Alan Stanley

Before parting with your money. Sit down with the manufacturers warranty and actually read them. Do not be sidelined by things like adverts. “10 years”. Etc. The reality is very different. You have additional rights under legislation of course. Do not accept verbal salesman’s Talk. I repeat read them very carefully. Then you get get a good idea of the manufacturers faith in their products. IMHO the order goes from best warranty to worst Bailey Swift Explorer group. Elddis Buccaneers etc Others May disagree but an hour spent going through the

If it turns out to be a duff tap. Let me know as I have a perfect one for sale. Taken out of a new Estoril. Message me if interested. Hope you get it sorted.

In no particular order. SWMBO and I set out our requirements as follows. Weight below 1800 kgs. Single axle Alde heating must fit in the storage barn Can see out of it when stood up. Comfortable ( ie firm ) seating Twin or double bed that are easy to get into/out of and big enough Be designed from outset to work well offgrid. Large fridge. Not under counter type NO ABS plastic panels Like the decor Decent sized bathroom. No high tech ‘Star trek’ control panel. (SWMBO’s critical point) Virtually all vans at upper end of the

Forgot to mention. 19 litres of gas. Safefill so £12. To refill.

The Alicanto has just had its first challenging test with the lithium battery. 5 days in a woodland clearing. At this time of the year no direct sun reaches the clearing. Weather was a mix of bright and rain. Over the five days the solar generated 36 amps in total. Not very much really. The battery soldiered on for all five days. Always registering 13 v plus. Running the van and heating all day, although we only watched about 2 hrs T V in total. Previously we would have needed two AGM 100 amp. After returning home It took about 50 amp to bring it back to fully charged, so well pleas

Correct. Just a shame they didn’t ( along with all the other manufacturers ). kick it into touch as soon as the use of ABS was shown to be a lottery in effect. We personally experienced it in 1995. Then again in 1999. Oh and 2004. Swift. Bailey. Lunar in that order.

Bailey have not used ABS since the start of Ali-tech. About 2010. Swift continued for some years, the early top of the range Elegance had ABS panels for example. Such was the epidemic of cracking panels that some manufacturers supplied moulded ‘ Caps’ to stick over the cracks. One major manufacturer ( Explorer group) still only warranties their plastic panels and components for 12 months. Says it all really

As above - I'm not familier with your van but on many vans the charger is plugged into the main supply box by a simple electric kettle type plug. These are famous for vibrating out over time, looks like it's plugged in but is not pushed home. Often just tracing where the battery charger plugs into the main box will sort it. Even with a duff battery the charger, if working, would be trying to put a lot more than 11.5 volts in and this would be read on your meter.

Wheel balance has been the topic of many an item on here and other forums. Bailey do and have done for many years balanced the wheels. Well to be more precise the wheel supplier does it. Swift have stated for ever that they do not and will not. They claim their testing has shown it has no effect on stability. May be true for stability I don't know, but getting a straight answer out of them on vibration is in my experience impossible. Explorer group I've no idea.

Bailey's own web site sells batteries for their vans and these are AGM. Our Valencia 2015 worked fine with AGM battery. The charger will suit it fine.

I'm with Gordon, though I prefer Isabella carbon poles. If I ever break them on the Magnum then I'm doing something totally stupid. Ive put up our Magnum Solo with a friend next door putting up his Kampa. Not racing just normal speed for us both. At the end of the day there wasn't more than a few mins in it. Taking them down and packing away I won hands down.

Don't know about correct size but most important for SWMBO was she wanted one that was level with the sink top so she could use a chopping board over the sink. This one fitted the bill, though it doesn't hold very much. https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B07XDXMD32/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Colours are a bit sudden though.

Swan neck tap in the bathroom gone. SWMBO happy now.

Surely the fridge and sockets are not designed to work off the battery. The fridge will usually only work from plugging the van into the mains or gas. The mains type sockets will only work when plugged into the mains. A caravan battery is for the 12 volt systems. Lights pump etc.

Have to agree with Mr Plodd and others. My three words is brilliant. As the most difficult thing for responders on the end of 999 will tell you. The location of the patient is paramount.