I guess this really is the update to an update (Getting All Charged Up – Update…). We have been living with the Sterling Wildside unit now for about 6 months and a LOT of people have been emailing me asking how we are getting on with it and is it worth it?
Well I have done quite a bit of testing with my leisure battery in various states of discharge. With it at about 50% I have recorded a charging current of 15.9 Amps which is far greater than I could manage before and due to the fact that the Wildside unit uses the correct charging profile for my battery I’m not concerned that I will be reducing or damaging my leisure batteries life expectancy.
Earlier this month I had an email from David Dent who had successfully installed a Wildside unit in his Bailey Unicorn 3 Cadiz and he seemed pleased with the results so far. Although installing it in a Bailey was a bit more of a challenge. I’m looking forward to checking back with David to see how he is getting on with his unit.
A couple of other people have also emailed me reporting that after installing a Wildside unit that it had solved their problem of having enough stored energy to operate their motor movers. I still wonder if people who have been experiencing problems with their motor movers caused by supposedly bad batteries and have had to replace them is possibly down to the fact their battery was never really receiving a correct or full charge before causing its early demise.
New Tool…
One of the things I want to get to add to my ‘tool box’ in the near future is one of the computerised digital battery testers. At the moment I’m basing a lot of my work on the voltage of the battery and chemistry type. I’d like to be able to improve on this.
Watch This Space…
The other thing I’d also like to be able to do is get a voltage and charge current reading for the leisure battery while we are actually driving. I have been looking at a few – mainly American options for bluetooth remote voltage and current sensors that you can connect up to with your phone. There are a couple of devices that offer a separate display to fit in your vehicle.
However, there is a rather exciting unit that will shortly be coming on the market in this area that might be a bit of a game changer. If you want to know what it is well go and see Andy Harris or one of the guys on the Road Pro stand at the NEC in a couple of weeks time as they, along with the manufacturer will be launching and demonstrating a new product that might just be bringing caravan technology bang up-to-date. I hope to be bringing you a bit more about this soon and maybe an install too!
Final Thoughts….
Is the Wildside unit worth it? Before I answer this let me just say I am not being paid by anyone for any endorsements of this unit. I was supplied one of the first (pre production?) units as a test and to provide feedback to Sterling Power on how easy it was to install and it’s performance in the real world, which I did. As a result a couple of things were ‘tweaked’ hence mine had to be returned, reprogrammed and reinstalled.
Well I’d say if you have a Euro 6 or even a 5 engine and you want to make sure your battery is looked after then yes. If you want to upgrade to a more advanced battery chemistry, again yes. If I had to return mine would I go out and buy one? Yes I would.
Is there anything I’d like to see changed? Well if they ever did a Wildside 2.0 I’d like to be able to move the caravan’s own charging system so it was routed through the Wildside unit when on mains hook up to take advantage of the Wildside’s smart charging facility and to allow you to move to more advanced battery chemistry. I guess also adding a solar panel input with built-in MPPT would be a big hit too.
In The Future…
I’m starting to wonder if the way we charge and power caravans needs to take a leap forward. I have had an idea that you could basically split an inverter. One half in the vehicle and the other in the caravan. Imagine a small unit that takes the 12 volt DC from the vehicle and inverts it to 48 volts AC. You then have a lead that connects this across to the caravan and there it is converted back into 12 volts DC.
So whats the difference… all you are doing is what’s already happening? Well using a 2.5 mm cable rated for 25 amps at 48 volts gives you 1200 watts of power. To transfer that much power at 12 volts you would need 100 Amps. Keeping it at 48 volts will mean the system is still in the ELV range for safety. (Use 4mm cable and this could be 1680 watts of power which would be equivalent to 140 Amps at 12 volts)
Being able to transfer that sort of energy would allow you to forget LPG cylinders and put 1000 Ah of lithium cells in the caravan with a 240 volt inverter and power everything. Just a thought that I’m throwing out there.
Wow… it’s been quite a while since our last posting, and many thanks to all those of you who have emailed asking if we are OK. We are both fine, thanks.
Back in October we were due to go to the Caravan & Motorhome show and we had booked in to the campsite at the NEC for 4 days. However, the day before, we actually wondered why we were going. Plenty of other bloggers and video bloggers would be going and posting on YouTube. I guess the plethora of video bloggers filming each other meeting other video bloggers wasn’t what we were about…. so we went to the C & M Club site at Southport instead.
The weather played ball and we had a great few days in the October sunshine getting some cycling and walking in. This was also a bit of a try out for the bike rack on the Amarok and a change in how we pack. Although I’d done a couple of check-runs to make sure everything was stable with the bikes, this was the first real run with the caravan in tow and I’m pleased to report that the rack was stable and didn’t affect the towing in any way.
