Coming from a 'conventional' camper.

[earthman]

We've come from just about everything, tiny Romahomes, a dozen or more VW's, American ('Murican) RV and every shade of panelvan and coachbuilt in between.

First off, I'll divide campervan/motorhomers into two distinct camps -

The hardcore Brit weekender who needs to replicate their permanent residence. Usually a tidy bungalow on a street of similar. Daily mail every day etc. They needs lots of space to live indoors as they never leave the cold and rainy UK- only poking their noses outside after Coronation Street to make sure everyone else is nicely in line.

The second bunch travel further afield - often to warm places full Johnny Foreigner and funny food. This lot are rather more adventurous and spend more time outdoors (being bitten by mosquitoes) and thus need less inside space but like something to negotiate narrow roads and villages and don't mind a bit of compromise.

In a slightly more serious line - our experience has show that the smaller camper that has just enough of what you need and you can enjoy is usually the best choice.
However - an hour at a big motorhome dealer will show you that most folks like big stuff with everything 'Just like home'

I've never fancied getting anything bigger than a panel van conversion, apart from the cost and fuel consumption, they are just too big for the sort of roads/places we go,....I've seen bumpers etc ripped off whilst some owners have tried to get their big rigs on certain tucked away campsites in France for example.

[hondababe55]

Hi. i've had a couple of motorhomes before buying the demountable. Due to where I live I could only have a van up to a certain length so that was a consideration too. I bought the demountable for ease of use, being able to drop camper and drive off in pick-up. With so many height restricted car parks it is so much easier to get near the action so to speak. Access to toilet or elsewhere when I'm at the sink/cooker is not restricted in any way. I have a double overcab bed which is permanently made up and the long side seat is also a single bed but the seating is L-shaped so I do not have to step on the person below when I get down, which was my biggest bug bear in my last motorhome.

[earthman]

Hi. i've had a couple of motorhomes before buying the demountable. Due to where I live I could only have a van up to a certain length so that was a consideration too. I bought the demountable for ease of use, being able to drop camper and drive off in pick-up. With so many height restricted car parks it is so much easier to get near the action so to speak. Access to toilet or elsewhere when I'm at the sink/cooker is not restricted in any way. I have a double overcab bed which is permanently made up and the long side seat is also a single bed but the seating is L-shaped so I do not have to step on the person below when I get down, which was my biggest bug bear in my last motorhome.

Ah, you have an 850DL I see? There's very little info on northstarcampers.co.uk on this model, not even a picture!

Can I ask, could you post a few pictures of yours at some point? And I'd really like to know how long & wide that sofa section is, my wife is wondering if she could use it as a bed, as it is, without having to move other items/cushions to turn it into a proper bed as so to speak.

[hondababe55]

Hi. I have emailed you.








The side sofa is perfectly usable as a single bed and with a bit of DIY could be converted to a small double using the existing cushions. I have lots of plans for the van but little time lol. The only thing I miss is not having an oven and as much as I've tried there is nowhere to put one due to layout in cupboards below although I do have a complete remodel solution in mind but no money to do it lol.

[sabconsulting]

That's funny, I would have said that a conventional motorhome isn't a 'turn key' situation, well not when you have to drive it off a campsite every other day at least, to buy supplies or visit another town/attraction for example,....constantly having to put away the kettle, toaster etc and swiveling seats can be a pain. I know what you are getting at though, the loading/unloading the camper unit can be a royal pain I guess, we would aim to do it straight away when we arrive at a campsite and reload at the end of the holiday.

Great pictures by the way, I do like those B class American motorhomes, I watch a few people on YouTube who live full time in them.

