Hi mate, another interesting honest and relevant video for our caravan community thankyou, Just on the gas bottle levels, after much wasted time and money over the years i brought a truma gas bottle level check device and have never looked back, a little pricey but totally reliable and accurate, couldn't recommend it more highly, all the best in your travels Andy..
A video suggestion for u guys. Love the no nonsense stance u take when giving ur opinions on caravans. Do u reckon you could do a "Pick of the Bunch" type video. Where you guys give your opinions on the top 3 vans for price points. 40k 60k 80k 100k+ ect. So many other youtube channels ate clearly bought off by a company, u guys just tell it how it is. The banter between you 2 is awesome. Clearly the wife has yet to lose a banter round so far 😂.
Oh, I should have added that it is easy to connect both water tanks together. Just connect a section of hose between both the outlets (thet are both at the same height). If the hose has a large enough diameter, you can then fill both tanks from a single fill point.
Regarding the mesh in the door not being fully midgie proof. Just spray it every 2 to 3 weeks using a can of mozzie surface spray. This stops the midgies from wanting to come through.
We have a 18.6 Base 023 , considered upgrading to the gen 2 but love everything it offers and it has somethings the new one doesn’t . Something great about the Keep it simple stupid . It’s set up just as we like it and has taken us to some amazing places . Enjoy your van . Suz
We bought a 2nd hand Base 17 foot van 6 months ago with a compost toilet. Personally I wouldn’t want a cassette toilet. Love the van and the lifestyle it brings. Only minor complaint is the tv aerial as we can’t get any decent reception anywhere. So we just use the tv aps on our phone and attach that via a hdmi cable so the aerial is obsolete. Really enjoy your videos and I’m sure your replacement led strip light how to video will come in handy in the future. Cheers
@@DoogsBrown thanks for your comment. Sounds like you have a great van - yes we just use Starlink straight to the TV these days or the phone when we have reception. I’m working on the roof mounted TV! Stay tuned for that one - get the thing right out of the way. Don’t know what I’ll do if I want to watch outside!! Compost toilet sounds like the go.
Yes the color of the kislux is beautiful and it is a great decision, maybe one day they will add feet and straps. It would be nice to have a bigger bag during the colder months when we have to store gloves, beanies, scarves, etc…
Hi Guys , we have a base as well and just changed to a 3 way switch for the kitchen light. We can now have top light now by itself or underneath light or none. hope this helps. Cheers. great vid
Glad you are happy with your van. We ended up buying the silverline 21 and just love it. Being in some cold areas in winter the gas water and heating were fantastic. Love the electric awning. I agree we would like to put in a composting toilet been looking at the Ogo brand. Look forward to seeing your next installment.
I really love your taste and style always so chic. My faves would be the kislux leather backpack and the Swarovski pave diamond ring so gorg. Thank you for your recommendations.
The new vans have mostly Induction and a lot of power to support that. I'm a gas fan myself but I do love lots of power for other things. Thanks for your comment.
Hi Guys enjoy yourselves thats what it is all about. Now I was asking a manufacturer about the powerpoint issue as to why they dont add more. Now to build it to a standard apparently (according to him) power points have to be i think he said 800mm from either water source or a heat source. I did explain ive seen other manufactured vans with power points both sides and he reckons its not compliant. Not sure if we as owners add one extra what happens. I suppose insurance would look into it.
My understanding is power points need to be 150mm away from the water tap (or basin some will say) and gas flame, 400mm high for water area but not sure if this applies to gas. Others will argue that a safety circuit breaker is adequate to allow alternate placement. I just want one under the over head cabinet (like at the other end of the bench). Should be easy to organise that. Thanks for your comment. Perhaps a sparky will jump on and tell us!