The bikes were fairly easy to load and unload thanks to the drop down step I’d previously fitted to the rear of the Amarok and all things considered, I think we will now be taking the bikes on more trips. The other change was to how we pack. We now have ‘pre-loaded’ more of the items we take away with us and this makes things a lot easier having a stacking system with boxes for specific things. We are lucky that I have a “bat cave” at home. It’s a workshop really that allows us to store our packing boxes (check out the Really Useful Storage Box Company ) and get them stocked up ready for the next trip over a period of time. It now takes about 10 minutes to load the Amarok and all thats left is to load the clothes.
The other bit of kit that we are long-term testing is the Sterling Power Wildside unit. I’ve written a couple of things in the past about this unit and so far the only thing I can really add is that it has exceeded my expectations of its performance. After not using the caravan for a couple of months and having a parasitic current draw from the alarm (the small charging circuit and 12 volt battery in the alarm has failed yet again!) by the time we had towed from Manchester to Southport our battery was fully charged and the fridge was cold as expected.
Christmas Markets…
Many of you will know in December we like to kick off the festive season with a Christmas Market or two. For the past couple of years we had gone down to Birmingham but this year we fancied trying something different. We booked a couple of sites to give us the chance to try somewhere different.
The first was Durham Grange C & M Club site just off the A1M. This would put us very close to Beamish Museum and Durham. Although Durham Grange is really close to the A1M Junction 62 you can’t really hear the traffic and is a great little site. The general site and facilities were up to standard and the wardens very helpful.
We were on a fully serviced pitch and my standard ‘kit’ of parts allowed connection to the grey water drain without any head scratching.
Again we were lucky with the weather, mainly dry but turning much colder. Beamish is only about a 20 minute drive away and it meant that we could have a full day at the museum without having a silly o’clock morning start. If you have never visited Beamish, I would recommend you put it on your “must do” list, especially if you have children/grand children. One thing you must do while there… go and see the dentist and have a chat and then visit the fish and chip shop with the coal-fired frying range. Standing outside smelling fish and chips frying mixed with the smell of coal fires really takes me back to my early childhood.
Durham Grange is also a great base for a trip into Durham. The Cathedral and Castle are worth a visit and there are plenty of shops to explore in the tiny streets in the city centre. Getting into the centre from the caravan site is easy. On the other side of the A1M to the site is a park and ride that takes you right into the city centre. However a word of caution….. if you walk you have to cross two-three lane slip roads to the A1M and it’s busy even out of peak periods. Trying to walk back to the site in rush hour has to be avoided. We got the park and ride bus in but decided that it would be safer getting a taxi back. In summer however, if you ask the wardens they have a map with the details of a riverside walk into the town centre.
Three days at Durham Grange really didn’t give us chance to explore further, it has been added to the long list of “must go back so we can see….” collection.
Next stop…. York
York has to be on everyone’s list of favourite cities. We had chosen a Tranquil Touring site – York Caravan Park for the second part of our festive tour. Despite the weather forecast of strong winds for the next 24 hours and an increasing chance of light snow the further south we got, the drive down from Durham was an easy tow and the sat nav directed us round Yorks outer ring roads. The only real traffic we saw was around the ring road. As York is a bit of a no go for visiting by car the ring road and feeder roads to the various park and ride points can be a bit congested, but a bit of patience and we were only around 15 minutes late based on what our sat-nav had predicted when setting off. The temperature by now was also dropping and hadn’t risen above four degrees for the whole journey.
York Caravan park is only a couple of miles outside York and right outside is a convenient bus stop with a bus that will whisk you right into the centre in about ten minutes. It had been several years since we had both been to York and one of the stops Sue wanted to do was Jorvik viking centre. The bus dropped us off and we headed in the general direction of Jorvik through all the Christmas Market stalls. At one end of the market was a large teepee that had a log fire burning in the centre and a bar serving all manner of festive spirits. While Sue opted for Mulled Wine, I decided on a mug of hot chocolate with Baileys… well it was only three degrees with a bit of a wind chill.
We really enjoyed Jorvik and it seemed bigger than we remembered it… which I don’t think it was unless they dug a bit more up. Unusually I didn’t see a restriction on taking photos… so I managed to sneak a few… without flash of course (just in case… and I hope I’m not in breach of copyright!).
While mooching round the shops we came across The Cat Gallery (45 Low Petergate) and couldn’t resist a visit…. emerging with a rather fitting mug for Sue “…everything tastes better with cat hair in it”. We headed back towards the station to catch the bus back to the site. As it was Sue’s birthday today, a bit of a tradition to mark the start of our Christmas is the annual viewing of National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation. Nothing better than sitting in a toasty caravan with frost forming outside, a satisfied fullness from an enjoyable meal and a couple of drinks watching a favourite movie.
National Railway Museum…
A visit to York cannot be called complete without a visit to the NRM. The cold weather had now really arrived and far to our west in the Pennine hills snow was forecast. We however had a cloudy but bright frosty morning.
