Guest mikethe bike Posted August 24, 2015 Share Posted August 24, 2015 I think it's hilarious that whenever an adverse comment is aimed at British vans, all the like owners appear from the woodwork to defend them. Whereas European van owners couldn't care less when the same is said about their vans. Curious eh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geeco Posted August 25, 2015 Share Posted August 25, 2015 Paul (bulletguy) I have not driven in the two countries you highlighted but I was aware their roads were not so flash. Last year we travelled down some indifferent roads in the eastern end of Germany, while bitumen they were very patched and contained lots of potholes. We have spent time this year in the northern Australian state of Queensland. The roads called either "highways" or "development" roads often take the form of a single strip of bitumen the width of one car with dirt surface either side. The plan is to move left when a vehicle approaches from the other direction. On our recent trip the vehicles approaching from the other direction often included "road trains" that is basically a set of 3 full length trailers behind a prime mover - length around 53 mtrs. When full of around 200 head of cattle at 500kg per head you have a 100+ tonne missile heading your way. Generally it is no problem if you move left and slow to a crawl to let the RT past at their usual 100kph except when on the dirt section the RT drops a wheel into a pot hole and the whole thing kicks sideways in your direction. Meanwhile you are trying to keep the fillings in your teeth from the vibrations set up from the corrugations in the road. On the plus side that particular road had a roadhouse about every 250kms serving food & fuel. The corrugations can cause issues, in our case the grub screw holding the centre of the bottom hab door hinge feel out and we lost the centre spindle from the hinge, allowing lots of "bull dust" into the doorwell. Out there driving at night is not so flash as the roads often are not fenced and black cattle have access to the road corridor along with wild pigs, kangaroos and emus. Sometimes it does become a little crowded after dark. We do not travel at night. Different countries do throw up different challenges when travelling I guess that is why we like doing it so much, either here or in your end of the world. This forum offers me a window into the experiences and expertise of motorhomers from UK/Europe to compare with what we experience here, it is often very stimulating and humourous.Cheers Gary Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HymerVan Posted August 25, 2015 Share Posted August 25, 2015 Generalisations are never a good thing so there is little to be gained by saying that all [ insert country of your choice ] vans are bad. In any event there is no such thing as a British van. There is not even such a thing as a German/Itailian/French/Turkish (as in Ford Transit) base vehicle. Every vehicle is built from components and these components are sourced from more than one country. For example the engine of some BMWs is made in ....England and some major components on Bentleys are made in...Germany. The "new" quintcentially British MG is assembled in Britain from components made in China. It may even be the case that some vehicles are not even wholly assembled in one country with pre-assembly of modules. Similarly the habitation part will be made from components from more than one country. So for me its more about looking very carefully and critically at the build quality of your particular choice of vehicle including materials and design. One of the things I have done with cars is to look at a say a five year old example which will give a clue as to how the vehicle will stand up to use once it leaves the showroom. If trim is falling off in the showroom it is not a good start. For me that led me to East Neuk where the build quality is very high indeed. As with any complex product there have been a few problems but so far these have been entirely confined to components not actual construction. As to CC MMM awards I think the new format is less testing and thorough (compared with the Design and Drive which it replaced) It gives a wider range of vehicles it excludes those not at the show. ENCs past record speaks for itself as does their order book. So for me the proposition is wrong and I very much like my (Northern) British Campervan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest pelmetman Posted August 25, 2015 Share Posted August 25, 2015 I find threads like this quite ironic :D ........... You'd think that by now the industry could build a reliable leak proof camper, with just the odd cock up, yet judging the regularity with which incidents of poor design/build quality come up *-) ......... There's clearly been no.............Progress eh? (lol) .......... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted August 25, 2015 Share Posted August 25, 2015 HymerVan - 2015-08-25 8:48 AM Generalisations are never a good thing so there is little to be gained by saying that all [ insert country of your choice ] vans are bad. In any event there is no such thing as a British van. There is not even such a thing as a German/Itailian/French/Turkish (as in Ford Transit) base vehicle. Every vehicle is built from components and these components are sourced from more than one country. For example the engine of some BMWs is made in ....England and some major components on Bentleys are made in...Germany. The "new" quintcentially British MG is assembled in Britain from components made in China. It may even be the case that some vehicles are not even wholly assembled in one country with pre-assembly of modules. Similarly the habitation part will be made from components from more than one country. So for me its more about looking very carefully and critically at the build quality of your particular choice of vehicle including materials and design. One of the things I have done with cars is to look at a say a five year old example which will give a clue as to how the vehicle will stand up to use once it leaves the showroom. If trim is falling off in the showroom it is not a good start. For me that led me to East Neuk where the build quality is very high indeed. As with any complex product there have been a few problems but so far these have been entirely confined to components not actual construction. As to CC MMM awards I think the new format is less testing and thorough (compared with the Design and Drive which it replaced) It gives a wider range of vehicles it excludes those not at the show. ENCs past record speaks for itself as does their order book. So for me the proposition is wrong and I very much like my (Northern) British Campervan Common sense at last! There are good and bad vans form every country, and from every factory. There can never be absolute certainty. The best that can be said is that the risk of getting a bad one is increased if it originates from certain manufacturers, and diminished if it comes from certain others. The same is true for the base vehicles, as illustrated by the "juddergate" furore when the Ducato/Boxer X250s were introduced. Certain combinations of engine/transmission were unaffected while others were, but not all. The key is not blind faith is what is produced here or there, which is tantamount to superstition, but informed choice, which requires a bit of investigation and some logical thinking. But, even after that you can still be unlucky, so it also pays to look at which makers (and dealers) take the most reasonable and constructive approach to rectifying things that go wrong. That is, or IMO should be, your backstop position. A well made van, from a well reputed manufacturer, bought from a well reputed source. I would add that times change, and with them manufacturing techniques, so what has a long standing reputation can quickly be reversed by a badly, or well, conceived innovation. It is perhaps unwise to rely too heavily on reputations, where these were gained on models or construction techniques that have recently changed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Leake Posted August 25, 2015 Share Posted August 25, 2015 Don636 - 2015-08-24 3:01 PM Interesting comment about the Truma system, which I assume is a reference to the combined heating/hot water boiler. We have a Vantage van and when I originally saw one it had this type of unit but the one we have has separate units for heating and hot water and when I asked why the answer was that they found the newer combined unit to be too unreliable so went back to the old tried and tested system, which has not given us any problems. Seems this was a sound decision. Lucky you I wish AutoSleeper had done the same. We had the system you have in a Rapido some years ago. Very reliable. Next we had one of the previous combis in an AutoTrail which never actually failed but the kindest thing one could say was it seemed to have a mind of its own. Latest system we now have is brilliant in theory and would if only it were reliable. Ours is presently working OK but it's still a bit temperamental and I and others I've talked to,have little faith in. I wonder when Truma will get to,grips,with the problem or,if more manufacturers will like Vantage drop it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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