What I meant by "turnkey" was that with a class A, B or C the whole vehicle is designed to be a camper and you are buying 1 thing - a dedicated camper ready to go. With a demountable you are buying 2 things - a pickup truck and a separate camper. So some effort is involved in matching the two, and remember the pickup truck was not actually designed to be a motorhome. So it just takes a bit more effort making sure you get the right combination and correct accessories installed. Having spent a number of years on the US truck camper forum there were a surprising number of people who bought an unsuitable pickup truck then installed a non-matching camper and as a result went through a whole series of expensive modifications before eventually upgrading to a heavier duty truck. The situation is simpler over here because but there are still things to consider such as the following - there are more things to consider if buying 2nd hand too:

Getting uprated tyres - this may not be necessary, but if carrying a lot of weight on the rear axle the average passenger car tyres a pickup truck comes with are probably not the safest bet - LT rated tyres are a good upgrade (I run BF Goodrich AT-KOs - load range D LT tyres).

Suspension - does it need to be beefed up at the rear, e.g. by fitting air bags? However airbags are not a cure-all. A badly overloaded truck or one with camper whose centre of gravity is way behind the rear axle, may be made to look OK by pumping airbags up to a high pressure, but that isn't reducing the rear axle weight or the bending force on the chassis.

Cab clearance - modern trucks tend to have higher cabs and the camper may need to be raised to clear it. Especially true if mounting on a Land Rover.

Centre of gravity and load bed length / camper length - this is easy to get wrong. One way around and you end up with a gap between the back of the truck cab and the front of the camper. More commonly people buy a double-cab truck and fit too long a camper so a lot of the weight is behind the rear axle. Pump the air bags up to make it level and the weight of the camper hanging off one end of the chassis and the engine, transmission and cab at the other put a lot of stress on the chassis roughly where the load bed meets the cab. There are pictures floating around of truck with bent or snapped chassis at that point (often D40 Navaras). So it is very necessary to look critically at the potential combination of truck and camper to ensure you won't be compromising the vehicle's strength (and its handing) by having the camper's centre of gravity too far behind the rear axle.

Tie-downs - you need some way of securing the camper to the truck. This is also affected by what you intend to use the camper for. Pickup truck chassis are designed to flex; demountable campers are often not designed to flex. Drive in twisting terrain causing a lot of chassis flex (which will be exaggerated if you have reinforced the rear suspension reducing its compliance) could cause damage to camper or tiedowns. I know one guy tore a tie-down out of his camper on an offroad coarse in Arizona. Those who do a lot of 4x4 trails in the US have not only spring-loaded tie-downs, but tend to reduce their tension when offroad so that a corner of the camper can lift in the load bed rather than cause damage. I.e. attempting to replicate the sophisticated three-point linkages in expensive overland campers on Unimogs etc.

Handling - Unlike a B-class, you have a fairly heavy box mounted high up and this does affect handling. You can't (or rather shouldn't) hurl it around corners like a van. This is also true offroad - obstacles need to be tackled slowly because of the inverse-pendulum of the camper on the back. Not a problem, but something to be considered.

Charging - often the 12v trailer socket from the truck has fairly small gauge wire and quite a long run resulting in a voltage drop and reduced charging. This is something else to consider, especially if running power-hungry devices like compressor fridges.

So all these things need careful consideration and a build-up of knowledge before purchase, where-as with a B-class RV you can probably just walk in with your credit card and expect to get something that works with minimal brain power expenditure.

Re the loading and unloading at campsite - experiment with it. We never unload at campsite and find that with some planning leaving the camper on when we visit locations is not a huge problem.

Steve.

[earthman]

Hi. I have emailed you.








The side sofa is perfectly usable as a single bed and with a bit of DIY could be converted to a small double using the existing cushions. I have lots of plans for the van but little time lol. The only thing I miss is not having an oven and as much as I've tried there is nowhere to put one due to layout in cupboards below although I do have a complete remodel solution in mind but no money to do it lol.

Many thanks for all those pictures, that sofa sure does look long enough, my wife is about 5ft 5 so she should fit on that no problem. I don't suppose you have a picture of it mounted on the truck? I'd like to see how that actually looks.

[earthman]

That's funny, I would have said that a conventional motorhome isn't a 'turn key' situation, well not when you have to drive it off a campsite every other day at least, to buy supplies or visit another town/attraction for example,....constantly having to put away the kettle, toaster etc and swiveling seats can be a pain. I know what you are getting at though, the loading/unloading the camper unit can be a royal pain I guess, we would aim to do it straight away when we arrive at a campsite and reload at the end of the holiday.

