Buying a Camper Van

Ibrahim5

lordmountararat said:

Meeting a tractor on a Devon single track lane in a motorhome is difficult enough. Just try it towing a caravan! Two cars both towing caravans meeting is even worse and backing up becomes a nightmare.

There is no need to tow a caravan down a single track lane. You just leave the caravan at the campsite and drive the car down the narrow lane. It's the motorhomes that cause mayhem. They expect to be able to park them at tourist attractions with limited parking. They are just too big for car parks.

Ibrahim5

I have read that it costs about £600 to pass the test allowing you to tow a caravan. A lot of people take the test so they can tow a horse box. It's much cheaper to pass the test so you can tow a caravan than to buy a very expensive motorhome with it's much higher running costs. And of course the caravan is more practical too.

coffeehound

BOWFER said:

47 posts in and no-one has yet explained to me why motorhomes cost so much more than a caravan.

A motorhome is a vehicle.  A caravan is a plywood and plastic box with an axle or two.  Ur welcome.

AdrianC

6m of L3H2 Ducato is not a "compact" motorhome.

A "compact" motorhome is...

Sort of the equivalent of an Eriba Puck.

Ibrahim5

It's interesting the pop up roof. I have a relative who bought a DIY converted van. He couldn't stand up in it and reckoned it was impossible to get into a pair of trousers. He got rid of it really quickly.

AdrianC

Ibrahim5 said:

I have read that it costs about £600 to pass the test allowing you to tow a caravan.

Assuming you passed your car test after 1997.

Before that? Job jobbed.

How many people under 40 do you think go caravanning?

AdrianC

Ibrahim5 said:

There is no need to tow a caravan down a single track lane. You just leave the caravan at the campsite

Let's hope that campsite isn't... ...down a single-track lane?

and drive the car down the narrow lane. It's the motorhomes that cause mayhem. They expect to be able to park them at tourist attractions with limited parking. They are just too big for car parks.

Our current camper is 5.5m long and 2m wide.
That's 200mm narrower than a Range Rover and 300mm longer.
Or, to look at it another way, 500mm narrower than a bin wagon and 4m shorter. Or fire engine.

Our old one was 4.6m long and 1.9m wide. That's shorter than a Mondeo - or a standard parking space.
We lived in that for a year and a half and 20 countries, btw, and took it to 3000m altitude and through tiny Italian hilltowns, without issue.

Oh, and I live down a single-track lane.
Zero issue at all.
It is a bit tight swinging in through our gate with a car trailer on the back, tbf.

MX5huggy

Ibrahim5 said:

I have read that it costs about £600 to pass the test allowing you to tow a caravan. A lot of people take the test so they can tow a horse box. It's much cheaper to pass the test so you can tow a caravan than to buy a very expensive motorhome with it's much higher running costs. And of course the caravan is more practical too.

I paid £435 2 years ago, for a days training and then another run through of the 1 manoeuvre you have to do before doing the test the next day in a SUV and  trailer (the spec on the trailer is very precise as required by the DVLA examination) provided by the driving school. The test is just like a standard practical test apart from the reversing manoeuvre. I can think of no situation where you would actually do the manoeuvre required. Unless you were in lane 3 on a blocked motor way and need to reverse back into lane 1. 

facade

AdrianC said:

6m of L3H2 Ducato is not a "compact" motorhome.

A "compact" motorhome is...

Sort of the equivalent of an Eriba Puck.

I've got an Eriba Puck   Much bigger than that inside....

Ibrahim5

That size of compact motorhome is good in that you can take it to a normal parking space and it will fit under normal height barriers. The problem seems to be that families buy motorhomes instead of caravans now. In the 1970s a family would buy a nice family car and then get a caravan for family holidays. For some reason they now seem to buy motorhomes which are normally about 8 metres long and roughly 3 metres high. When they arrive on site they can't leave because it's so hard to park it anywhere. They can't even go shopping. A lot of campsites refuse supermarket deliveries because motorhomers were doing online orders and then making the wardens answer the delivery drivers. If they do leave it takes them ages to pack up and put a poxy sign on their pitch. Children can't ride mopeds. Some of them then buy a small car to tow behind. The only other option is bicycles but most people don't cycle on busy roads with children. With a caravan you just leave it set up on the pitch and you have your normal family car to drive the family around in. So caravans are a fraction of the price to buy, a fraction of the price to run and better all round. Why do they buy motorhomes now? Driving licence? Trendier? Just don't know.