A silverline would have addressed a lot of your issues raised.. we love ours and the layout.. club lounge, instant hot water, larger bathroom, section off the bedroom area, lighting, electric awning…. The list goes on…
I’m surprised there’s no exhaust fan 🤔we use the little light on the exhaust fan in our van by itself for night time coffees and morning light instead of the bright lights. This was a good episode. Good to see you in your van😊
Thanks for your comments, much appreciated. The van's great and yes, no range-hood was a spin out but we have adjusted which surprised us. We do miss those range hood lights for sure. There's never any dust anywhere in the van so I guess this is part of the price to pay -Tracey gets me to put on a camp headlight in morning... hahaha. Cheers
Great review guys. It’s all really personal what you like I guess and of course you can option up a van to suit at the appropriate price😠. We’ve just sold our Jayco Journey OB (which served us well) and bought an Urban. I’ll be interested to see what ‘Van wars’ come up with in terms of an Urban. Happy to provide feedback on ours if you’re interested once we’ve given it a go run in.
@@PeterRowe-ip7ow excellent - I’ll put it on the review list! Personal choice is a big factor - even when the better option is staring us in the face we can opt for something else because it feels good. Thanks for your comments and your van feedback would be great!
You do good reviews on different vans, for anyone interested in researching one to buy. What would be handy tho, at the beginning would be to state the Tare & Aggregate weights, so those of us with say a Prado that can only tow 3 tonne know at the outset of the video whether it’s a van that requires a 3.5 tonne tow capacity vehicle, which they don’t have so there was no point watching the video.🤷♂️ Just my suggestion to improve your reviews.
@@ianmoone2359 Good idea! We have some stuff coming up that will suit you later in Ocober - Ill include your suggestion in those. Thanks for your comment!
@@caravansbythecampfire No worries, thanks for listening & acting on it, sincerely appreciated. Trying to research the right van as a first timer is literally doing my head in.
@@ianmoone2359 Start by sticking to known brands, good after sales reputation and spend some time learning the difference between quality inclusions and ordinary ones. Personally Id only be looking at fully composite vans - twice the value imo. Good luck!
@@caravansbythecampfire This is my dilemma in a nutshell. We own a near new (Oct 2020) 150 Prado with 22,000 kms on it. We can only tow a Max of 3000 kilos. I will never buy a single axle van ever for remote touring for a host of reasons I could go into at length. Finding a dual axle Agg Mass 3 tonne 18ft Van that’s not hybrid, pop top or fold out rear bed area etc seems basically impossible. In essence any manufacturer who makes dual axle vans builds them to 3500kilos to be towed by either 300 series cruiser or Yank Tanks. To flog the Prado and buy a 300 series would cost at least an extra $50k on top of the value of the Prado, then to buy the 3.5 tonne van at say 18 to 20 foot, another $150k I really don’t want to spend $200k minimum to get into a tandem axle van for just the missus and I to occasionally go camping. I could manage say max $80k to $100k to find the right van at say 18ft 6 inch maybe that’s 3 tonne Aggregate Mass to legally tow behind the Prado we already own. Not really looking to throw $250k at “solving the problem” that no manufacturers seem to make dual axle vans suited to towing behind Prado pretend Land Cruiser. 🙄👎😡
Caravans are like owning a race car or a boat. After every time you take it out, there will be something to fix or something to upgrade. BTW, east west beds sux
Compost toilets are great for weekend use. I haven’t emptied mine in eight months after five camping trips of about 5 day stints. Chemical toilets are outdated these days
Well that's good news. So it's actually great with a couple of months between trips - if so it's the only way to go I reckon. Thanks for your comments, much appreciated.
@@ukmitch86 we owned a Parkes 13 for 2 years. Excellent then but I’ve seen they have improved a lot since then. Gauges and little electrical things I replaced with quality stuff. Solid. I’ve heard a few noises about warranty but again that was some time ago. Mine I felt was heavy on the car with Tare 2250 and upgrade to ATM 2900. Look at equiv Snowy River and others for price also. We enjoyed ours and had good resale value. Got what we paid for it!
@@jeffsurgey8766 it appears that all vans have the same basic issues with wear and tear doesn’t it. Glad to see Zone has basically implemented all the things I’d like to see done better - I’m happy with the second hand van we purchased - not sure I’m all in on finding another 50K to update it! Tracey would however 😂😂😂 - she would trade me in as well as the van!
Hey Craig and Tracey. Thanks for the walk around. Have you ever come across any payload issues on the vans you've traveled with. We found out today that our tare weight is 3177kg, the compliance plate says tare 2980kg and the caravan was advertised from the dealer at 2900kg tare weight. It's a brand new 2024 model.
