The start of a new journey

Purchasing the Motorhome

Well our beautiful Alana Rose has been sold and delivered to Lake Macquarie and we have now purchased our motorhome. We were very lucky to find a motorhome  that we could purchase immediately as most times if there isn't a unit on a sale site one has to be ordered and that would be a wait of around four months which would have meant that we would have had to find accommodation for that period of time.

When we first put the boat on the market we had a lot of interest and it also coincided with the Brisbane Caravan, Motorhome and Camping Exhibition. We had already started looking at Motorhomes and there is a number to choose from, so when we went to this show we had already looked at the different makes and models. What the show did for us was allow us to walk short distances between the different ones and compare one against the other.

After going through all the exhibits it came down to two units one being an Avida (Australian Winnebago), Esperance model and the Sunliner Holiday series. Considering we are looking at a permanent home not just a holiday unit to go away a few times a year.

Other makes were very nice particularly the Paradise, unfortunately these are around $50,000 more expensive than the other two makes and it does not have slide- outs for this price range. At the end of the day we chose to go with Sunliner, the deciding factor at the time was that Sunliner had a little better finish but it was also the most comfortable. The lounge in the Esperance was not comfortable, the cushion seemed too soft and you tended to slide off.

I must also say that at the show the Sunliner representatives appeared more genuine and friendly not the usual sales bull, they showed the articles and asked if we had questions.

The other choice one has to make when purchasing something like this is what cab chassis will you have. Most of the Motorhomes that fall into standard drivers licence are Mercedes, Fiat and Iveco.

We went with the Iveco after quite a lot of research for a number of reasons, they are a reliable vehicle, not saying the others are not but they are robust. Mercedes are $18,000 more in cost to a motorhome and maintenance and spares are also a higher cost and it is believed by some that Iveco is more reliable. Fiat went out at the start of our research. Early in the time we went to Talvor Motorhome builders that also build the Apollo rental units, they have a very nice design in the Hayman model, when talking to the sales manager and we asked about adding a bullbar and a tow bar he replied that we would have to lose the seat belts for the rear passengers as towing a trailer you surpass the weight limits of the vehicle, the other factor was it is front wheel drive which I believe can cause problems on wet grass let alone other events that may occur and they are a lot lower to the ground. It was also interesting to note that Talvor was not represented at the show.

The Sunliner people told me that we would not get a better price than at the exhibition but unfortunately we could not do anything until we had sold the boat. Michael from  Sunshine State RV told me to remind him that we met at the show when we were ready and he would see what he could do for us, I went one better I gave him our boat card so he would remember us.

Well the boat sold within a reasonably short period of time and we had put a deposit on a Motorhome that Nancy fell in love with, at first I was not as much in love with it as Nancy was but I did like it a lot, there was a few things that I would like changed. The changes were done which made me much happier. The big change in the choice of this vehicle which is better than the one at the show is that we have two slide outs, the lounge and bedroom slide out giving more inside space to live, however this means it is a light rigid vehicle and cannot be driven on a standard licence, so Nancy has to get her light rigid drivers licence I already have a heavy vehicle licence.

(Our first day, Carolyn came down with bubbly and cheese platter to christen the new home)

The vehicle  is a Sunliner Holiday H533 powered by an IVECO 70C17 with A/M 6 speed gearbox, which means gears can be manually selected or can be fully automatic. Before purchasing anything these days I get on the internet and look at reviews of what I am looking at. This can be helpful but one must be aware of two things, first is the date of the review, I found reviews on the IVECO from motorhome owners that stated that there were front suspension issues but the dating of this was 2009 and 2010 there were not any later complaints. This did not only relate to IVECO it also had similar reports to other manufacturers.

(These photos were taken when we first saw the vehicle)

What I have found in looking at motorhomes that some are very close to their maximum weight and this is due to the manufacturers targeting the standard driving licence, with these units it does not allow for you to put much additional weight. As I mentioned earlier that Talvor if we added the tow bar  we would lose the two additional passenger  capability and the towing capacity was only 1500kgs, so one can assume that earlier problems with suspension could be attributed to maximum loading or overloading.

It is probably more luck than judgement that we have ended up with a 70C17 IVECO that can take a larger payload so we are no way near maximum weight and we have a 3500kgs towing capacity, naturally time will tell but at this stage we are very pleased with our purchase, we know we will find some faults as the fact the motorhome is  built in a factory in Australia and sad to say that we may find some things not done to the best. Most motorhome sellers will tell you this, they say just bring it back and we will fix it and every company we went to said the same thing.

Well this is the start.

Cheers