Yesterday we spent a long and exhausting but pleasurable day at the Brisbane Caravan Camping and Touring Supershow. This was the first that we have been to for several years. It had previously been a regular event for us, even going to Interstate ones where the opportunity arose.
And weren't we blown away by the competition & changes in the market.
We didn't go along to buy but rather just to have a stickybeak. And didn't we get an eyeful.
Some observations
An unbelievable number of BRANDS, especially vans/poptops on the market .
79 Caravan & Pop Top BRANDS (I counted them in the official Show Guide).
44 Camper Trailer brands (many by the manufacturers in (1) above)
Only 4 5th Wheelers
17 Motor Home brands
Given our (non buyer) situation & time constraints we only had a quick, superficial look at a sample of full vans & MHs.
What caught our eye was the 'Eye Candy/ Gin Palace' presentation of almost all and especially those that were of fibre glass sandwich construction; a proliferation of LEDs in, under & over cupboards & wherever else they could fit them. Some great but many just for show. Also the perhaps extreme use of mirrors in many to give the feeling of greater space. You could feel the interior designers at work. Not that that's such a bad thing.
Then there was the seemingly essential need for a shower toilet option in everything. A couple were so badly designed that you would need to be a midget or contortionist to use them. I tried several. Looked nice though & ticked the Shower Toilet box; but useless.
Oh yes the proliferation of washing machines .. another box ticked off. Don't know how we existed for 20 years without one.
BYW .. I have a list of extra LEDs to be installed in our van and a washer on order & we wouldn't have kept vanning all these years without our en suite. SWMBO couldn't live without one.
They mostly looked very good but the weight! The exception (for weight) were those of Euro extraction like one of our old favourites - Bailey. Light & inviting, not over the top interiors especially in that they have island beds available & the typical great lounge across one end. Appeals to us. They claim to be 'Australianised' but are still light weight. Liked the Jurgens too.
Lots of vans seem to offer the cafe style eating area with fantastic trifold table layouts. Appeals to us but was not an option in our old 21'6 Westport.
Not too many with recliners though which was disappointing & surprising. Even a few Motor Homes passenger seats didn't swivel to perform this function.
There seemed to be a greater number than usual aimed at the younger families with 2 & sometimes 3 bunk beds as well as the parents double. Several Makers had one of these set ups on display. Don't know how they would go for weight when loaded up.
As usual Bushtracker displayed the ultimate off roader, but with an apparent disregard for price. One was a monster but unsure what I'd pull it with off road & with full tanks. Kimberlies looked good too if you had the $s. Beautiful fit for purpose vans. Then there were the Soft Roaders with their chequer plate & red painted nudge bars along the sides.
As a long term Jayco fan I was very disappointed with their product quality. Sure they looked as good at their price point competitors but I was hugely put off by a few issues. I noticed that inside the great looking cupboards were bundles of undisguised cables. Usually a bundle about 3-4cm thick, just tied together with cable ties. No attempt to make them less unattractive. Surely some cover strip or false base or wall panel would have done the job. It seemed to be their common practice. Similarly I was surprised to see that they used small pieces of ½ quad stained timber to reinforce butt joints of walls/partitions, again hidden inside cupboards. Not a good look. I gave feedback to sales persons & will be discussing my impressions with Jayco.
As you can see from my comments we just had a superficial look & didn't get into the most important technical aspects. I didn't look under any vans so can't comment on the state of craftsmanship there too old to be doing that.
Talking about Salesmen, of course I found one grub (obviously no sales training) who wanted to denigrate the competition's product rather than pointing out his vans' good points, so I quickly gave him the flick. Didn't bother with my usual lecture on sales techniques. But I saw many many people sitting down with salesmen signing documents & lots of vans with (real?) SOLD signs on them, so business seems to be good.
All I can say is that I am certainly glad that we are not in the market for a new Van. The choice is amazing and confusing, not to mention the price. Our van cost about $35k new & the Tug with <50k Km about $30k. Would need more than twice that nowadays.