We caught the bus again and this time stayed on all the way to the railway station. You can cut through the station over the foot bridge to the railway museum.. which if it’s raining can be handy. Over the past few years we have done quite a few railway trips on heritage lines and visited a few of the museums but the last time we were here was 32 years ago. A lot of the exhibits had changed of course and the site has expanded.
By mid morning we were part way round it was time of a coffee and we stopped by The Dining Car Restaurant and Sue tried out one of their speciality teas with a sausage sandwich and I can say their coffee was up-to-standard and so was their bacon sandwich. A huge improvement on the old BR offerings!
One of the things that I personally think is a “must see” at the museum if you have any interest in railways is hidden round the back of the Flying Scotsman in the store-room. The museum has opened up its stores so you can wander the shelves and see some of their collection that they haven’t got room to put on display and in here you will find the layout used to train signalmen. Each day (check timings) a number of retired signalmen put on a live demonstration on the layout of how signaling works and that is followed up by what can only be described as a re-enactment of a rail disaster. The one we watched saw 7 signalmen going through the sequence of events and demonstrating on the layout with running trains what happened. Very thought-provoking. It’s a must see but please check the timings so you don’t miss it.
It seems that these breaks are over all too soon. The temperature was hovering around one degree and the water hose had frozen overnight as we started to pack up. Snow was forecast later that day and the Pennines had already had an inch or two of snow and it was falling over the M62 west of the Pennines for the run back to Manchester. Thankfully towing our caravan with the Amarok is quite easy and we have a towing ratio of about 65% which really makes things easy and stress free in difficult weather conditions.
The snow wasn’t too bad and not as much as was forecast and we arrived back at the storage facility at the time the sat nav predicted when setting off. Last trip of 2017 done and planning for 2018 can commence.
Some other bits…
As I write this Caravan Chronicles this year has had over 7.8 million page hits – around 14.5 million since I started the blog (I’m still amazed!). This year has basically doubled the number of the previous years total. A lot of this is due in part to links from other blogs and forums, to some of the technical pages. I did look at some of the links into the site and saw that how to connect batteries for example were linked to off grid housing forums, boating, canal boat, sailing, RV, eco and everything in-between. I now find that I receive emails containing questions from all over the world about all sorts of subjects. How many emails?…. well this year it’s been over a thousand that I’ve answered. As a consequence it now takes me a bit longer to respond.
I have found out though that folks that follow links to Caravan Chronicles from some forum or other that they don’t really know about Caravan Chronicles and simply assume that there is a highly paid team in the background answering questions and have a specialised knowledge of their particular field of enquiry and get quite upset when I tell them I haven’t a clue about the house batteries on a Fairhaven 32 foot motor launch and how they are connected (totally made up question of course).
I remember the late (and great) John Wickersham once telling me “Once you have answered a question in print that will be your life”.
The other question that pops up now and again are about ‘merch’ as the Americans refer to it. Do I have a shop with stickers, mugs branded paraphernalia etc. Nope, nada. So far I have resisted the temptation to commercialise, product place or have adverts on the blog. I don’t really want to go that route.
I do however do the occasional review of products that manufacturers send me and try to attempt to be as honest as I can with what I write. I do also work with a couple of manufacturers on products that they are developing or ideas that they have but these don’t get written about.
What’s happening in Caravan Chronicles in 2018…
Well there will be some trips of course and we will be visiting our “local” caravan show at Event City in January.
We are in two minds whether to get a new caravan… we would like a twin axle, twin bed, mid bathroom layout, but we keep thinking there is nothing wrong with the one we have… decision decisions!
There are a few things that are going to be changing on the blog. I have been procrastinating on starting a searchable Q & A page. I’m not sure if this is possible in a WordPress blog and it might mean having to change how the site is hosted. I also want to link up to an interactive travel map. I’m still researching this one though. I’ve also been thinking about the blog’s style and look…. it’s over five years old now and does it need an update?
Towing covers….
OK, so now I have a question for you….. I’m a bit undecided about getting a towing cover. They seem to be gaining popularity and after our trip, the front of the caravan could have done with some protection from all the road salt and grime thrown up. As we have never had a cover of any sorts, I’m looking for a bit of feedback on features to look out for and things to avoid. I’d be grateful for any pointers.
Sue and I hope you have a very Happy New Year and safe travels in 2018.
PS… as I sometimes do, a few arty photos…. (proper engineering in monochrome!)
About 12 months ago I ditched using Adobe Photoshop which had been my go-to photo editor for over 10 years in favour of the free Polarr Photo Editor… which I do like for it’s speed and ease of use. I’ve been playing about trying to reproduce the varoius classic postcard looks from the turn of the 19th centtury and mid 20th century…
Number One. We were supposed to go to York a few days ago for a five-day break. However that got scuppered at the last-minute by one of our Siamese cats. Polo who is 14 years old suddenly decided he was not very well and it looked like it could have been touch and go and would have warranted that sad last trip to the vet. Something we absolutely could not ask our long-term cat sitter (and house minder) to make. However as it was the sunniest week we have had so far (just our luck) he decided rally round and he’s now fine.. or as fine as a 14-year-old Siamese can be.
