Hobby your opinions?? (1 Viewer)

[gazza280]

Hi Funsters

I have been visiting Motorhome dealers over the last few days, to check out a few new models and see what is available used.
I saw a Hobby Toskana 750 advertised and took quite a liking to it, even saw an older 2005 model for £18000. So I thought one of the dealers near where I live must have a Hobby Motorhome for sale but talking to a main dealer (near Brighton) I was told that they didn't stock Hobbys because they are popular with Travellers and get stolen more than other vans.
Now I don't think that I am very gullible and the reason I was told this was because they just didn't have any Hobbys or haven't had any Hobbys for some time.
Would he have said the same if he didn't have a Burstner or Knaus, possibly!!
I must say that with other dealers I have visited, none have had any Hobby models either. I'm leaning more to think that this is because they are good models and people are so happy with them that they want to keep them.

However as always ask the experts, thats you Funsters, because to get a true reflection of Hobby ask the people who use them. Would you agree?

I went to the NEC show recently and spoke to people there about Hobbys and the general opinion was they are good well made German Motorhomes.
I know that its all relative, there are always the odd model that has problems with any make.

Thanks in advance for your opinions
Gary

 

[haganap]

Have a read of this. Link Removed

So one person, 3+ years ago, gets turned away from a private site for TWO reasons the other being the habitation door side. Lazy journalism to say te least , have you read the article? There car was a hobby? Poorly written.


That constitutes hobby owners should sell up...oh:

And dealers should tell funsters that they shouldn't buy a hobby

 

[Reallyretired]

Complete nonsense about the hab door too. Must be at least half the MHs on the road in the UK are continental models with the hab door on the 'wrong' side, and totally unrelated to privacy as you can always park the other way round to get your awning on the same side as a British van.

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[buttons]

So one person, 3+ years ago, gets turned away from a private site for TWO reasons the other being the habitation door side. Lazy journalism to say te least , [HI]have you read the article?[/HI] There car was a hobby? Poorly written.
That constitutes hobby owners should sell up...oh:
And dealers should tell funsters that they shouldn't buy a hobby

errr......no afraid I haven't read it, it looked a right load of tat. You are absolutely right, badly written tat at that. The reason I posted it was in answer to Spitfires understanding that such stories don't exist. Whether you still, after reading this artical, go ahead and purchase a travellers van is up to you entirely.

 

[maz]

With reference to a recent thread, a big plus is that the Toskana 750 comes with a proper spare wheel in an easy-to-get-at location. :thumb:

 

[TheDogMan]

I am really amazed by some of the answers on this thread, Hobby make jumbo size caravans favoured by the travelling community, which actually looking at the 2013 models look very good, BUT, This is about a major German motorhome brand who's vans have a good reputation for quality and finish, yes I have one and I spent about 8 months researching both layouts and all the forums and comments I could find before I got mine. You can actually find a reason not to buy every brand and model if you research them and one site refusing entry is nothing in comparison to the inbuilt problems some brands have.

Dave

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[buttons]

I am really amazed by some of the answers on this thread, Hobby make jumbo size caravans favoured by the travelling community, which actually looking at the 2013 models look very good, BUT, This is about a major German motorhome brand who's vans have a good reputation for quality and finish, yes I have one and I spent about 8 months researching both layouts and all the forums and comments I could find before I got mine. You can actually find a reason not to buy every brand and model if you research them and one site refusing entry is nothing in comparison to the inbuilt problems some brands have.

Dave

I would take with a pinch of salt much of what you read on here. It is after all a fun site so you have to sort the wheat from the chaff.

 

[FULL TIMER]

I think your dealer has been slightly confused by various things. firstly Hobby Motorhomes are nothing like the Hobby caravans of the past which were popular with travellers, for a start most of the Hobby models that the travellers used to use were actually oversize on our roads unless being towed by a 3.5 ton comercial vehicle. these caravans eventually made thier way to the general market and some people bought them not realising it was illegal to tow them with a normal size tow car. The other reason travellers favoured these vans was not only because they were dry but because of thier size they attracted less or maybe even zero VAT making them extremely cheap for what they were.
It was known for a while that plenty of sites would turn Hobby's away possibly because they associated them with the extreme size possibly because of the probable ethnicity of the occupants. I would think that by now all this has been sorted, and I've never known Hobby motorhomes to be turned away from sites or with problems getting them insured. As for build quality I doubt if there is much differance to any other manufacturer these days, after all most use the same appliances and nearly all the furniture comes from Italy as far as I know
I will add this though a lot of my mates now and the people I was brought up amongst were Romany's and none of them would touch a Hobby caravan, they were just seen as a large cheap poor quality almost throwaway item ,especially when you saw all those Westmorland Stars, Buccaneer's and Roma's that their woman folk were polishing every spare moment they had

 

[Jaws]

Our Hobby was fantastic apart from a leaking roof seal .. but it was 20 years old when we bought it..

The fittings were absolutely top quality, and very very sturdy.
It was also wider by 2" than anything else we had seen ( not that we realised it at the time.. This was effectively our first van ( the very first was a bloody joke of a Hymer.. )

The only thing I would say is they do seem to have a bit of a problem with rot on ally panels nowadays.. Before we bought our current van we looked as several Hobby tag axle ones.. All were ally clad and ALL had tin worm on the cladding