But we were pretty impressed with medium sized Motor Homes with a single slide out. They compared favourably both in fit out and price & we would perhaps go that way if just starting out .. with a small Jimmy or whatever hooked up behind.
ps. Almost forgot to give Thetford a wrap. As usual they had a great 'Technician' on hand to give advice. I related my problem with water sometimes splashing out of the bowl when I flush. Yep, too much pressure, don't have that problem in Europe. Gave me a (free) plastic tube to insert in the water supply line & showed me how to install it. Thetford certainly continue to provide excellent product support. Yes, I gave him feedback too.
Thanks GC.
We always visit the Brissy show, but this year we are down at Narrabi in NSW.
Thanks for the excellent info.
Jay&Dee
However we probably have more extras than the new vans albeit our Coromol is a 2008 model.
Does the job we want. Cost $$$$$$$$$$$$$$ to upgrade than $$$$$$$$$$$ to add the accessories we want.
Jay&Dee
When we ordered our van it was during last years Maitland caravan show so we saved heaps off the price as well as gettting plenty of extras thrown in such as a full annexe. We had already decided what we were going to buy but knowing that the show was coming up we waited to see what sort of deal we could get - glad we did because all up we probably saved ourselves $10K. Prior to that we had signed up for a Sunliner motorhome with a slide out but for the $190K that they wanted we believed that we could probably set ourselves up with a pretty good rig for half that cost so we pulled out of the deal.
Caravan Shows are great when you're shopping around for a new rig or some extra gear but once you're set up to your requirements why bother?
There's always the temptation to buy the latest & greatest gizmo that will be superseded by another ''better'' gizmo next year. Bill's got one so I've gotta' have one.
With a plethora of faults in every ''bodgie built'' shiny new van on show just think of all the pain & heartache it's gonna' cause you after forking out your hard earned cash.
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Cheers Keith & Judy
Don't take life too seriously, it never ends well.
Trip Reports posted on feathersandphotos.com.au Go to Forums then Trip Reports.
Caravan Shows are great when you're shopping around for a new rig or some extra gear but once you're set up to your requirements why bother?
There's always the temptation to buy the latest & greatest gizmo that will be superseded by another ''better'' gizmo next year. Bill's got one so I've gotta' have one.
With a plethora of faults in every ''bodgie built'' shiny new van on show just think of all the pain & heartache it's gonna' cause you after forking out your hard earned cash.
Yep .. I agree. This is why we have avoided going to shows in the last several years. We treated this as a day out only.
Absolutely no intention to buy anything ... caravan or gizmo. We succeeded.
All we brought home were a few bags of brochures that we used to replace the old ones that we have collected.
Re the quality of vans ... I sometimes think about how I could personally contribute a great deal to improving the quality of Aust. built Vans. Might be a $ in it. I have a long background at a senior level in Quality Control, Process Improvement & Operations Management et.al. But then I nod off back to sleep. I'm over it all at age 76! Much easier to sit about pontificating with a good red in hand saying things starting with ... 'They should have ....' or 'If I was doing it ....' & 'In my day ..... '
Would have liked to attend see what New is out there plus get ideas , but we have been both flat out Babysitting which may have saved our Bikkies ($$$s)..:)
Dont like salespeople who rubish other Brands either !!, Last year we walked into a Jayco dealership over the border for a squizz and salesperson there asked what we had ??, soon as we told him , well didnt the rubishing start to fly far n wide !!..
Did the next best thing and just walked out on him and the dealership...
Tis not needed in todays world even if you beleive another brand isnt where it should be . Can give advice in a polite manner but not rubbish.
Its of the old school mentality of selling vehicles and was part of their training back then..
Weight of these vans (especially all these new makes) is very concerning and people need to be aware that the authorities are increasingly conducting mobile spot checks. We came through Bowen, QLD last week and the police were set up on both sides of the road. I did not get pulled over but the 2 vans behind me did. Would not worry me anyway as whilst we were in Rockhampton we checked everything on the public weigh bridge. Everything ok in all aspects.
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Cheers
Col
(Picture of my beloved Molly (2003 - 2016) who loved the travels as much as I do. RIP old girl. Gone but never forgotten).
Thank you for the wrap up, we attended the last Gold Coast Show and was very disappointed as we were on the hunt for a European Van and there were very little represented.
We found the Sales people to vary from the knowledgeable to the disinterested and even one we came across was a chef, who is my husbands customer, that was asked by a mate to 'work' on his site.
We have just bought our van (2nd hand) so decided not to go to the Brisbane show.