It's a typical thing by all reports - not good - depends what you have in it when you weigh it - water etc. New ones should be correct. They must have added several items to put that much weight on. It would be nice to believe what's on the compliance plate wouldn't it. We don't weigh the vans reviewed but you do get a good feeling after a while.Thanks for your comments, much appreciated.
Hi, on our Zone if I hold down the button that turns on the strip lights it does dim to a lower level and it seems to remember that setting the next time you turn it on.
You have to remember that the BASE caravan was designed at a price point it didn’t even come with aircon my 20.6 started at $89,000 buy the time I finished ticking all the boxes it was $130,000 the BASE caravan was made to get people into Zone
Yes, it is great and certainly got the sales ticking over. They probably need another to do that as they are 159k now - I notice all the things a normal person would add to the build are now included.
Hi, just wondering if you have any trouble with the sizzler deluxe bbq when you light it. Mine keeps going out 3 or 4 times before staying alight. Really like the bbq , but frustrating. Cheers
I have had a problem at times with 1 burner - appears to take multiple goes to keep alight. Some days it's fine and others a problem. Adjust the thermocoupler to touch the flame - the gas pressure needs to be 2.75 & 3.0 mpa - some vans don't have this pressure so you might need to check the regulator at the bottles. Most likely the proximity of the thermocoupler.
If we could we'd be travelling already. A fair few commitments to complete in normal life - if I had to guess it would be 12-18 months - a 4 week trip is coming up in December so we'll see what trouble we can get up to then. Thanks for your comments, much appreciated. Hope you are great!
@@richardtimms6645 there have been a couple I’ve seen over the time, how and why I don’t know. Some earlier year models had a recall to be fix a problem caused when fitting the suspension - looking at ours you’d have to have it seriously overloaded to create a situation like that. Looks bullet proof to the naked eye.
They don't seem to be the lightest caravan on the market - as suggested on the factory website. With tare around 2.5t in basic trim they would have to be substantially constructed.
@@17Viking all I know is ours is just under 2.5 - payload in a ton. Haven’t seen many other 3.5t vans with those numbers. Typically they are all tare weight 2.6-2.9T. I’ll check out the website again re lightest van. Their web site lets you build the van and it show price and weight as you add things. Recently they’ve included more under the standard banner which would show a higher rate to start with - very transparent site.
![Seungmin "그렇게, 천천히, 우리(As we are)" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/kAzmhLHePqU/mqdefault.jpg)
Love the video you’re do lovely job one of best on RUclips keep video like coming love every bit
Thanks for your comments, much appreciated.
Hi mate, another interesting honest and relevant video for our caravan community thankyou,
Just on the gas bottle levels, after much wasted time and money over the years i brought a truma gas bottle level check device and have never looked back, a little pricey but totally reliable and accurate, couldn't recommend it more highly, all the best in your travels Andy..
@@AndrewSmith-yd8vy thanks mate - great little gift to me your information. I’m looking them up as we speak!! Cheers for the comments.
Great video and great practical tips to look for in a van. Really enjoy your upfront and no BS videos as well as your humour 👍
Thank you! Much appreciated.
Great honest review and great tips to look out for when picking a van.
Thanks
Keeping it real is a good thing! Thanks for your comments, much appreciated.
Thanks that was fair and honest. Very enjoyable.
Thanks for your comments, much appreciated. We like to keep things real.
A video suggestion for u guys. Love the no nonsense stance u take when giving ur opinions on caravans. Do u reckon you could do a "Pick of the Bunch" type video. Where you guys give your opinions on the top 3 vans for price points. 40k 60k 80k 100k+ ect. So many other youtube channels ate clearly bought off by a company, u guys just tell it how it is. The banter between you 2 is awesome. Clearly the wife has yet to lose a banter round so far 😂.
@@krump743 Correct about the banter rounds - I'm out! Good idea you have there, might give it a go shortly. Thanks for your comment!
Oh, I should have added that it is easy to connect both water tanks together. Just connect a section of hose between both the outlets (thet are both at the same height). If the hose has a large enough diameter, you can then fill both tanks from a single fill point.
