Do you lend out your motorhome?

KiwiKampers

KiwiKampers

Joined
Dec 25, 2015
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Nelson New Zealand
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MH
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Since 1998
I have ocassionally been asked if I would lend my motorhome to a friend or relative and I have always said ”no”. I find it hard to justify why I won’t lend it because everyone knows that I do 3 or 4 house exchanges a year with total strangers and include the use of my car.
I wonder why I have come to this irrational policy? My house is worth a lot more than my motorhome. Does anybody else share my feelings?
 
2 main reasons:
Most people aren't used to driving a van so it is very easy to dent, clip or scrape some part of it especially squeezing into a pitch, no doubt on your insurance. Driving also necessitates using all the gears, leaving larger gaps and slowing for bends and dramatically for roundabouts. You have to be far more switched on far more of the time.
The internal workings of a van are light, not built to house standards and are complicated so it is easy to break things. It takes 2-3 hours to hand over a new van to even an experienced motorhomer. If the person being lent the van has not used one before then there would be concerns over, remembering how to use the control panel half an hour after you have explained it, fixing a fuse, switching stuff off to not ruin a battery, dump valves, not forcing things, remembering to lock cupboards, shut windows, remove cables etc when setting off. In general something needs done after/during every trip and a stitch in time saves 9 so tightening a loose screw or handle which you might do without thinking would not be done, again perhaps needing an expensive replacement. It is easy to stow something in the boot which placed the wrong way round or stacked in the wrong order can be easily scored or damaged, or damage something else. When you do these things yourself then it is a case of live and learn when someone else does it, they are abusing your very expensive baby/home.
It is difficult to explain the above to a non motorhomer without being regarded as a tad anal but the risk of something being damaged is high, hence the simplicity of a rented motorhome with fewer gizmos and the high insurance costs.
Like the others, lending is not for me.
 
No, worked too hard to manage to buy one so the only persons that will damage it will be me or mum.Hopefully not though but errors can happen.
 
I'm happy to lend it to my elder daughter and family as the van is always returned immaculately clean and undamaged despite having two young grandsons in it! OK, I may have been lucky the few times I've lent it to them, but my other daughter ..... never again, especially to go to a music festival!
 
Not on our radar, point them in the direction of web sites that specialise in renting out personally owned motorhomes. Plus there are potential insurance issues and quite a number of technical points to cover off.

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Hi there, I would have thought you only needed to look around you at the state of some of the rental vans to see how an inexperienced motorhomer treats a van. I know I treat my van with kid gloves and still have the odd mishap and I'm sure others probably do. The size, rear overhang, the odd shaped side profile and the sticky out mirrors all seem to cause problems for the experienced let alone a novice.
No shortage of rental companies in NZ, following my recent visit I observed that every third vehicle is a rental van.
Steve
 
My son in law and daughter take the grandchildren in ours, never been an issue. My son would love to use it but his wife won't do camping? and he would need to do an additional test as van just over 3500 limit and he passed his test just after cutoff date. Won't have a problem with him using it once his wife has been convinced
 
We lent it once to our daughter and son-in-law.

They had no experience of motorhomes but were experienced caravanners. There were no problems and it came back cleaned and with more fuel in the tank than when it left.

However, they didn’t ask again the next year and when I asked them if they wanted to borrow it again they said “No”, because they felt too uncomfortable driving such a large vehicle and were too aware of its cost, being frightened of damaging it.

So it works both way.
 
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I would never lend.
Potentially, too much damage can be caused, not only on the outside but the inside as well.
It's a very personal space and you don't have to justify to anyone why you don't want to lend it out
 
Where we live, we are in a large caravan permanently sited, and my camper is parked next to me. It makes the perfect self contained apartment for any visitors, but they don’t drive it?
 
After lending my eldest daughter and her partner most of my camping gear and tent to go toGlastonbury many moons ago ,none of it ever came back and when I enquired to it’s whereabouts I was told that it had gone to help the people in need in some part of the world.The next time Glastonbury came around she asked to borrow my classic VW camper van .No Way Jose.:unsure:
 
As experienced home swappers of many years, we share the OP’s views on this and have arrived at the conclusion that the MH is just too fragile a piece of kit (inside and out) to be left in the hands of the inexperienced - it’s taken us long enough to work out all the different systems, water, heating, lighting , batteries, auto sat, tv bracket etc etc, that unless you were already very familiar, I could not imagine any ‘temporary’ user having the patience to listen to my long and very detailed briefing - therefore easiest just to politely decline any request (and never offer).
 
Yes, absolutely no problem. They’re either friends or they’re not friends and if the are then I treat them like they’re friends. My family is a “no-brainer”, as they say, they are family and any of them would give me the shirt from their back.
 
KiwiKampers said:
I have ocassionally been asked if I would lend my motorhome to a friend or relative and I have always said ”no”. I find it hard to justify why I won’t lend it because everyone knows that I do 3 or 4 house exchanges a year with total strangers and include the use of my car.
I wonder why I have come to this irrational policy? My house is worth a lot more than my motorhome. Does anybody else share my feelings?
Click to expand...
I would lend mine to our son & wife or daughter & husband but nobody else, perhaps my brother. You have to bear in mind that any serious damage and you can kiss goodbye to 6 months of use until it’s repaired.
spongy
 
We have swapped our Motorhome three times with New Zealand folk and had no problems, we just made sure they were Mature :xThumb: and obviously they had to be Motorhome owners otherwise we couldn’t have swapped,
All in all a very worthwhile experience, we spent 9 months travelling over three visits and saw the whole of New Zealand,
We normally do out travelling outside the summer season so we didn’t lose any holiday time in the UK,
The only slight faff was collecting and delivering out guests to and from the airport but then again they done the same for us,
 
As far as I remember I have never even lent any car to anyone, but the insurance has been for me only as is the MH.

Maybe one way to refuse a request with the MH is to say " I will lend you the manual to study and if you can pass my test on its contents with 90%, then I will consider it. Also I want a £3,000 deposit against damage" Should see request withdrawn.

I have never lent my 33foot boat to anyone - but I did give it away last year, but that was to the engineer who maintained it and who has more sailing experience than even I - it will have a good home.

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