The Search Begins. Where to Start

[Stevef]

So I’ve started the search for our first Motorhome (online only at the moment or obvious reasons) I’ve identified a few things that I would class as nice to have so I need to identify what manufacturers can offer these.
Any help at this point would be greatly appreciated!
So in brief.
Separate end bedroom
Stow away bed over drivers seat, so that’s 4 beds permanently made, can’t be doing with making beds up. But I suppose that means I’ll be looking at 6 birth?
Garage to the rear, I have some nice bikes and fishing tackle, don’t want to advertise the fact by carrying them on a rack, and besides where do you put them once you arrive on site?
Passed my test in 83 so I’m guessing I can go for the bigger motorhome!
I like the look of the Swift Kon-Tiki but I think I’ll struggle in my budget of up to 70k.
Any ideas would be appreciated or any links to ads even better.

Cheers

Steve

 

[peterc10]

If I had £70k to spend the last thing I would buy would be a Swift, new or second hand. For that sort of money you could could get a 2 to 4 year old well built A Class European model with everything you want and a lot better build quality. Look for A class Hymers, Rapidos, Burstners, Carthagos, Dethleffs, etc who all have the layout you want with either twin beds or double bed over a garage that will take a scooter.

But payload is something you need to think about. If you have a C1 licence (pre 1997 car test) you will be OK because you can drive heavier motorhomes. But if you don't, you will be limited to 3500kg Maximum Authorised Weight, and that will limit what you can buy and what you can carry in it.

 

[suavecarve]

I’m not sure how far we will go tbh, I’m hoping we will venture at least across Europe but I think it’ll mainly be UK. I’m wondering are lhd motorhomes more difficult to move on?
I do really want a garage because to make the bikes convenient but I do wonder how big a garage I really need?
With regard purchase, yes I will be a cash buyer and I hope to do a deal somewhere. It would be nice to do a deal with a private buyer but initially I need to get out there and have a look.
I keep finding myself looking at the big Swift Kon-Tiki but I think the spec I’d like is probably out of reach. Second hand is fine as long as it’s not more than say 3-4 years old.
Anyway the search continues, pity it’s from my iPad.

Cheers
Steve

Although I dont have LHD (I got a bargain that was too good to refuse! so sold my idea of my ideal motorhome for a significant saving on money) But I will be in a better position when I am able to upgrade to the one that suits me. I think the Europeans seem quite capable of driving them so it cant be that difficult !

It s odd for us but then they look at ours and think its odd. We drive our RHD vehicles in Europe without great issue, and theirs are cheaper than ours.

Garage. It depends how disciplined you are or how much control over the significant other in what you want to take away with you. People take the kitchen sink, literally and tow it as they go down to Spain for 6 months on a caravan park. That suits them but wouldnt suit the majority. Doesnt make them wrong. But suddenly if you buy a blow up canoe and safari awning and big bbq and you want to take a mountain bike and a racing bike and have a microwave to go with your 2 different styles of chairs then space and weight disappears for wine on the return journey quite quickly.

Dependant upon your bikes and their value a couple of disc locks, an exterior camera, a cover and an alarm with signage on the cover should protect your bike. There will always be the odd one going but aires are relatively safe (couple of cases of thefts up north france (near Rouen i think) last year on bikes if i remember correctly) so not having a garage is not the be all and end all if it is essentially for your bikes. And they can break into your garage (which may be more common than nicking bikes!) so i wouldnt discount not having one. (I need one for the motorbike)

 

[Al n Val]

we were in your situation Stevef 18 months ago, first time purchaser

these were my main objectives

Automatic - fixed island bed - long enough lounge area so both of us to get our feet up on a night if watching tv or even lay down flat if we want to, (which automatically ruled out most if not all european manufacturers) that we could find anyway. Low bed at the rear so no steps to have to clamber up, why would you? and inline bed so no clambering over each other, once again why would you?

As to the garage, ours being low bed it’s obviously smaller than those with an high bed, but it holds everything we need which includes

2 x electric bikes, 4 seats, large wind break, Rainbow cab window screen covers, folding table, spanish 13kg gas bottle, 5x3 mtr canopy mat, then theirs all the parathenalia needed such as pegs, hammers, bungees, canopy handle, cleaning product, not forgetting sweeping brush, about 4 extendable wash brushes and squeegee doodahs to clean the motorhom.