@@derekgore1268 I’ll investigate! Thank you
Regarding the mesh in the door not being fully midgie proof. Just spray it every 2 to 3 weeks using a can of mozzie surface spray. This stops the midgies from wanting to come through.
Another great tip! Thank you
We have a 18.6 Base 023 , considered upgrading to the gen 2 but love everything it offers and it has somethings the new one doesn’t . Something great about the Keep it simple stupid . It’s set up just as we like it and has taken us to some amazing places . Enjoy your van . Suz
Agreed! Enjoy.
Mopeka Bluetooth gauges that you stick to the bottom of the gas bottles, also get them for you water tanks as well
@@scottmathew3919 thank you, I’ll look them up
@@caravansbythecampfire They bluetooth link very well to the Cerbo GX50 touch screens, not sure about other management systems
We bought a 2nd hand Base 17 foot van 6 months ago with a compost toilet. Personally I wouldn’t want a cassette toilet.
Love the van and the lifestyle it brings. Only minor complaint is the tv aerial as we can’t get any decent reception anywhere. So we just use the tv aps on our phone and attach that via a hdmi cable so the aerial is obsolete.
Really enjoy your videos and I’m sure your replacement led strip light how to video will come in handy in the future. Cheers
@@DoogsBrown thanks for your comment. Sounds like you have a great van - yes we just use Starlink straight to the TV these days or the phone when we have reception. I’m working on the roof mounted TV! Stay tuned for that one - get the thing right out of the way. Don’t know what I’ll do if I want to watch outside!! Compost toilet sounds like the go.
Yes the color of the kislux is beautiful and it is a great decision, maybe one day they will add feet and straps. It would be nice to have a bigger bag during the colder months when we have to store gloves, beanies, scarves, etc…
Might need to grab another! 😂
Hi Guys , we have a base as well and just changed to a 3 way switch for the kitchen light.
We can now have top light now by itself or underneath light or none.
hope this helps.
Cheers. great vid
@@craig-zi1is excellent - I’m on it! Thank you.
😊 only works on kitchen side as the other dual lights are wired differently. Good Vids. Cheers
@@craig-zi1is thank you
Glad you are happy with your van. We ended up buying the silverline 21 and just love it. Being in some cold areas in winter the gas water and heating were fantastic. Love the electric awning. I agree we would like to put in a composting toilet been looking at the Ogo brand. Look forward to seeing your next installment.
I dream of the day I get my Silverline - not sure that day will come - glad you have one, well done. Thanks for the comment.
I really love your taste and style always so chic. My faves would be the kislux leather backpack and the Swarovski pave diamond ring so gorg. Thank you for your recommendations.
Tracey loves your comments!
`Induction needs a pretty powerful fan. Surprised that they haven’t thought of that as a necessary
The new vans have mostly Induction and a lot of power to support that. I'm a gas fan myself but I do love lots of power for other things. Thanks for your comment.
Nice video Craig and Tracey on the BBQ very impressed with my ziggy nomad I’m a qualified chef best I’ve come across
@@gregheath6252 thanks for your comment - you’ll have to send us some cooking tips!
Hi Guys enjoy yourselves thats what it is all about. Now I was asking a manufacturer about the powerpoint issue as to why they dont add more. Now to build it to a standard apparently (according to him) power points have to be i think he said 800mm from either water source or a heat source. I did explain ive seen other manufactured vans with power points both sides and he reckons its not compliant. Not sure if we as owners add one extra what happens. I suppose insurance would look into it.
My understanding is power points need to be 150mm away from the water tap (or basin some will say) and gas flame, 400mm high for water area but not sure if this applies to gas. Others will argue that a safety circuit breaker is adequate to allow alternate placement. I just want one under the over head cabinet (like at the other end of the bench). Should be easy to organise that. Thanks for your comment. Perhaps a sparky will jump on and tell us!
A silverline would have addressed a lot of your issues raised.. we love ours and the layout.. club lounge, instant hot water, larger bathroom, section off the bedroom area, lighting, electric awning…. The list goes on…
@@craigsolaradventures haha, one day perhaps! I keep lobbying
@@craigsolaradventures yours has special powers!!