Number Two. Last night while clearing up after our evening meal, I was finishing the washing up and Sue took out the kitchen rubbish to the bin. I watched her pass the kitchen window en-route to the bins which are the far side of the vehicles and out of view. After about five minutes or so She hadn’t returned and I guessed She might have been giving our next door neighbours cat a bit of a polish as it does drop in to our garden from time to time to say hello. I sat down in the lounge and thought Sue was being a particularly long time and went out to check. Continue reading →
You know there are times when I think the service industry is going down the pan.
Right… the prologue
We had driven down to Chapel Lane caravan site to do a bit of partaking of the Christmas Markets in Birmingham and to do a bit of filming with the Venerable Andy Harris of motorhome fame (more about that in the next post though!). We had set up and I was pottering round outside sorting the guy ropes for the awning or the Christmas lights, I can’t remember which, when Sue popped her head out of the door and announced with some consternation… “The toilet won’t flush”
I went in and pushed the button… yep it wouldn’t flush, no pump noise, nothing. I emerged from the bathroom and announced “The toilet won’t flush” at which point Sue gave me the “did you think I was pushing the button wrong or something” look.
Right… check the fuses first, all OK. Out came the tool bag and the multimeter. Voltage going to the loo OK… check the fuse in the bottom of the loo behind the cassette. That was OK too.
Now I don’t believe in coincidences and it just so happened a couple of weeks before the caravan had been in to Glossop Caravans to have a spot of damp sorted and they had replaced the wall board that the loo backs onto. It’s got to be that I thought and said to Sue “I’ll bet it’s when they did the damp and took the loo out”
“Give them a ring now while they are still open”
I spoke to one of the service centre receptionists and they said they would get the workshop manager to ring me back and in due course he did. After a brief conversation he assured me it was nothing they had done and if the loo was getting voltage and the fuse in the loo was OK it must be the circuit board. While he was on the phone I managed one handed to peel back the Thetford sticker on the top of the loo and extract the circuit board. A quick voltage check of the pins that connect to the motor revealed that it was zero volts when the button was pushed.
“It defiantly the circuit board then” he said.
The old circuit board top, with the new one below.
I thanked him and started thinking about our next move while answering an email from the afore mentioned Andy Harris. I just happened to say “loos not working need a new circuit board” and Andy emailed back “Try Jonathan at CAK Tanks” A quick phone call and they did have one in stock… just one. I asked them to reserve it and would pop over mid morning. CAK Tanks was only about 18 miles away and took us 30 minutes to get there. After some double checking to make sure it was the right board… Thetford had very usefully changed the part number and not told many people about it. Handily the new part number was a lot cheaper and it cost £19.36 including the non voluntary contribution to the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Now, you remember when I said I don’t believe in coincidences. For some reason I thought I’d just check the connections that Glossop Caravans service people would have disconnected.
Its easy to extract the connector through the hole in the floor of the cassette compartment and check the connections….
On checking the connections it was apparent that they had been connected the wrong way…. i.e reverse polarity!
The plug that was fitted by Thetford is designed to be connected one way, but the wiring harness in the caravan used two spade connectors that could be connected in any orientation and this time the person re-fitting the loo had a 50/50 chance of being right or wrong and in this case got it wrong. I re-connected the two space connectors the right way and went and fitted our old circuit board. It worked!
So the morel of this story is there are no such thing as coincidences and before setting out on a round trip of 36 miles and spending £19.36 on a new circuit board… check the polarity!
I think I’ll go a flush the loo again…. just because I can.
A bit of a belated post about our trip down to the NEC show and looking round at the possibilities of a new caravan and a catch up on the damp situation (thanks to everyone that emailed me about it!)
This year was our first time taking the caravan down to the show, and after some initial over thinking about actually staying on a car park, it turned out really quite a fun experience.
I actually spotted someone taking a photo of the Amarok!
Due to both our work commitments we couldn’t leave for the show until Thursday after I’d finished a 12 hour night shift. So after a few hours sleep we left home to collect the caravan around lunchtime. The drive down even in mid-week traffic wasn’t too bad, and towing on a busy motorway with the Amarok is a breeze letting the cruse control pace us with the HGV’s. The instructions for getting to site sent to us by the Caravan Club were easy to follow and got us into the reception area smoothly without any wrong turns.
Surprisingly the N11 car park is fairly level where we were and setup was quick. The Caravan Club had done a sterling job of making sure water and electrics were all sorted and it didn’t take us long to set up. As it was fairly late, we put off going over to the show until the morning.
Friday
Up fairly early, quick shower (loving the Eco Camel shower head!), coffee and we walked the twenty or so feet to the bus stop for the 5 minute bus ride to the NEC. First stop was to the press office to pick up our badges and a quick text to Andrew Ditton who I’d arranged to meet up with again.