Just a minute, there’s also a smaller folding coffee table, buckets and a wall hung pocket thingy which holds bike chargers, tools and god knows what else.

So how large a garage do you really need?

As well as that there are another 3 outside lockers for everything else, barbecue, all the water jobbie things needed such as hoses x 2, another 2 buckets, toilet cassette fluids and other cleaning product.

it doesn’t leak (yet) lol, 8.8mtr so a proper luxury cruiser, tag axel so loads of payload, a pleasure to drive, it really is,

I purchased it brand spanking new for not much more than you’ve mentioned and probably could have got it even cheaper if I could have been bothered to haggle, and it came with Solar with 2 x leisure batteries, self seeking 85cm satellite dish and 2 Avtex tv’s.

It also has 2 forward facing seat belted lounge seats, which make into either a double bed or 2 singles and if you want a permanently made up double overcab bed.

I’ve fitted EP self levelling, Truma Avenat aircon and twin 11kg Gaslow and apart from thinking of adding an extra solar panel i can’t think of much more to do.

It'll take some beating spec wise unless you spend a whole lot more but I doubt you’ll find one with internally more space

cheers and very good luck in finding your dream motorhome as the enjoyment rewards really are priceless

Al ?

PS. i find driving it abroad easy peasy even though it’s right hand drive, btw it’s an Autotrail Comanche

 

[Stevef]

we were in your situation Stevef 18 months ago, first time purchaser

these were my main objectives

Automatic - fixed island bed - long enough lounge area so both of us to get our feet up on a night if watching tv or even lay down flat if we want to, (which automatically ruled out most if not all european manufacturers) that we could find anyway. Low bed at the rear so no steps to have to clamber up, why would you? and inline bed so no clambering over each other, once again why would you?

As to the garage, ours being low bed it’s obviously smaller than those with an high bed, but it holds everything we need which includes

2 x electric bikes, 4 seats, large wind break, Rainbow cab window screen covers, folding table, spanish 13kg gas bottle, 5x3 mtr canopy mat, then theirs all the parathenalia needed such as pegs, hammers, bungees, canopy handle, cleaning product, not forgetting sweeping brush, about 4 extendable wash brushes and squeegee doodahs to clean the motorhom.

Just a minute, there’s also a smaller folding coffee table, buckets and a wall hung pocket thingy which holds bike chargers, tools and god knows what else.

So how large a garage do you really need?

As well as that there are another 3 outside lockers for everything else, barbecue, all the water jobbie things needed such as hoses x 2, another 2 buckets, toilet cassette fluids and other cleaning product.

it doesn’t leak (yet) lol, 8.8mtr so a proper luxury cruiser, tag axel so loads of payload, a pleasure to drive, it really is,

I purchased it brand spanking new for not much more than you’ve mentioned and probably could have got it even cheaper if I could have been bothered to haggle, and it came with Solar with 2 x leisure batteries, self seeking 85cm satellite dish and 2 Avtex tv’s.

It also has 2 forward facing seat belted lounge seats, which make into either a double bed or 2 singles and if you want a permanently made up double overcab bed.

I’ve fitted EP self levelling, Truma Avenat aircon and twin 11kg Gaslow and apart from thinking of adding an extra solar panel i can’t think of much more to do.

It'll take some beating spec wise unless you spend a whole lot more but I doubt you’ll find one with internally more space

cheers and very good luck in finding your dream motorhome as the enjoyment rewards really are priceless

Al ?

PS. i find driving it abroad easy easy even though it’s right hand drive, btw it’s an Autotrail Comanche

Thanks for that, interesting to hear about getting bikes in the garage. Will measure my bikes and see how big it needs to be.

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[Ian Bosman]

Yep with a drop down bed over the front seats you have defined an A Class a good start as it rules out all the poorly built British stuff. A Class vans are normally 4 berth sometime you can have the option of making up the dinette into a bed but not on many.

Ours at just under 6metres has four berths, two over the cab and a double at the back where the lounge/dinette is. With a double floor you have more than a garage, all our stuff like spare wheel, ramps, chairs, etc are stowed out of sight during normal use for travelling so that stopping overnight is a quick job without having to manoeuvre around bits and pieces

 

[Stevef]

we were in your situation Stevef 18 months ago, first time purchaser

these were my main objectives

Automatic - fixed island bed - long enough lounge area so both of us to get our feet up on a night if watching tv or even lay down flat if we want to, (which automatically ruled out most if not all european manufacturers) that we could find anyway. Low bed at the rear so no steps to have to clamber up, why would you? and inline bed so no clambering over each other, once again why would you?

