Morelo For Beginners

[ceejayt]

Always interesting to see how one persons view of a Motorhomes can be so entirely different from another and it doesn’t depend on price.
Our problem is that our current and last three Motorhomes have all had slide outs and I don’t feel we could manage without. Our first Motorhomes was Fkair and we loved it but we always joked that one person had to sit down if the other wanted to stand up.

our kitchen and lounge all move out. Makes a huge difference in terms of space.

Adding a slide on a Morelo is a very expensive exercise. Isnt it something like £25k or have I got that wrong ?

 

[sallys]

Hi all. Just an update on NFU insurance and Strikeback/Growler. If you get a quote make sure you say “Vanbitz Strikeback“not “Strikeback by Vanbitz” ...it’s listed under V not S which is why the lady “helping” me couldn’t find it. Once we’d established that, I did indeed qualify for a nice discount ??. Thanks Eddievanbitz for your support too.

 

[sallylillian]

Adding a slide on a Morelo is a very expensive exercise. Isnt it something like £25k or have I got that wrong ?

Depending on exchange rate you are right E30k. However that does get you some options for free which are cost options normally. Novel kitchen at E5290, Gas tank E2950. But you have an RS and they don't give you slides for free, if I remember they were circa the same money in sterling?

 

[ceejayt]

Depending on exchange rate you are right E30k. However that does get you some options for free which are cost options normally. Novel kitchen at E5290, Gas tank E2950. But you have an RS and they don't give you slides for free, if I remember they were circa the same money in sterling?

Slide out on RS is £10k but you also have to take the option of hydraulic levelling which is a no brainer anyway for a vehicle that size. They switched from E and P and now use HPC Hydraulics for the slide and the legs which is great as there is just one panel and/or Bluetooth app on The phone to level and slide ?

 

[sallylillian]

I was sure it added 30-40k for the 2 slide version compared to the non slide when I was looking 6 years ago, infact just looked at emails from 2014 and there was a £40k difference for 2 slides? Are you saying they have halved the price now?

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[ceejayt]

I have the price list and know what I paid in 2019. Single slide kitchen and lounge definitely £10k. We did have the two slide version previously but you lose out massively on garage space with the bedroom slide. I will look up cost on price list and pop it in here in a moment

 

[ceejayt]

Confirmed. Single slide £10k and double slide £20k. Must take hydraulic keg option £6k.

double slide was great but very limiting in garage. Single slide of kitchen and lounge, life changing ?

 

[ceejayt]

You can choose three different garage heights which changes height of bed in rear. We went for middle height which allows us to get full size bikes in with plenty of space to spare.

 

[jongood]

Lovely words indeed

In all honesty I think the Arto range, especially the single rear axle models, are some of the most stunning looking MoHo's on the road today.

The Morelo and Arto may be slightly different price points but Nicky and I will be looking at both to make sure that we get the best 'space v practicality v cost' deal possible. You can see from this thread that in some ways the purchase and ownership of the big vans can be a right pain in the arse.

We viewed the 8.25m long Morelo Home 82LS at Premium MoHo's the other day, as part of its 3-van Morelo collection and the inside looked cramped and rather uninspiring and, to me personally, I could see no reason why someone would spend so much money on that particular model besides "look at what we've spent".

I don't wish to offend anyone but the Morelo in that particular guise was a complete waste of money IMO. I'm being as honest and critical as possible here since it's imperative that both Nicky and I maintain a well balanced view on things.

IMO, (and I'm founding this view entirely on my newbie status); if someone wants to move from an Arto or Frankia Platin to a Morelo/Concorde then I see no point in doing it unless you want the top end vans with the size to go with it.

Some people may think I'm being a bit controversial here but the likes of the Arto range, Frankia, cheaper Morelos all seem to merge together in terms of what they can potentially offer an owner.

One thing is for certain though, an Arto 76E is a wonderful bit of kit and I'll be looking at them too.

All the best,

Andrew

My 4d on Artos - Ive owned this one for 9.5 years 2010 74r, its been great and the 69GL I had for the previous 6 years was also pretty good. I would not buy the current model because I prefer the 3 litre chain driven engine, which funnily enough is also in the Flairs, most Morelos and most Concordes.

We are in the market for a change because we want more space and I really want to go for the robustness and greater torque of a truck chassis. I dont want to go much newer because I dont want the complication ( emission crap) or depreciation, so we re probably going to end up with either Phoenix/Concorde/older RMB or an MAN chassis and there are plenty of them out there for@ £100K

 

[jongood]

I really don't get why you guys are fussing with breakdown cover on new vehicles. I'm touching wood here but in my over 100k miles and 15 years, I have broken down on the road once - in Morocco. Did I want to come back on a loader? what for? I paid someone to fix it and carried on.