After being told about the damp in the caravan and the cracked end cap, we had it in mind to look round for a new caravan. Our initial tick list was simple – twin axle, centre bathroom. Other than that, we would start a list of likes and dislikes as we saw each van based on what we saw.
One thing became clear pretty quickly, we weren’t keen on transverse beds as it meant one or the other of us would have to do some nifty squeezing to get to the bathroom at night.
“Hmmm why is this table here exactly?”
Hair Drying…
Sue finds the setup for her in our present caravan works really well for hair drying. There is a light, mirror, shelf and 240 volt power socket conveniently placed so she can sit on the edge of the bed and dry her hair. This was one of the things we were scoring on. We were surprised that in some of the vans this was not possible. Sit on the edge of the bed and watch TV… but no mirror. Or a mirror, shelf and light but nowhere to plug-in a hair dryer or straighteners. While on the subject of TV’s… why do manufacturers insist on installing a TV mount in the bedroom…. but not always in the living area. By choice we would not have a mount fitted in the bedroom but would want one in the living area.
… Like the fridge and microwave locations… no cooker hood though.
The other thing that we noticed was Swift are now installing a TV mount in a locker on the outside of the caravan…. methinks someone has been watching too many American RV shows with 40 inch TV’s installed on the outside. Personally I think this is a bad idea. TV’s in awnings have been the source of noise complaints in the past. I do hope this is not going to be a new trend.
Tables…
In our current van, the table is stored under the bed, and to be honest it’s a pain to get out and put away. So we checked out the table locations. Some were great, right in the living area… others were not so good, you had to carry them from the back of the van through to the front. I know it’s only a minor thing but its a thing never the less.
Outside Lockers…
Right, who said “We don’t need outside lockers” then? It seems more and more are dropping the number of outside lockers. The ones that do remain, just how useful are they? A number of the caravans we looked over you would be hard pushed to get a couple of outside chairs in the lockers as the space inside had been sub divided or was a wet locker. Currently we can store our chairs, waste hog and Cadac that are stored under the bed from the outside via a reasonably sized locker hatch only having to carry the Aquaroll inside the caravan to store it under the bed. When you start looking at the practicality of some of the lockers and what you can or can’t fit in through the opening do you realise the limitations.
Sinks we like…
Sinks… not really exciting but getting it right is important. Currently we have a rind sink, which is OK, until you want to use it. we have to find a place to put the sink cover… get out the draining board, make some space on the counter top, drop on the draining board and we are good to go. Afterwards, dry off the draining board, put it away, get out the sink cover and fit it back over the sink. Not too onerous really, but not exactly convenient. Now we both spotted this sink…. (photo below)
Now that sink we do like and a solid door between the kitchen are and bathroom.
and both of us commented on what an improvement it was. The lid acted as an additional splash back the draining board was integrated into the sink so water draining off the washed dishes would not go everywhere… except back in the sink and it was a more usable shape. The tap too was handy, it would swing over the hob to allow filling of a pan rather than hiding a pan partly in the sink with one hand while trying to operate the tap with the other. We liked the general layout of this kitchen, the powered roof extractor right above the hob, but the down side was the hight and location of the microwave.
While on the subject of roof fans… why can’t caravan manufacturers install a sensible extracting cooker hood that vents to the outside?
… A cooker hood! sadly only a circulation type not a proper extractor and twin beds… only the bathroom is to the rear. Close but no cigar!
After looking round all the manufacturers twin axle offerings we were very tempted… to the point of sitting down with the sales rep from Glossop Caravans and getting a value on our van for a trade in with the Sterling Celebration 635 – a dealer special. It ticked a lot of the boxes but sat in our caravan that evening we went through where we would put what… and it seemed like we were always making compromises about what could go where. and the list of what we would have to change or adapt seemed to get longer and longer. The layout was good… and we did like the fact the transverse bed was on the opposite side… I don’t know why that should make a difference really. But it came down to silly things… like that outside TV locker. That was a complete waste for us, and why didn’t they offer the rear view camera? It was fitted on other spec Swift caravans?
Our Ideal Layout…
We popped in to see the Vanmaster caravan… hand-built luxury, they only build about 12 per year apparently. This was a bit of an eye-opener layout wise for us though. The interior design was not to our taste, but these guys had our perfect layout. Centre bathroom and twin beds to the rear. Solid doors to shut of the bathroom both from the bedroom and the kitchen area.
So here it is, our ‘ideal’ (for the moment!) layout and options…
A Centre bathroom with twin beds to the rear. Under each bed, a storage space accessible from the outside, with perhaps on the off side a slightly larger door so that an Aquaroll can be passed through (store the Aquaroll and wastehog on the side it’s going to be used… along with perhaps the mains cable and hose pipe).
A solid door between the bedroom and bathroom, and another solid door between the living area and bathroom. The bathroom to have a powered roof fan vent.
