Strongly advise checking Caravan Council of Australia www.caravancouncil.com.au/compliance (Not to be confused with Caravan Industry Australia - basically a consortium of Manufacturers banging their own drums).
Ensure any caravan you purchase can pass the compliance check list of the Caravan Council - Have the van completely checked by a reputable engineer Get details from Caravan Council Mr Colin Young. tel;0409 865 399.

Read some of the horror stories on Lemon Caravans and RV's www.facebook.com/groups/lemoncaravansinaus/ Check the buyers beware list in their files section.

Hope you find what you are looking for and you have a pleasant trip around the block - Hope to see you out there.

Regards Possum.

Hi Gnome , we own a Kedron Topender so Im biased but they do manufacture a top quality caravan and have excellent after sales service. Kedron are now also producing caravans suitable to tow with your vehicle. They are not cheap but you pay for what you get .
Have fun deciding theres many choose from .
Dhutime

Gday...

An excellent example provided by Dhutime.

However, consider the specs - here

 

Excellent vans ... but not for a Hilux  

Cheers - John

 

 

gnome wrote:

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 Thanks for the replies.

Whilst not being a full off roader which is really where I'm aiming this van http://www.caravanscoffscoast.com.au/southern-star-ss196/4573074552 would fit inside the criteria and is what I'm leaning towards but lets leave aside the tug for the moment as I can and will be upgrading next year anyway. It will still be a Toyota as I have a relationship with the company.

What I'm more interested in is what vans, in the criteria set in my first post less the tow vehicle, would people recommend new in the sub $100k range.

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 Hi gnome. Looking at the southern Star specs. You would need to check whether all those extras like side battery? boxes, the large front box and the awning etc are actually included in the tare weight or not.

Cheers, John.

Gnome,

I am a Newbie who only picked up our Retreat van in March so still doing short trips to sort things out before we start the big lap in March 2018.

Just My learnings so far :

Know all about weights and how the tow vehicle and van add up .GVM,GCM,ATM ( do not rely on the distributor ) 

Be careful when you add extras (not always covered in the weight specs you see during the sales pitch.It is amazing how fast your new combination becomes overweight and therefore illegal. 

100k will put a great van on the road.

ask about the after sales on road service. (Pulling your new van 3 hours to have a warranty job completed is a little painful.Jayco look to have good coverage around Australia for parts and service).

Keep the length of the van down .(I extended the draw bar .in my case not a good idea. I was told the van would be 27 feet total length (end to end )with the extension and it came in at 31 feet .painful to find and get on and off sites. 

Go for a van with not front windows (Pron to leak over time ,or so the more seasoned travels tell me ). 

With out doubt Weigh combination (van and Tow vehicle)  is vital.

Avoid slid outs as it makes it harder to find good sites (not impossible just harder)

Ask how the van is tested for water leaks during maunfacture.

When I have mine again I would look hard at Jayco for the best parts and after sales service centers ,just my view so far 

hope some of this helps (these are just a newbies view and learnings so far)

I should add Gnome that most of the reputable manufacturers have pages on Facebook which can be helpful when trying to make the decision.

Cheers

Dickodownunder wrote:

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I should add Gnome that most of the reputable manufacturers have pages on Facebook which can be helpful when trying to make the decision.

Cheers

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 Yeah but even with lemon caravans you can't go on it as a guide in my opinion there's lots of good vans on it mine is,most people with there new vans I think will have teething problems and be mucked around ,I think the answer is to go on the net and look for a dedicated owners  discussion  group .

 

Honey09 wrote:

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We researched for 3 or 4 years before we bought an Option Rv and are so glad we did.
After sales service is second to none. We had a couple of minor warranty issues with things like 12v water pump and the dometic window/shade/flyscreen. We found a repairer close to home and they (the manufacturer) organised it. There's no fobbing you off and problems are handled promptly. They are a 10 year old family company only manufacturing 2 vans per week. They have a few different models on offer. Worth a look at their facebook page plenty of happy owners to ask

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 Do you know what their construction method is for their walls? I have looked at them and they look well equipped units... I particularly like the look of the Tribute series. 

As mentioned for that money you will put a great van on the road just gone through this and have van ordered for mid Feb. It is confusing with so many brains so we put down the things we wanted in the van and look around at a lot of different vans but final ended up buying from a local caravan dealer as we felt we can trust them and know they have be selling vans for a long time. The van is one thing but after sale service and support and being able to have trust in the dealer is important to us.

We have a fairly new Jayco Silverline, and at the risk of upsetting Muddy, I would not recommend this van to anyone, built purely for initial "Wow" effect, and am wondering if the persons who designed this bucket of s---t ever went camping themselves. At the moment, I am praying that the chassis and body shell hold together, because it looks like everything inside is one way or another requiring work. However we are living full time in the van, and this probably tests the internals more.
If I was to buy again, new, I would not have a full stove, why take up 25% of your cuboard space with something thats hardly ever used, in fact we do all our cooking outside, so the gas cooktops and the electric element are redundant as well, prefering to use an induction cooker or gas barbecue. The sink bowl is way too big, so too much water is used, a small 1/4 size bowl would be better. You need to look carefully at how you can store items in the van, the cuboards and draws may look good, but work out to be quite impractical to use.
Given the choice I would not have a slide out, apart from making the bed a nightmare to remake, it is another thing that can go wrong. The trouble is being able to fit all you want in the space of the van shell. So we do have a slide out.
Assessability to the various items for service is important, for instance the brakaway controller in our van is mounted up underneath the stove, to check the battery I have to get down on the floor on my back with a torch and perrup into the cavity to see it.
Watch weight and balance between full and empty water tanks. Get quality water and waste level indicators, the ones in this van are so useless. Also pay some attention to the venting and draining of all the tanks, I am sure the ones in our van never completely drain or completly fill up.
I guess that the use you will be putting the van to will have a bearing on the design, if you are using it for two weeks at a time excursions, then issues won't be as great, as we are full time issues such as storage management have become major issues.
Grey water and other story again ---- excuse me I now have to empty the grey water tank.

Gnome

We had a Sunland Patriot built to our requirements, just over 3 years ago. We are partly disabled and needed a van that was customisable to our requirements. The beauty of Sunland is that you deal directly with the company. We had the managing director and his son advising us throughout  the process and we achieved exactly what we wanted. The sum of the problems so far. 2. The earth pin on the clipsal power inlet was faulty and there was a small leak in the boot from an aftermarket fitment of electric struts (the red and green leveling lights needed a small amount of additional sealer in a difficult spot. Other than that - (touch wood), not a single issue and the van has had a hammering throughout OZ. They even extended the 3 year warranty recently to 5 years and back dated it for us. The chassis comes with a 20 year warranty. AN SE model would meet your requirements and budget. Have a look at the Sunland owners forum on Facebook and see what people say about the product and the service. By the way - Sunland was set up by a group of Kedron employees who went out on their own. And Kedron is a top product - but tare weights are too high for our requirements.

There are many good manufacturers out there - Sunland IMHO is one of the best - but certainly not the cheapest.

We were at Erldunda in the NT getting fuel on one occassion. My wife had gone in to pay for the fuel and I was cleaning the windscreens. A women came running over to me and asked if she could take a picture of our Patriot. I asked why (being a suspicious sort). She replied it was her dream caravan and mine was the first she had seen up close. Now you don't see that everyday.