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[funflair]

I really don't get why you guys are fussing with breakdown cover on new vehicles. I'm touching wood here but in my over 100k miles and 15 years, I have broken down on the road once - in Morocco. Did I want to come back on a loader? what for? I paid someone to fix it and carried on.

Some of us have wives that worry about things like that Jon, it's easier to just go along with it, in 30 years or more of breakdown membership I think we used it once and that was when she ran out of diesel and I flattened the battery bleeding the injectors.

Martin

 

[ceejayt]

Have to admit have never had to call breakdown in all our IVECO chassis vehicles.

 

[sallys]

We called out Iveco breakdown on our very first trip away in our new Concirde in 2011...starter motor went down. We were wilding in a layby in rural France at -10 deg

 

[Blue Knight]

I really don't get why you guys are fussing with breakdown cover on new vehicles. I'm touching wood here but in my over 100k miles and 15 years, I have broken down on the road once - in Morocco. Did I want to come back on a loader? what for? I paid someone to fix it and carried on.

You're a very lucky chappy Jon.

Here's our vehicle breakdown history over the last 40-months.

1. New Landcruiser: 2-days old, 380-miles in and an engine failure in the Highlands. Crickey, Oh Please!, the Taliban get 240,000km out of their cruisers in Afghanistan and we couldn't even manage the first trip out to Laggan and Newtonmore from Durham.

2. New Vogue, 3-month point the air suspension deflated/broke while sitting on our drive for 6-weeks. It just discharged itself. God rid.

3&4. Last 2 new Fiat MoHo's; one breakdown in Edinburgh and the other required a call out at Buckle.

5. Hire car last year, tire blew out on thr A1 and the woman kept saying "use the tyre inflation kit" to which I replied "there is no tyre to inflate". We were heading home and it took three seperate recovery trucks and added 9-hours to the trip just to cover 100-miles.

Call me cynical but I do want recovery insurance and I do want it with bells and whistles on it too

 

[Blue Knight]

It may seem as if I'm flogging a dead horse with the breakdown piece but here goes:

Scenerio: You receive your new Morelo Palace. It's 9.19m long on a 7,490kg Iveco chassis and with the hab AC and sat gear on top it works out to be 3.62m high.

It breaks down in Spain so who do you contact and what will you expect to happen?

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[Rapphil]

It was 3 years ago but the lady I spoke to at ADAC said if you were just over 3.2 high it would depend on the particular contractor if they recovered you so no guarantee.
Back to the 890rl if you do carry any passengers you would need an intercom to talk to each other and I think it’s that one where the seated belts are facing backwards so they would be looking out of the rear window when travelling. But yes an amazing lounge.

 

[jongood]

It may seem as if I'm flogging a dead horse with the breakdown piece but here goes:

Scenerio: You receive your new Morelo Palace. It's 9.19m long on a 7,490kg Iveco chassis and with the hab AC and sat gear on top it works out to be 3.62m high.

It breaks down in Spain so who do you contact and what will you expect to happen?

Surely new owners would be covered by Iveco assist but for older chassis - Wouldnt you want it taking to the nearest Iveco garage? That shouldnt be hard to achieve.

Dealer Iveco

private.iveco.com

 

[sallylillian]

It may seem as if I'm flogging a dead horse with the breakdown piece but here goes:

Scenerio: You receive your new Morelo Palace. It's 9.19m long on a 7,490kg Iveco chassis and with the hab AC and sat gear on top it works out to be 3.62m high.

It breaks down in Spain so who do you contact and what will you expect to happen?

As Jon said, Iveco, they are pretty good. I was bringing my Flair back from Germany in 2015 brand new. At circa Salisbury the steering became noticeably stiff and after a night at a campsite it was clearly manual steering!! Anyway we had an appointment at a garage I use in Cornwall for the VCA check so continued on. They found that the power steering had lost its oil from a failed lip seal on a steering arm which had been exposed to bad weather due to a failed rubber boot and the resultant corrosion had buggered the lip seal. Probably due to standing at Meier the chassis converters.
Anyway my garage was a MAN dealer not Iveco but they talked to Iveco (and I had to go through the simple warranty register exercise on the VIN only as it was not registered) and then the 50 mile away Iveco main dealer agreed that my garage would do the work, the parts, as it was left hand drive were not in the UK and were flown over from Italy and 5 days later all fixed. If we had been in Europe the parts would have been readily available and so it would have been 48 hours.
I think today most of the big truck/van manufacturers have great back up EU wide and I even have a MB credit card for all servicing and warranty stuff, you just state the number and because you have already been approved they just fire away with the work. Well so I was told and I am hoping not to need to test it!