A service light on the off-side above the EHU plug-in point & water point and a light mounted on the “A” frame to light the front gas locker.
Rear view camera.
Proper cooker hood.
Sensible place to sit and dry hair.
No “hunk of iron” screwed to the wall in the bedroom for a TV that we would never fit.
Internal water tank.
Suitable area for me to work at a laptop.
Ability to install a second leisure battery.
100 watts minimum solar panel
At least 800mm width of wardrobe hanging space (2 x 400 would be fine)
Lounge table stored in the lounge area.
A useful ‘user’ load capacity of 200Kg
Lockers… lots of lockers that you can actually put stuff in. Also locker doors that open downwards not lift up so you have to get on your hands and knees to peer inside under the open door.
Decisions Decisions….
So what did we decide in the end? Well our caravan went back to Glossop Caravans to have new caps installed and the damp sorted, and while it was there we decided to have the roof light in the bedroom and the one in the bathroom replaced with the new clear tilt lift ones that are now fitted as standard in a number of vans. The old ones were virtually impossible to clean and both were showing cracks in the edges of the outer perspex layer.
I have designed and built a new section for the chest of draws in the lounge that fits between the draws and the front window that will give us two 12 volt sockets, three 240 volt sockets and 6 USB sockets. Once that’s installed and with the new roof lights fitted…. we decided to keep the caravan for another year.
Staying at the NEC for the show…
If you haven’t done it… DO IT! For us it was well worth it. It’s not cheap, but being able to wander in and out of the show, planning what to see and going back to check out things in detail was really worth it.
That’s us in the distance on the corner…. in front of the tent!…
“In A Tent… In A Car Park…. Next To The NEC….”
We were pitched on the corner right in front of the tent and on the first night the music kicked off… and it was… it wasn’t all that bad, in fact it was pretty good. The next nights music was pretty good also. So not wanting to be missing anything we ventured in and it was packed out…
It was a great atmosphere and everyone was enjoying it. It was a different group playing each night. The beer was cold and not too pricy, the food seemed to be going down well too.
If you haven’t stayed at the NEC for one of the big shows, it’s well worth it in our opinion, especially if you are looking to buy a new caravan or motor home. It gives you plenty of time to look round, make lists and go back to find exactly what you want.
Oh and by the way…. the catch phrase of the week from the evenings MC…. “In A Tent… In A Car Park…. Next To The NEC“
I’d like to take a second to thank all the Caravan Club staff that make staying at the NEC possible. It looks easy, but I’m sure an awful lot of work has to go into the organisation of it all and hard work by members staffing the site. Remember, if we don’t book and use it, we could lose it!
What’s Next?…
I’ve just taken delivery of a dash-cam for the Amarok. It’s a twin camera unit so I’ll be installing that in the next few days. I’m not sure if I’ll be doing a write-up on the actual installation… unless you would like to read about it. Let me know.
UPDATE… (even before the post is posted!)
It’s taken me a few days to write this article and this morning (5th Nov) we went up to Glossop Caravans to collect our caravan after having the remedial work done for the damp and the two new roof lights installed. The work on the damp seems fine, I guess time will tell with that. The roof lights have been installed and they are exactly what we wanted. However our initial checks didn’t show up an issue. It wasn’t until we got the caravan back to our storage facility that on closer inspection one of the roof lights had a crack in the main body.
The bathroom roof light, perfect, no issues.
However on the roof light above the bed there is a crack on the inner frame…
At first we thought is was a dirty mark, but on closer inspection it is a fully developed crack…
… possibly starting from this over tightened screw maybe?
So, as I was on a night shift last night and asleep most of the day as I’m on nights again tonight (no bonfire for me) I’ll have to drop them an email tonight with a follow-up call on Monday.
Sometimes you really want to just go “AAAAAGHHHHHHHHHH”
So what happened to scupper all my spreadsheet deliberations in the early hours of the morning while driving to work?
I was on the M60 heading towards the airport thinking about what aircraft were due out… as you do, when a large pickup passed me. Not with one of these truck tops on the rear but a hard cover over the pickup bed and 4 bikes mounted on a rack above the bed. I hadn’t a clue as to what make it was as I wasn’t into pickup’s really but it did look really neat and by the time my brain got into gear to see if I could identify the make, it was gone.
All that morning I was thinking about pickup’s…. maybe I was missing a trick here and a SUV type vehicle wasn’t the way forward, but a pickup was. They seem to be one of the vehicles of choice in the USA for people towing travel trailers, but that’s a whole different market. There are a lot of caravaners in the UK using them too. What was I missing?
A couple of days later I saw what I thought was the same vehicle again on the M60, this time with no bikes on the back. It had a VW badge on the tailgate. I thought VW didn’t make pickup’s. But this got me thinking again, was a pickup the way to go… lots of people use 4 x 4 pickups to tow with, they seem to have plenty of room, be practical, have seating for five and are generally built tough as they are usually designed for commercial use.