Great pictures by the way, I do like those B class American motorhomes, I watch a few people on YouTube who live full time in them.

What I meant by "turnkey" was that with a class A, B or C the whole vehicle is designed to be a camper and you are buying 1 thing - a dedicated camper ready to go. With a demountable you are buying 2 things - a pickup truck and a separate camper. So some effort is involved in matching the two, and remember the pickup truck was not actually designed to be a motorhome. So it just takes a bit more effort making sure you get the right combination and correct accessories installed. Having spent a number of years on the US truck camper forum there were a surprising number of people who bought an unsuitable pickup truck then installed a non-matching camper and as a result went through a whole series of expensive modifications before eventually upgrading to a heavier duty truck. The situation is simpler over here because but there are still things to consider such as the following - there are more things to consider if buying 2nd hand too:

Getting uprated tyres - this may not be necessary, but if carrying a lot of weight on the rear axle the average passenger car tyres a pickup truck comes with are probably not the safest bet - LT rated tyres are a good upgrade (I run BF Goodrich AT-KOs - load range D LT tyres).

Suspension - does it need to be beefed up at the rear, e.g. by fitting air bags? However airbags are not a cure-all. A badly overloaded truck or one with camper whose centre of gravity is way behind the rear axle, may be made to look OK by pumping airbags up to a high pressure, but that isn't reducing the rear axle weight or the bending force on the chassis.

Cab clearance - modern trucks tend to have higher cabs and the camper may need to be raised to clear it. Especially true if mounting on a Land Rover.

Centre of gravity and load bed length / camper length - this is easy to get wrong. One way around and you end up with a gap between the back of the truck cab and the front of the camper. More commonly people buy a double-cab truck and fit too long a camper so a lot of the weight is behind the rear axle. Pump the air bags up to make it level and the weight of the camper hanging off one end of the chassis and the engine, transmission and cab at the other put a lot of stress on the chassis roughly where the load bed meets the cab. There are pictures floating around of truck with bent or snapped chassis at that point (often D40 Navaras). So it is very necessary to look critically at the potential combination of truck and camper to ensure you won't be compromising the vehicle's strength (and its handing) by having the camper's centre of gravity too far behind the rear axle.

Tie-downs - you need some way of securing the camper to the truck. This is also affected by what you intend to use the camper for. Pickup truck chassis are designed to flex; demountable campers are often not designed to flex. Drive in twisting terrain causing a lot of chassis flex (which will be exaggerated if you have reinforced the rear suspension reducing its compliance) could cause damage to camper or tiedowns. I know one guy tore a tie-down out of his camper on an offroad coarse in Arizona. Those who do a lot of 4x4 trails in the US have not only spring-loaded tie-downs, but tend to reduce their tension when offroad so that a corner of the camper can lift in the load bed rather than cause damage. I.e. attempting to replicate the sophisticated three-point linkages in expensive overland campers on Unimogs etc.

Handling - Unlike a B-class, you have a fairly heavy box mounted high up and this does affect handling. You can't (or rather shouldn't) hurl it around corners like a van. This is also true offroad - obstacles need to be tackled slowly because of the inverse-pendulum of the camper on the back. Not a problem, but something to be considered.

Charging - often the 12v trailer socket from the truck has fairly small gauge wire and quite a long run resulting in a voltage drop and reduced charging. This is something else to consider, especially if running power-hungry devices like compressor fridges.

So all these things need careful consideration and a build-up of knowledge before purchase, where-as with a B-class RV you can probably just walk in with your credit card and expect to get something that works with minimal brain power expenditure.

Re the loading and unloading at campsite - experiment with it. We never unload at campsite and find that with some planning leaving the camper on when we visit locations is not a huge problem.

Steve.

Many thanks for all that, you have raised lots of important questions, I were aware of a few of them already, there's certainly a lot to consider before you buy a particular truck or a camper unit isn't there,......thankfully I have a good few months to weigh up all the options and decide which truck & camper to start looking at.