Michael

 

[Southdowners]

Our Concorde is on a Daily chassis. We had to call out Iveco when our brakes overheated in Norway when our vehicle was less than a year old. A mechanic came out to us and we then went to the nearest Iveco garage under our own steam to get everything checked. All under the Iveco warranty. However, we have RAC Arrival so that in the unlikely event of say a major breakdown or accident we can be repatriated.

 

[funflair]

Our Concorde is on a Daily chassis. We had to call out Iveco when our brakes overheated in Norway when our vehicle was less than a year old. A mechanic came out to us and we then went to the nearest Iveco garage under our own steam to get everything checked. All under the Iveco warranty. However, we have RAC Arrival so that in the unlikely event of say a major breakdown or accident we can be repatriated.

Or was it smoke? thanks for the heads up on that BTW you helped me decide that I wanted a Telma retarder on our new van.

Martin

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[Southdowners]

Yes, it was smoke Martin. However, we had just come down a very steep Norwegian mountain pass which went on for miles and miles. There were stopping places along the route and a number of vehicles had actually stopped but we didn't take the opportunity to stop as didn't realise how it was affecting our brakes. We were flagged down by another motorist. It was only on one side at the rear.

It's never happened since and we have done similar Norwegian passes again. When checked the brakes were deemed to be fine. It's a bit of a mystery as to what happened. We were using our gears to slow the descent by the way.

Ha ha... just realised the joke Martin.

 

[funflair]

Yes, it was smoke Martin. However, we had just come down a very steep Norwegian mountain pass which went on for miles and miles. There were stopping places along the route and a number of vehicles had actually stopped but we didn't take the opportunity to stop as didn't realise how it was affecting our brakes. We were flagged down by another motorist. It was only on one side at the rear.

It's never happened since and we have done similar Norwegian passes again. When checked the brakes were deemed to be fine. It's a bit of a mystery as to what happened. We were using our gears to slow the descent by the way.

Ha ha... just realised the joke Martin.

Good I thought I was going to have to explain it, happy it's been right since though.

Martin

 

[Southdowners]

I really don't get why you guys are fussing with breakdown cover on new vehicles. I'm touching wood here but in my over 100k miles and 15 years, I have broken down on the road once - in Morocco. Did I want to come back on a loader? what for? I paid someone to fix it and carried on.

What about if you had a serious accident which rendered the vehicle undriveable?

 

[jongood]

Or was it smoke? thanks for the heads up on that BTW you helped me decide that I wanted a Telma retarder on our new van.

Martin

I think you will lurve the retarder once you ve got used to it Martin, its so nice to have a controlled decelleration without having to worry about brakes.

The only trouble is when Ive been driving a truck a lot I keep putting the car wipers on at islands out of habit

 

[jongood]

What about if you had a serious accident which rendered the vehicle undriveable?

If I was lucky enough not to have weightier issues to deal with then I would be calling the insurers,

If it was so badly damaged as to be undrivable would I want it taking to UK? probably not.

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[Southdowners]

If I was lucky enough not to have weightier issues to deal with then I would be calling the insurers,

If it was so badly damaged as to be undrivable would I want it taking to UK? probably not.

Perhaps not the UK but I know if we’d had a bad accident in Scandinavia we’d have wanted it taken to the manufacturer in Germany for repairs. I assume there isn’t a restriction on where you have it taken to provided it’s not further than it would be to take it to the UK?

 

[Littlewheels]

I think you will lurve the retarder once you ve got used to it Martin, its so nice to have a controlled decelleration without having to worry about brakes.

I couldn’t agree more we have the Telma Retarder it’s much safer extremely reliable and makes your journey much more enjoyable.

 

[funflair]

Was that original or retrofit?

Martin

 

[Littlewheels]

In reference to vehicle breakdown, we are still under warranty with Iveco on current MH ,however, Iveco informed me regarding renewing the Service after the warranty period expires that if you have a account with your Iveco Dealer that you will still have access to the facility.
Since when you break down you would be repatriated to an Iveco Dealer and that the breakdown/ repair costs would have to be paid for anyway this works for me.
In the EU they carry out the work and invoice you through your Dealer.

 

[Littlewheels]

Was that original or retrofit?

Martin

Original, Concorde factory fit.

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