Reviews, advice and warnings please (1 Viewer)

[Kathy and Jon]

Hi all saw some nice homes at the Peterborough show today and likes the layouts of the Autotrail Frontier Arapaho, Swift Kontiki Ducato Maxi, Auto Sleeper Durford Duo and the Auto Sleeper Corinium Duo. Does anyone have any reviews, advice or warnings please. Thanks in advance

 

[Neckender]

The Auto Sleeper Corinium at 3500kg as under 200 Kg pay load which is quite poor and would need the weight uprated higher than 3500kg to get a decent payload.

John.

 

[Deleted member 29692]

You need to find what suits you. We all have our own opinions on various manufacturers. You will hear good and bad about all of them and they're all capable of building and selling a complete pup. Some more than others

Personally I'd never buy any British built van but that's just me. I'm sure there are some good ones around.

Just to expand on John's comment about payload with a couple of other points.

Firstly, and most importantly, don't ever, even for a second, be tempted to believe any dealer or manufacturer quoted figure about payload. They range from hopelessly optimistic to blatantly untrue. Don't let them try and gloss over the issue either. It's vital that you know exactly what the vehicle actually weighs. Ask for a new weigh bridge ticket. If they won't do that then it tells you all you need to know.

Secondly anything less than 500kg of payload isn't just poor, it's not fit for purpose and will render the vehicle for all intents and purposes unusable. You really need to be looking for something with 600kg plus.

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[Kathy and Jon]

Thank you, we shall look into this

 

[Kathy and Jon]

May I please ask, which are the best for payloads

 

[Neckender]

I bought a 3500 kg Autoroller with garage in 2011 and it had a payload of 800 kg, I don’t know what the newer models have though.
John.

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[nicholsong]

On Nick's point about getting a weighbridge ticket, I would not trust a dealer about what the contents of the MH were at weighing - he could say the tanks were full and the driver was in the vehicle when that was not the case, so I would want to be present when it was done.

In answer to Kathy and Jon's Q re best for payload, a generalisation is a truck-based chassis most of which are designed/built for 7.5t authorised weight, so with a MH body should have more payload than a van even one with a max-chassis designed for 4.5t. Of course in either case one needs a C1 licence and the 3.5t licence limit for an increasing number of drivers who passed their car licence after Jan 1997 is where a lot of the paylod restrictions stem from.

It is almost impossible for a MH manufacturer to build to under 3.5t and give a good(600kg) payload and use solid construction methods. There will always be a trade off between these requirements. That is until manufacturers start using more composite materials like in aircraft, but then the price would be uncompetitive.

If one wants a MH that has those 3 characteristics one needs a C1 licence.

I wonder when a manufacturer/dealer will start offering a C1 driving course as part of a sales package(with a dsicount for a buyer who already has C1). I could imagine that if that were common and the lack of C1 did not distort the market as now that the manufacturers might change the designs.

Geoff

 

[gus-lopez]

I wonder when a manufacturer/dealer will start offering a C1 driving course as part of a sales package(with a dsicount for a buyer who already has C1). I could imagine that if that were common and the lack of C1 did not distort the market as now that the manufacturers might change the designs.

that's a very good idea

 

[1881TB]

Have you been able to arrange to try one out for a few days? When we were looking for our motorhome we hired one to test the layout. Doesn't have to be the specific model. We thought we wanted a Hymer but we found that with dogs (as you have in your profile picture) a dinette used up too much floorspace so that the dogs had nowhere to lie. So we got a sofas facing arrangement (Auto Trail) which we have found much better. Plenty of people with dogs are happy with the dinettes though and not wanting one really cut down our options. But no dinette and an island bed became our top priorities after our long weekend in rainy England and we wouldn't have known if we hadn't forked out a small fortune to hire first.

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[Cheshirecat57]

I personally would hire a couple of different layout ones for a couple of weekends
Probably cost you a grand or so
Much cheaper than buying the wrong one and trying to escape from it

Also, the dealer and th3 support is as important if not mor3 so than the make