Financing a motor home

AdrianC

ericbanner wrote: »

Im led to believe I will need to take a trailer test for a caravan to the tune of about £400

If you passed your car test after early 1997, yes, you will almost certainly have to - and you'd need a test for a bigger (3.5t+) motorhome, too. If you passed your test earlier than that, you're fine on both caravans and campers up to 7.5t.

Personally, I'd be more questioning the wisdom of taking on a very large and utterly optional financial commitment when already in five-figure credit card debt, but...

Nasqueron

Pay off credit card debt (saves you money on interest) - with £4800 take home pay even with bills and kids you should be able to make some big payments on the CC, short term pain, long term gain.

After that you can look at loans or dealer finance and probably get better rates.

Remember that to you, it is a loan for £30,000 to clear debts and buy the caravan. To the bank it is £40,000 of debt (as they have no guarantee you won't just spend the money and then have 2 debts).

loskie

rent one first to get a taste. If you like it then maybe you could buy your rental one with the rental cost knocked off.
http://openroadscotland.com/

if most of your trips are around europe then maybe preference should be LHD. I do not know the practicalities of buying one in Europe but with the pound v euro rate favorable there may be a large cost benefit in buying in mainland Europe such as Holland

ericbanner

Thank you all for your valued comments, I'm going to go away, crunch some figures.

fred246

Good luck whatever you decide.
When we bought our caravan we were going on two eurocamp holidays a year (17 nights in summer 14 nights at whit half term [our schools get two weeks off at whit]).
With Eurocamp a static caravan was £120 a night. Say £200 for ferry crossing. So were paying £2240 and £1880.
We bought a good quality caravan for £5K. The same sites in France charged £30 a night for your own caravan. So the same holidays were £710 and £620.
Therefore we saved £2790 a year with our own caravan. It had paid for itself in less than 2 years.
9 years later and it's still going strong. With a caravan you need it to be watertight. Tyres must be new and well inflated. Stabiliser, Wheel bearings and brakes must work well and that's it.
I find it hard imagining spending £45K. It may turn out to be a fabulous investment. Only you can decide.

BeenThroughItAll

fred246 wrote: »

OK so when you travel round Europe with your family are you going to stay on sites with swimming pools, water slides, tennis, evening entertainment, crazy golf, pedalos or are you going to park in laybys?
Assuming you go for a campsite are you ever going to leave it? Are you going to tow a car behind your motorhome? How are you going to get the shopping. If you go to a town where are you going to park it?
Will it fit under height barriers?
If you arrive on a site how are you going to level it? You don't want food and hot drinks landing on your children.
We stayed on a campsite in France last year and the couple next to use had just bought a large motorhome. The site was miles from anywhere and there was no public transport. They couldn't do anything. They were really frustrated.

My parents have owned motorhomes for over 25 years, covering over 150K miles in them over that time. I've probably accompanied them for a good 50-60K of those miles around Europe from the age of 11. Until the last few years (now my parents are both in their 70s) we never used organised campsites, always wild-camping, legally, in the UK, France, Italy, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria and elsewhere.

We've never encountered major issues finding places to park - look hard enough and there is always somewhere. Europe is far more accepting of motorhomes than the UK; there are few places where height barriers will prevent access to car parks - there is normally an alternative entrance to parking for high-sided vehicles.

Levelling is easily taken car of with a pair of levelling ramps. Takes two minutes.

If the couple next to you on that campsite thought they 'couldn't do anything' because there was no public transport, then they were forgetting the main advantage of a motorhome - you don't *need* to moor up on a campsite for two weeks to enjoy your holiday. You don't need entertainment in the evenings - park by Lake Thun, Lake Como, the Seine - have a barbecue with the kids and take a walk. Visit a local caf! or restaurant with them (you'll be welcomed). Buy them frogs' legs if they want them. Hell, it's better than beans on toast. Take them to a bakery in rural France at 6am when it opens to buy fresh croissants and baguettes.

OP - go ahead and do it if you want to; the best holidays I ever had as a child involved 3-4K miles around Europe (my dad was a teacher so longer holidays for us), stopping in different places every couple of days. There's thousands of public-access 'aires de service' around Europe, where you can fill with water, empty the chemical toilet, etc for a couple of Euros a time.

Me? I've had caravans for over ten years, and just last week sold my van I bought brand new in May last year because we've decided to upgrade to a motorhome - no more connecting 240V hook-ups, no more steady winding, no more dragging Aquarolls and Wastemasters across campsites.

Both caravans and motorhomes have advantages - but you need to decide how you want to use your mobile home before you'll be able to decide which is right for you. Don't listen to me or anyone else on the internet telling you which to buy, only you can decide that.


