 8, 2009 Share Posted June 8, 2009 Tomo3090 - 2009-06-08 1:12 PM I can't think of anything else at the moment so I'm off to try to remove 5 months of dead flies off the front of the van! If anyone wants any specific info on places or is thinking of going out that way and wants some pointers please feel free to e-mail. I am doing a tour of Spain in 7 weks time (Madrid, Valencia, Barcelona) before returning via Bairittz. We have booked sites at all of these locations but would be interested to hear any experiences you had if in any of these vicinities. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomo3090 Posted June 8, 2009 Author Share Posted June 8, 2009 With regards to the costs, we did spend a bit over our "budget" in Rome, Venice, Barcalona and Florence because there is such a lot to see there, and to be honest because the Italian places were first time visits we only went to the "must sees". The rest can wait until next time! We ate out 5 times in the whole trip, when we caught up with friends who were also full timing/long terming. We shopped at mainly at Lidl or ALDI, (at most of them there were several vans using them too!), but did use larger supermarkets but these proved to be expensive in some cases, (Carrefourre, Leclerc). Local markets in France aint cheap either, 12-14 Euros for a roast chicken if you were daft enough to pay it! But you do get really nice fresh veg and fruit, but again it can be dearer than here. The longest we stayed on a site was three weeks and it was that long only to get the 40% discount for over 20 nights! We did freecamp in Spain and 2 nights in Sicily, but did use free, (or only a couple of Euros), aires for nearly four weeks coming back through France. We went through the Loire Valley, Champagne and Burgundy and sought out the orange marked ones in the "All the aires in France", edition 2, book. They were amongst the most special places we visited in the whole trip. One of the biggest savers of our money was the twin tub washing machine we bought before we left. They sell them in most accessory shops and cost us £80.00. But it has paid for itself easily in this one trip. It looks like a toy but we did bedding and clothes, (not at the same time!) and it coped really well. I am that good now I can get 1 wash cycle and 2 rinses, then a 2nd wash cycle out of 25 litres of water! At an average of 4 Euros per load at an on site laundry the saving was well worth the effort! From reading this and other web sites the three things that went wrong with the van were not a surprise as it seems quite a few people have had similar experiences. If you think of the international jigsaw that makes up a modern van it's no wonder things go wrong sometimes! They did cause us some annoyance but as I said it was nothing dangerous or detrimental to us or the van itself. Apart from that the van, and the extras we had fitted proved themselves more than satisfactory and we feel we have chosen as near to our "perfect" van as we could wish for. Of course there are lots of other gadgets out there waiting to be bought, if I can only win the Lottery:-D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rolandrat Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 Tomo, Was your motorhome judder free whilst you were away and what engine is fitted in it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tomo3090 Posted June 9, 2009 Author Share Posted June 9, 2009 My van is a 2008 Autotrail Cheyenne with a FIAT 130 engine and manual six gears. It has now done 11,400 miles from new and there has been no trouble from juddering as described by many of the people on this and other sites. Having said that apart from the usual manouvering on pitches and for parking I can't say I've had to reverse up a steep incline for any distance. It goes up the blocks ok and on occassion I have had to use two blocks under each wheel and there was some grumbling, but nothing that caused me any concern about possible clutch failure of gearbox damage. It doesn't like wet grass, forwards or backwards! But I think that might have more to do with it being front wheel drive and weighing upto 4 tons rather than a fault. Driving on motrways is a dream. I set the cruise control to 60 and away it goes. On long draggy hills, or even short steep ones, I have to change down to 4th gear usually, but it picks up well again and off we go again! That is the only time I sometimes wish I'd paid for the higher rated engine, but then I think an extra £1,500 to avoid changing gear is just not worth it. I really do sympathise with those people who have had trouble and can only imagine how it has completely ruined their experience of owning a FIAT powered vehicle, not to mention their time away in an expensive life style choice, and I can see why they are so voiciferous in warning against buying a Sevel van, but I would, and have, said to people is that my experience, so far, is very positive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rolandrat Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 Hi Tomo, It makes a pleasant change to hear from someone who is positive about the latest Fiat, I took the plunge and parted with a perfect Mercedes Cheyenne to go brand new, I must admit, it drives a dream and is the 3ltr version of the Autotrail Tracker EKS with bags of power and the road holding is in a class of its own. The reverse gear is definately too high though but manageable, I would have liked it to be 3.154:1 and not 4.083:1 as it is though. We are due to go over the water shortly and am looking forward to engaging the cruise control and burning some rubber. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
onecal Posted June 9, 2009 Share Posted June 9, 2009 Hi, Welcome home, maybe a nice article for MMM in the offing. Glad to see you had a fab' trip. Regards, Brendan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
starvin marvin Posted June 11, 2009 Share Posted June 11, 2009 Your costs were largely similar to ours. We were away for 20 weeks and averaged just under a euro to the mile, about 92 cents. Your costs were similar at 88 cents/mile. We had a completely different spending profile but very similar costs, which I think may help others budget. Certainly if your're moving around a fair bit £250 to £300/week seems to be about right. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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