As to the garage, ours being low bed it’s obviously smaller than those with an high bed, but it holds everything we need which includes

2 x electric bikes, 4 seats, large wind break, Rainbow cab window screen covers, folding table, spanish 13kg gas bottle, 5x3 mtr canopy mat, then theirs all the parathenalia needed such as pegs, hammers, bungees, canopy handle, cleaning product, not forgetting sweeping brush, about 4 extendable wash brushes and squeegee doodahs to clean the motorhom.

Just a minute, there’s also a smaller folding coffee table, buckets and a wall hung pocket thingy which holds bike chargers, tools and god knows what else.

So how large a garage do you really need?

As well as that there are another 3 outside lockers for everything else, barbecue, all the water jobbie things needed such as hoses x 2, another 2 buckets, toilet cassette fluids and other cleaning product.

it doesn’t leak (yet) lol, 8.8mtr so a proper luxury cruiser, tag axel so loads of payload, a pleasure to drive, it really is,

I purchased it brand spanking new for not much more than you’ve mentioned and probably could have got it even cheaper if I could have been bothered to haggle, and it came with Solar with 2 x leisure batteries, self seeking 85cm satellite dish and 2 Avtex tv’s.

It also has 2 forward facing seat belted lounge seats, which make into either a double bed or 2 singles and if you want a permanently made up double overcab bed.

I’ve fitted EP self levelling, Truma Avenat aircon and twin 11kg Gaslow and apart from thinking of adding an extra solar panel i can’t think of much more to do.

It'll take some beating spec wise unless you spend a whole lot more but I doubt you’ll find one with internally more space

cheers and very good luck in finding your dream motorhome as the enjoyment rewards really are priceless

Al ?

PS. i find driving it abroad easy peasy even though it’s right hand drive, btw it’s an Autotrail Comanche

al briscoe, again thanks for you response but can I ask is your Comanchi a limited edition with a larger garage on the back from the norm? I ask because the ones I have looked at on line seem to be relatively small (garage wise) and on one of the reviews the chap doing the review actually says you wont get bikes in.
Looks like an ideal motor for me that aside.
If anyone else can get bikes in the stowage on any other vans it would be great to know.

Thanks again
Steve

 

[Al n Val]

al briscoe, again thanks for you response but can I ask is your Comanchi a limited edition with a larger garage on the back from the norm? I ask because the ones I have looked at on line seem to be relatively small (garage wise) and on one of the reviews the chap doing the review actually says you wont get bikes in.
Looks like an ideal motor for me that aside.
If anyone else can get bikes in the stowage on any other vans it would be great to know.

Thanks again
Steve

hi Steve

no mine is a standard low bed with normal garage, the bikes i have are electric folding ones albeit i don't have to fold them in half, just lower the seat and fold the handle bars down, literally takes 10 seconds.

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the 2020 Comanche has the option of an high bed so larger garage but its really awkward we feel to get into/onto the bed having to negotiate steps at the side, also the side wardrobes are just awful to get to, to try to reach the internal hanging rail, for us its a backward step, but thats just our opinion and for that reason we'll keep this Comanche forever (i think lol)

also one thing that really put us off some of the overhead beds in other models is the fact when the bed is lowered so it can be used, the lounge seating area cannot be used. Thats fine if we both got up at the same time but we don't so my wife would have nowhere to sit until the bed is raised up again.

We also saw a model where the rear bed over the garage is electrically raised/lowered so whilst travelling you can raise the bed to get your tall items in the garage, such as non folding bikes or motor scooters, great idea on paper but what happens when you want to go to sleep day or night and you want to lower the bed, your snookered unless you put it all outside.

Their is quite a lot to consider and you may not get it right the first time but for us the Comanche suited us perfect so we just went for it after looking at loads of other make/models.

We all want and need different things so these are just our preferences tbh, others may disagree so may chime in with other options and layouts, their is no perfect van for everyone i doubt, but the Comanche comes very close to perfect for us

let us know how you get on Steve and happy times are ahead

Al

 

[steve69]

Before you make any decisions HIRE ONE for a week and see how you feel about it.