If you want to see Europe, then a motorhome will allow you to go further more easily - there's simply too much to do with a caravan to make moving every day viable. Your kids don't need waterparks and slides to have a good time - just being with their Mum and Dad will be enough. Take them to Interlaken for Swiss National Day on 1st August. Take them to Futuroscope for a day. Take them to Monte Carlo and wander round the old town to watch the palace guard change. Take them to the D-Day beaches of Normandy, and to the Atlantic Wall fortifications. Show them Paris, Rome, Milan, Geneva, Berlin, Ghent, Amsterdam, Prague, Nuremburg. Take them to Auschwitz.

Let your kids see the world, explore new places and learn things. Educate them (or rather, let them educate themselves). Spend time with them. You don't just have to palm them off on a holiday club next to a pool at a campsite.

Herzlos

BeenThroughItAll wrote: »

Me? I've had caravans for over ten years, and just last week sold my van I bought brand new in May last year because we've decided to upgrade to a motorhome - no more connecting 240V hook-ups, no more steady winding, no more dragging Aquarolls and Wastemasters across campsites.

...

If you want to see Europe, then a motorhome will allow you to go further more easily - there's simply too much to do with a caravan to make moving every day viable.

Are caravans really that much more work than a motorhome? You've presumably still got a chemical toilet and water tank to deal with as well as electric hook-up and the same amount of stuff to secure when you're moving.

Granted you'll be more restricted where you can take/park a caravan and likely have a lower speed limit, so it's not as good if you're spending the time touring. But surely it's usually better if you're using it as a base and can take just the car out on day trips?

I've only experience of static caravans though, but we were planning on getting a tourer and essentially just leaving it at a different camp site each season for family to use.

AdrianC

Herzlos wrote: »

Are caravans really that much more work than a motorhome?

Yes. People we met on various campsites reckoned on a full day to change site. Manouvering in and out of a tight pitch is much more difficult, hence the proliferation of expensive remote-control caravan-mover devices. It's easier to drive a motorhome onto a set of ramps than muck about with the four legs on a caravan - hence the proliferation of expensive remote-control levelling devices.

In our van conversion camper, we could do bed to road in ten minutes if need be.

You've presumably still got a chemical toilet and water tank to deal with as well as electric hook-up and the same amount of stuff to secure when you're moving.

You mention water...
Drive the motorhome to the tap and fill the built-in tank.
Take the water barrel out of the caravan's storage, roll it to the tap, fill it, roll it back to the caravan, reconnect it.

Granted you'll be more restricted where you can take/park a caravan and likely have a lower speed limit, so it's not as good if you're spending the time touring. But surely it's usually better if you're using it as a base and can take just the car out on day trips?

Many people have bicycles or even a scooter with their motorhome. Quite a few have a car on a trailer behind, if they're happy to tow.

Or they use the motorhome for a more mobile holiday, having a couple of nights here, couple of nights there. It's a lot easier to park a van-size motorhome up than a car and caravan. And don't forget ferry costs and toll motorways charge a lot more for a caravan than for a van.

BeenThroughItAll

Herzlos wrote: »

Are caravans really that much more work than a motorhome? You've presumably still got a chemical toilet and water tank to deal with as well as electric hook-up and the same amount of stuff to secure when you're moving.

Chemical toilet goes with you, so you only empty it when you need to. Yes, you still have water, but motorhomes have onboard fresh and waste water tanks. You can empty a motorhome waste water tank over a drain very quickly when you stop, and you just fill the water tank when you need it. No external pumps, no rolling water carriers around. Some caravans will have a small onboard tank, but they're still the minority and the onboard tank is usually pretty small.


We've never bothered with electric hookup in the motorhomes; you've got gas for cooking and boiling a kettle, and 12V for lighting etc. You don't need a toaster, microwave or a TV. You can cook a full roast dinner in a motorhome (with planning) without needing any 240V appliances, but many people carry generators these days.


There's nothing to really secure in a motorhome either if you're tidy. Unlike a caravan, there's no nose-weight to concern yourself with, only overall payload. If things live in cupboards, there's very limited packing up to do. No worrying about water carriers, waste carriers, emptying the toilet, towing mirrors, hitching up, checking lights, steadies, etc.

Herzlos wrote: »

Granted you'll be more restricted where you can take/park a caravan and likely have a lower speed limit, so it's not as good if you're spending the time touring. But surely it's usually better if you're using it as a base and can take just the car out on day trips?

If you're the sort of person who can go to a place and stay there a week, a touring caravan or static will work for you. Me, I hate 'relaxing' holidays - I need to be doing something and seeing new places, which is why after all these years I'm giving up caravans and doing what I should have done years ago - it's only finance that prevented me buying a motorhome ten years ago.

Herzlos wrote: »

I've only experience of static caravans though, but we were planning on getting a tourer and essentially just leaving it at a different camp site each season for family to use.

As I say, that'll work if you don't mind a 'fixed base' type of holiday, but for me I get bored once I've been in the same place for a couple of days.

fred246

Basically manoevring and levelling is easy with a caravan with a £500 motor mover. A motorhome needs a hydraulic levelling system to do it properly which costs over £4000.