@@caravansbythecampfire haha… you remember 😄
@@craigsolaradventures of course - love your work!
Cool informative video 🇦🇺
@@BordertotheShore thank you for the comment! ☺️
I’m surprised there’s no exhaust fan 🤔we use the little light on the exhaust fan in our van by itself for night time coffees and morning light instead of the bright lights.
This was a good episode. Good to see you in your van😊
Thanks for your comments, much appreciated. The van's great and yes, no range-hood was a spin out but we have adjusted which surprised us. We do miss those range hood lights for sure. There's never any dust anywhere in the van so I guess this is part of the price to pay -Tracey gets me to put on a camp headlight in morning... hahaha. Cheers
Great review guys. It’s all really personal what you like I guess and of course you can option up a van to suit at the appropriate price😠. We’ve just sold our Jayco Journey OB (which served us well) and bought an Urban. I’ll be interested to see what ‘Van wars’ come up with in terms of an Urban. Happy to provide feedback on ours if you’re interested once we’ve given it a go run in.
@@PeterRowe-ip7ow excellent - I’ll put it on the review list! Personal choice is a big factor - even when the better option is staring us in the face we can opt for something else because it feels good. Thanks for your comments and your van feedback would be great!
You do good reviews on different vans, for anyone interested in researching one to buy.
What would be handy tho, at the beginning would be to state the Tare & Aggregate weights, so those of us with say a Prado that can only tow 3 tonne know at the outset of the video whether it’s a van that requires a 3.5 tonne tow capacity vehicle, which they don’t have so there was no point watching the video.🤷♂️
Just my suggestion to improve your reviews.
@@ianmoone2359 Good idea! We have some stuff coming up that will suit you later in Ocober - Ill include your suggestion in those. Thanks for your comment!
@@caravansbythecampfire No worries, thanks for listening & acting on it, sincerely appreciated. Trying to research the right van as a first timer is literally doing my head in.
@@ianmoone2359 Start by sticking to known brands, good after sales reputation and spend some time learning the difference between quality inclusions and ordinary ones. Personally Id only be looking at fully composite vans - twice the value imo. Good luck!
@@caravansbythecampfire
This is my dilemma in a nutshell.
We own a near new (Oct 2020) 150 Prado with 22,000 kms on it.
We can only tow a Max of 3000 kilos.
I will never buy a single axle van ever for remote touring for a host of reasons I could go into at length.
Finding a dual axle Agg Mass 3 tonne 18ft Van that’s not hybrid, pop top or fold out rear bed area etc seems basically impossible.
In essence any manufacturer who makes dual axle vans builds them to 3500kilos to be towed by either 300 series cruiser or Yank Tanks.
To flog the Prado and buy a 300 series would cost at least an extra $50k on top of the value of the Prado, then to buy the 3.5 tonne van at say 18 to 20 foot, another $150k
I really don’t want to spend $200k minimum to get into a tandem axle van for just the missus and I to occasionally go camping.
I could manage say max $80k to $100k to find the right van at say 18ft 6 inch maybe that’s 3 tonne Aggregate Mass to legally tow behind the Prado we already own.
Not really looking to throw $250k at “solving the problem” that no manufacturers seem to make dual axle vans suited to towing behind Prado pretend Land Cruiser. 🙄👎😡
Caravans are like owning a race car or a boat. After every time you take it out, there will be something to fix or something to upgrade.
BTW, east west beds sux
Pretty spot-on there! Agree with EW beds. Thanks for your comments, much appreciated.
Excellent video guys in joy all your content nil ballshit thankyou
Keeping it real is a key factor. Thanks for your comments, much appreciated.
Compost toilets are great for weekend use. I haven’t emptied mine in eight months after five camping trips of about 5 day stints. Chemical toilets are outdated these days
Well that's good news. So it's actually great with a couple of months between trips - if so it's the only way to go I reckon. Thanks for your comments, much appreciated.
have you guys got any experience / opinions on Ezytrail vans?
