Motorhome Workshop @Sunstore

[Malcyb]

Morning,
So we eventually fell for a Globecar Summit Prime 540, and we’re going to collect it in a few weeks. We’re considering what we want to add, especially in terms of security (the dealer’s offers don’t look especially attractive) and who we should entrust with the work. There’s a place near us called Motorhome Workshop (https://www.motorhomeworkshop.co.uk/) described as a sister company of Sunstore who specialise in solar panels, has anybody here any experiences of them, good or bad? I read some positive comments about Sunstore but nothing about Motorhome Workshop - though they have some glowing google reviews I’m always a bit cautious about them. Before anyone asks, I have read about Vanbitz, but I’m just weighing up our options at the moment.

 

[Wombles]

Hi & welcome to another Globecar Summit owner! Can't help you with feedback about that company - their website looks good but agree that online reviews are not always trustworthy. Hopefully some will come along & comment shortly....

 

[Jimjo]

Hi Malcyb - We are just switching from our Danbury VWT6 to the Globecar Summit Prime. Really looking forward to collecting it in a few weeks but have read some negative comments about the sky roof and leaking Heki’s. Would love to hear what your experience has been to date. Many thanks
Jmjo

 

[Malcyb]

Hi,
Due to circumstances beyond Globecar’s control our experiences have been very limited since, the very first time we went away in the van (ironically having spent a lot on the van’s security) our home was broken into, so since then we have spent a lot of time and money turning our house into Fort Knox and it was only last week that we actually went away for a few nights, so we had to relearn how everything worked! But so far my observations are……
From a habitation perspective we’ve been very happy so far. The transverse bed is very comfortable and even at 6’2” I don’t have a problem. The washroom is inevitably cramped but we can get an adequate shower in it, hot water just about lasts ok for 2 of us. The integrated blinds and fly screens are a real boon. On the one wet evening we were forced to stay indoors last week it was so much more comfortable than the VW.
No real snags so far however we discovered to our cost that you have to be careful opening the sliding door if you have the little window at the head of the bed open, my wife was wondering why the door wouldn’t fully open and ended up pushing the perspex sideways and slightly damaged the rubber window surround. It slid back in place fine though. As documented in another thread we suffered a slow gas leak but now I know that the hose has to be tightened onto the bottle with a wrench, not just hand tight.
Regarding the skyroof, to be honest I’d have preferred not to have it and have the big roof compartment instead but the price on the prime was too good to turn down, and the amount of light it lets in is very nice. However much above 50mph it starts to whistle which is pretty annoying.
My biggest gripe coming from the VW is that the Ducato (140 PS auto) is nothing like as nice to drive as the VW (our T6 was specced to the gunwales and lovely to drive), it’s pretty slow and cumbersome, but we were prepared to sacrifice that to get a van that was nicer to live and sleep in.
Since breaking our duck last week we’ll be going away much more often so I’ll update this thread with any interesting discoveries.

 

[3DOM]

Sorry to here about the scumbags breaking into your home.
Hope you enjoy your van

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[Malcyb]

Sorry to here about the scumbags breaking into your home.
Hope you enjoy your van

It was a painful lesson learned, though it could have been worse. We think the scrotes saw us loading up and grabbed the opportunity. We’d been lax about home security but not any more.

 

[sedge]

Hah - sympathies with the home burglary - can't replace sentimental things whatever you do, and that's a bastard mentally. Gets to the stage where I thought I'd be buggered if I'd spend a fortune getting more nice stuff ready for the next lot to nick - so you have to try and achieve a balance between cutting off your nose to spite your face and otherwise. And it's hard.

 

[Jimjo]

Hi Malcyb,
Many thanks for coming back so quickly. What a pain being broken into - hope they caught them!

To be honest I think that your comments about the drive quality and the roof noise are more or less in line with what my own expectations are for the van. Likewise we love many aspects of our VW, especially the drive, but I think ultimately these will be far outweighed by the comfort of having the fixed bed, shower and loo - no more blowing up mattresses before bedtime!