A chance conversation about caravans at work with someone who had recently changed his Discovery for a pickup… a VW pickup.
A few days later I started searching on the internet for information about pickups… there is more out there than I thought. My original spreadsheet got a bit of a re-write over the course of a weekend.
A day or so later we were staying down at Plough Lane Caravan Site and we saw another Amarok on the road which was the first time Sue had seen one and it renewed our interest again, and as luck would have it we were near to a VW Commercial Dealership (have a read here https://caravanchronicles.com/2015/09/20/wiltshire-wanderings/) so we dropped in. It was ticking all the boxes, but more research was still required about 4 x 4 pickup’s. My spreadsheet grew.
Now, I’m not going to give you a long list of the ones we looked at and the reasons for dismissing them in our particular case, some people might have chosen them and for them, they tick all the boxes which is great. The others didn’t tick enough of our (well my) boxes and the Amarok did. So “Project Wolf” was born.
“Project Wolf”
I did not know what to call this series of blog posts when I was making my notes, I read that an amarok, or amaroq, is a gigantic gray wolf in Inuit mythology, said to stalk and devour any person foolish enough to hunt alone at night. Unlike real wolves who hunt in packs, amaroks hunt alone. This kind of stuck in my brain and I started scribbling “Project Wolf” at the top of the pages I had in my note-book where I’d written about stuff for the Amarok.
After my first conversation with the dealer in Swindon, I needed lots of questions answering and fired off an email to VW UK. And got a quick reply telling me nothing of what I really wanted to know. So I tried again, this time to VW in Germany. Not telling me much more… but in lots of detail of course. Thankfully the Australians came to the rescue, although the specs are a little different, it helped fill in the blanks.
The start of my growing spread sheet about pick-up’s-v-SUV’s
Searching on the internet it seems that the Amarok is going down a storm down under in Australia and there are lots of videos and information on Australian 4 x 4 forums about the Amarok… as well as quite a bit of stuff from southern Africa and south America. I spent the next couple of months gathering information and adding even more columns to my spread sheet, then going back visiting other manufacturers web sites filling in blank bits for their particular 4 x 4 pickup’s to keep things on a level playing field.
Image (c) VW GMBH
OK… So why choose a pickup?
Glad you asked. Well these are OUR reasons and thoughts. They may not coincide with your particular circumstances, but here’s why… for us.
The loading and storage capacity are huge when compared to most SUV 4 x 4’s. The weight capacity is around 1000 Kg’s and most can take a standard Euro-pallet footprint. That’s a lot of caravanning extras. A lot of pickups can be fitted with a van style top that will allow wet dogs, bikes and other stuff that you wouldn’t put inside a vehicle. Although we don’t particularly want a cab style top but would prefer a flat lid with a bike rack on top. And we don’t have a wet dog. We may have a wet awning though. The tailgate can apparently support 250 Kgs… handy for tailgate BBQ’s! It also makes it easy for me to throw in a big snap-on tool chest and use it as a work bench when tinkering with aircraft electrics.
A lot of pickups are still built on a ladder chassis (like the old Land Rovers) for strength and generally have a longer wheelbase which for towing increases stability. The hitch nose weight limit is generally higher – 150 Kg upwards and generally they are heavier so a lower towing weight ratio can be achieved.
Comparing our Freelander to the Amarok I got:-
Freelander Mass In Service=1723 Kgs, Caravan MTPLM=1490 Kgs, giving a towing ratio of 86.5%
Amarok Mass In Service=2093 Kgs, Caravan MTPLM=1490 Kgs, giving a towing ratio of 71.1%
The Amarok 85% figure is a caravan with a MTPLM of 1779 Kgs and 90% comes in at 1884 Kg’s. The maximum rated towing capacity for a braked trailer is 3200 Kgs.
The other factor for me is the build. Most pick-up’s are built for commercial use and things tend to be a bit beefier. The seats are a bit tougher, the springs, brakes, switches…. everything is designed and made with heavy use in mind. OK this can make them a bit more utilitarian in their design and look inside, but I wanted something that would still look good after 100,000 miles.
The mechanics too tend to be a bit more industrial. The vehicles are not built to a minimum weight just to get good MPG or performance. They are designed for a working life with minimal down time and servicing costs. With all this In mind and much more we (well I) settled on the VW Amarok as the main contender.
OK… so what’s hot about the Amarok?
Here’s a few things I like… mainly taken from the VW literature and I guess is similar to other offerings.
ABS and EBD – Anti-lock Brakes and Electronic Brake Distribution. ABS is pretty standard now but the Amarok ABS also has Off Road ABS as well and is linked to something called EBD which essentially helps prevent lockup of the rear wheels when under less load (i.e. lightly loaded in the back) or when the vehicle’s weight is transferred to the front wheels when braking. Handy for those wet grass campsites.