@@ukmitch86 we owned a Parkes 13 for 2 years. Excellent then but I’ve seen they have improved a lot since then. Gauges and little electrical things I replaced with quality stuff. Solid. I’ve heard a few noises about warranty but again that was some time ago. Mine I felt was heavy on the car with Tare 2250 and upgrade to ATM 2900. Look at equiv Snowy River and others for price also. We enjoyed ours and had good resale value. Got what we paid for it!
Hi just wondering where you got your tie down ratchet straps from. Thank Darren
@@darrenfox9977 those particular ones are the Grunt Brand from Bunnings - Tie Down Pulley Rope.
The Dometic Doors are available in Black sir
Excellent to here - never seen any. I'll investigate or you can share a link to the action. Cheers.
Hi guys enjoyed your reviews on vans
But then you bought one of the dearest on the market and still have issues ?
@@jeffsurgey8766 it appears that all vans have the same basic issues with wear and tear doesn’t it. Glad to see Zone has basically implemented all the things I’d like to see done better - I’m happy with the second hand van we purchased - not sure I’m all in on finding another 50K to update it! Tracey would however 😂😂😂 - she would trade me in as well as the van!
Hey Craig and Tracey. Thanks for the walk around.
Have you ever come across any payload issues on the vans you've traveled with.
We found out today that our tare weight is 3177kg, the compliance plate says tare 2980kg and the caravan was advertised from the dealer at 2900kg tare weight. It's a brand new 2024 model.
It's a typical thing by all reports - not good - depends what you have in it when you weigh it - water etc. New ones should be correct. They must have added several items to put that much weight on. It would be nice to believe what's on the compliance plate wouldn't it. We don't weigh the vans reviewed but you do get a good feeling after a while.Thanks for your comments, much appreciated.
Wow , I hope it's working out OK for you now ,you obviously take interest in your weight and safety.
Cheers
@@davidmann6902 Thanks for your comments! Starting to take shape - just heading out on another adventure for a couple of weeks!
Hi, on our Zone if I hold down the button that turns on the strip lights it does dim to a lower level and it seems to remember that setting the next time you turn it on.
Well that sounds great, we just have a switch. Thanks for commenting.
You have to remember that the BASE caravan was designed at a price point it didn’t even come with aircon my 20.6 started at $89,000 buy the time I finished ticking all the boxes it was $130,000 the BASE caravan was made to get people into Zone
Yes, it is great and certainly got the sales ticking over. They probably need another to do that as they are 159k now - I notice all the things a normal person would add to the build are now included.
Hi, just wondering if you have any trouble with the sizzler deluxe bbq when you light it. Mine keeps going out 3 or 4 times before staying alight. Really like the bbq , but frustrating. Cheers
I have had a problem at times with 1 burner - appears to take multiple goes to keep alight. Some days it's fine and others a problem. Adjust the thermocoupler to touch the flame - the gas pressure needs to be 2.75 & 3.0 mpa - some vans don't have this pressure so you might need to check the regulator at the bottles. Most likely the proximity of the thermocoupler.
Cheers, will check it out. 👍
When are you hitting the road full time
If we could we'd be travelling already. A fair few commitments to complete in normal life - if I had to guess it would be 12-18 months - a 4 week trip is coming up in December so we'll see what trouble we can get up to then. Thanks for your comments, much appreciated. Hope you are great!
Bm pro gas bottle gauges
@@Rosco72 thankyou, I’ll look that up.
Zones are known for cracked chassis
@@richardtimms6645 there have been a couple I’ve seen over the time, how and why I don’t know. Some earlier year models had a recall to be fix a problem caused when fitting the suspension - looking at ours you’d have to have it seriously overloaded to create a situation like that. Looks bullet proof to the naked eye.
They don't seem to be the lightest caravan on the market - as suggested on the factory website. With tare around 2.5t in basic trim they would have to be substantially constructed.
@@17Viking all I know is ours is just under 2.5 - payload in a ton. Haven’t seen many other 3.5t vans with those numbers. Typically they are all tare weight 2.6-2.9T. I’ll check out the website again re lightest van. Their web site lets you build the van and it show price and weight as you add things. Recently they’ve included more under the standard banner which would show a higher rate to start with - very transparent site.
🤪
Indeed!