Your comment about the sliding door and rear window is interesting. We felt that the sliding door opening was very narrow when we saw the Globecar and the sales guy explained that it has blockers in the sliding mechanism to stop the door opening in case the rear window is open. We have asked for these to be removed as we would prefer a wider opening and plan to keep that rear window shut (although no doubt we will forget)

I’d be interested to know if you intend to do anything about the whistling noise - does sound annoying but the light that the window lets in is really nice so maybe its just something we will have to put up with.

Thanks again.

 

[Malcyb]

Hah - sympathies with the home burglary - can't replace sentimental things whatever you do, and that's a bastard mentally. Gets to the stage where I thought I'd be buggered if I'd spend a fortune getting more nice stuff ready for the next lot to nick - so you have to try and achieve a balance between cutting off your nose to spite your face and otherwise. And it's hard.

thanks… like most burglaries these days they were after jewellery and cash and sadly went off with jewellery which had sentimental attachments for my wife, so even though the insurance valuation was surprisingly generous, money couldn’t replace those things. Worst though was that it made us a bit paranoid about leaving the house (so it was convenient there was lockdown for much of the time!) and we’re just slowly starting to get over that now.

 

[Malcyb]

Your comment about the sliding door and rear window is interesting. We felt that the sliding door opening was very narrow when we saw the Globecar and the sales guy explained that it has blockers in the sliding mechanism to stop the door opening in case the rear window is open. We have asked for these to be removed as we would prefer a wider opening and plan to keep that rear window shut (although no doubt we will forget)

we were never given an explanation as to why the blocker in the sliding mechanism was where it was and we probably should have figured that out. In which case it would have to be adjusted to leave an even smaller opening to be effective but as you say it’s not a very big opening anyway so I think we’ll leave it or perhaps look at adjusting it to let it open wider now we know it’s serving no purpose!

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[Rockcrawler]

Morning,
So we eventually fell for a Globecar Summit Prime 540, and we’re going to collect it in a few weeks. We’re considering what we want to add, especially in terms of security (the dealer’s offers don’t look especially attractive) and who we should entrust with the work. There’s a place near us called Motorhome Workshop (https://www.motorhomeworkshop.co.uk/) described as a sister company of Sunstore who specialise in solar panels, has anybody here any experiences of them, good or bad? I read some positive comments about Sunstore but nothing about Motorhome Workshop - though they have some glowing google reviews I’m always a bit cautious about them. Before anyone asks, I have read about Vanbitz, but I’m just weighing up our options at the moment.

We deal with them on a professional basis and I cannot fault them at all. I have also had work carried out personally by them and again cannot praise them enough.

 

[Malcyb]

We deal with them on a professional basis and I cannot fault them at all. I have also had work carried out personally by them and again cannot praise them enough.

We had an alarm and tracker installed by Southern Motor Security. Tragically Mat is no longer with us or else we’d have asked him to install solar panels too which is next on the to-do list, but I imagine we’d use Sunstore now so good to have a recommendation.

 

[orridge]

I have used Motorhome Workshop twice in the last year and cant fault there service or standards. hope your booked in as they were booked solidly until Aug/Sep last time I spoke with them.

 

[Jimjo]

we were never given an explanation as to why the blocker in the sliding mechanism was where it was and we probably should have figured that out. In which case it would have to be adjusted to leave an even smaller opening to be effective but as you say it’s not a very big opening anyway so I think we’ll leave it or perhaps look at adjusting it to let it open wider now we know it’s serving no purpose!

Thanks. I’ll let you know how we get on with ours once we’ve had it a few months

 

[Jimjo]

we were never given an explanation as to why the blocker in the sliding mechanism was where it was and we probably should have figured that out. In which case it would have to be adjusted to leave an even smaller opening to be effective but as you say it’s not a very big opening anyway so I think we’ll leave it or perhaps look at adjusting it to let it open wider now we know it’s serving no purpose!

Thanks - we’ll let you know how we get on with ours once we’ve had it out for a few trips. Hopefully you can get out a bit more now in yours Cheers

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[2 Jabs]

However much above 50mph it starts to whistle which is pretty annoying.

Friend of mine had roof gutters on his car that used to whistle at speed. He used a piece of blue tack to block the gutter and moved the position according to the speed he was doing.

If you can find out where the whistle is being generated you may be able to do something similar.

 

[Jimjo]

Will give it a go - let’s hope it isn’t needed