Hill Hold Assist – handy for hill starts when towing and Hill Descent Control – Available on a lot of 4 x 4’s but the big one for me was unlike the Land Rover version (which is great by the way!) it operates in off-road mode at any speed below 18 MPH when the vehicles ABS is being used. It controls the braking automatically to prevent unintentional acceleration going down hill even in slippery conditions.
Brake Assist – senses how fast you apply the brakes and if it senses you are doing an emergency stop automatically applies the maximum braking effort available.
The 2.0 Litre BiTDI Engine produces 180 PS (132Kw) or 180 Hp in old money which is similar to some larger engines in other makes. The two turbos help the engine give a huge 420 Nm of torque when mated to the 8 speed automatic gearbox, which has first gear optimised for off-road and pulling away when towing heavy trailers. 8th gear is designed as an overdrive to reduce revs and maximise fuel efficiency.
Here’s one from the F1 world…. regenerative braking. When you brake the energy recuperation system uses momentum to turn the alternator and charge the battery, making the most of the energy when you brake.
Permanent “4 motion” four-wheel drive. All wheel drive is permanent on the automatic no matter if you are in on or off-road mode. The Torsen differential splits the power 40:60 between front and rear wheels, but when off-road the system automatically distributes power to the wheels with most grip… and works with hill start and hill descent control.
There were a few other things that I liked… for example you can put a 32Gb SD card in the radio with all your music from your iPod on and the hands free system seemed quite easy to use too. There were more 12 volt power points than you could shake a stick at, including one in the pickup bed, handy for your cool box!
It has all the usual stuff too, leather interior, cruise control, front and rear parking sensors, cup holders everywhere, storage draws under the front seats, inbuilt sat-nav.
It’s not small – 5254 mm long (excluding tow bar) and 2228 wide at the mirrors. With our caravan hitched it will be a total length of around 12.54 metres or about 41′ 2″ in real money.
The MPG figures were OK too…. but that with VW has to be seen in perspective of course.
So with all my geeky and techie boxes ticked…. all we had to do was go and prod one in real life and take it for a wiz round the block!
Now I think VW have missed a trick here, VW Car Dealerships don’t sell Amarok’s, you have to go to a VW Commercial Dealer, and after talking to a few people, this seems to be a bit daunting as a lot have people have never stepped into a commercial dealership before. Our nearest VW Commercial Dealership is Manchester Van Centre VW in Trafford Park where we met the lovely Jessica… but more about that in Part 3.
Here is a sneaky preview of an Amarok from Down Under….
I receive a lot of emails asking where people can buy some of the tools – especially some of the crimp tools and terminations I use in my posts and articles. In the past I have just emailed people back with the details and maybe links. However my last post about cable termination brought on a rather large amount of requests. So I have decided that I will include links to the products on Amazon. So from now on you will see a section at the bottom of any posts called….
Any specific items used will be listed, and by clicking on the link to the item you will be taken to the Amazon store page. If you do decide to purchase anything, it will be from Amazon (or their associates) and delivered by them. It’s just like buying from Amazon directly.
The price you pay is exactly the same as it would be by going directly to Amazon. All I receive is a few pennies from each sale that will help towards keeping the wheels of Caravan Chronicles turning.
I have also created a shopping page that lists the products under a link to the original article. There aren’t any photos, just descriptions to keep the page neat and quick to load. If you want to go back to the article, just click on its title.
I hope you don’t mind me doing this, but it will save you having to email me asking where to get things from and save me a bit of time in replying to everyone.
Today Caravan Chronicles passed 1/2 million views!
Caravan Chronicles started back in January 2012 and in that first month had a grand total of 695 views and managed to get 36,831 total page views for the for the first year. Last year (2014) we had 336,734 total views. Today at the start of our 4th year we average around 1100 views each day and exceed 30,000 views per month.
To put these figures into perspective, according to the Audit Bureau of Circulations (ABC) caravan and motohome magazines had the following monthly circulation (the latest figures available are from 2013)….
Practical Caravan – 25,845 copies
Practical Motorhome – 12,399 copies
Caravan Magazine – 13,009 copies
Motorcaravan Motorhome Monthly – 31,475 copies
Which Motorhome – 5977 copies
Sue and I would just like to thank everyone for reading, following, commenting and giving us ideas for new articles. Without you, we probably would not of kept going.
It’s not often something comes along that is different and maybe the next big thing in caravanning and camping… but I think this website might just be worth keeping an eye on. I was alerted to it by Chris Dunphy & Cherie Ve Ard. (Technomads). It started last year in America by a group of like-minded RV’ers that wanted a way to keep in touch… and more besides. Continue reading →
Well I have done quite a bit of testing with my leisure battery in various states of discharge. With it at about 50% I have recorded a charging current of 15.9 Amps which is far greater than I could manage before and due to the fact that the Wildside unit uses the correct charging profile for my battery I’m not concerned that I will be reducing or damaging my leisure batteries life expectancy.
Caravan Chronicles 