How to find out about CT brands and models

[Ern_Reeders]

I posted these remarks on another forum in reply to a query about pitfalls in buying and will paste them here in case they are of use to readers.

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There's a heap of info on the interweb.

There are two dedicated forums and many 4WD forums have sections. I mentioned myswag.org and campertrailers.org The second has a guide to buying new and 2nd hand. That's written by Rob Sanderson who's knowledgeable, has written for mags and who runs the Yahoo group associated with that website. (Note again that myswag won't publish posts about GIC.)

There's a couple of mags on the market, one of which does simple reviews that are also posted on their website: http://www.campertraileraustralia.com.au/

There's productreview.com.au that posts user reviews of particular models.

In most capitals and many big regional centres there's one or two shows each year with manufacturers showing their wares.

There's also people you can meet; eg. in a caravan park or bush camp most are more than happy to talk about their rig; the campertrailers.org group holds annual meets and regional weekends.

If foreign v local manufacture is important then see who's in the local club and enjoy the horror stories at http://www.australianmanufacturedcamper ... /about-us/ For a report of tests on imported canvas see the journal linked to at http://www.cubcampers.com.au/

Finally many makes can be rented so you can get a good idea of how they perform. I highly recommend this as there are different layouts and specification levels and as with camping on a bushwalk folk have varying preferences for effort, cost and comfort trade-offs. One simple but crucial thing is how much effort is needed for setup. You might be able to do the huffing and puffing but if your travelling companion has to step in, can they?

The quality of the information you can source varies a lot.

Mag reviews are written in a kind of code that you have to learn; they rely on makers' advertising dollars.

productreview is useful where there are a number of 'reviews' of a brand or model but in many cases there are none or one.

Forum comments as always give you some data which is however limited by the fact that most posters have owned one, or sometimes two, models and so they can't talk comparatively. Their judgments are necessarily dependent on their experience and expectations but they rarely make these explicit. Eg. take a Jayco pop-top out bush and you can expect to have to do some repairs on your return according to forum posts. One user knows this, does them and doesn't get onto a forum posting a complaint. Another .... etc. Then there's the hearsay kind of comment 'My brother has X and he found .... '. (Actually my brother did have a Chinese unit and found it OK!).

The business is bedeviled by a plethora of small manufacturers. Any guy with a welder and a shed kind of thing. You may have real trouble finding out anything about the record of his products. On the other hand, a small guy like Emu that [was] mentioned ticks some boxes for me: he's been in the game for a while, he was entirely local but is moving to Chinese components for local assembly so he may well be able to judge and get adequate quality, and at least one person has posted about the quality of his advice. He'd be the kind of business that made my shortlist, and if he was local I'd be down there for a good chat.

IMO the information needed for a good decision includes that on
* space and layout
* setup effort
* weight
* fruit salad
* functioning & durability of components in relation to intended use
* cost and backup obviously.

[robcaz]

Well done Ern. It is a total minefield or should that be mindfield, for those buying their first camper trailer. There definitely needs to be some sort of standard authority to keep the industry in check so people know what they are buying will do the job the salesman says it does. Not everyone knows what makes a good horse

[Cage]

Having just been through the exercise I concur wholeheartedly with Ern's comments.

I was initially looking at mounting a roof-top tent on my Triton but after doing the forums I found out that if you wanted to go shopping, or do a day trip, you had to pack everything up, and that didn't suit me, so I started looking at camper trailers.

I went web surfing to get an idea of what was available and was knocked over by the plethora of choices.

Not living in a capital city limited my opportunities to physically inspect very many offerings, however a local sporting goods retailer had a well advertised model on display. It looked pretty good to my inexperienced eye and seemed to offer what I required. It was touted as being 'Made in Australia' but subsequent investigation revealed that it was only assembled here after being imported in a knocked down state from China.

Being retired gives me the time to do my homework before I hit the 'Buy' button, and when I researched this particular offering I was appalled by the number of unhappy customers. The main area of discontent was the 'Rip-Stop' canvas which just didn't live up to it's hype.

This particular 'off-road camper' also didn't seem to like anything but bitumen roads, and any distance on corrugated roads resulted in suspension failure, spring hangers breaking, welds parting, water tanks dropping off and other sundry annoying failures that should not happen to a properly engineered trailer.

I won't mention the brand name, but the above comments will pretty much apply to any 'Assembled in Australia' offerings.

During the course of my research it became apparent that all steel is not the same, and that some of the steel coming out of the sub-continent is, to say the least, a tad on the fragile side, and welding does not in any way enhance it's tensile properties.

Fortunately, for me, around this time the Central Coast was hosting a Caravan and Camper Trailer Expo. Wow, what an eye-opener ! It gave me the chance to actually eyeball and crawl over and under a lot of different models. Some of what I saw was, even to my inexperienced eye, downright bloody dangerous. One offering that comes to mind was being offered as an 'Extreme Off-Road Camper', a box trailer bolted to a 50mm x 50mm frame with the draw-bar also bolted to the front of the said frame. Now I'm no engineer, but looking at it I had serious doubts of it even lasting on moderately potholed bitumen.

I walked away from the show with the firm conviction that if I wanted something that would give me the service that I wanted, and indeed what was promised, I would have to buy something that was actually engineered in Australia to handle Australian conditions, and built with materials that would actually stand up to those conditions.

One guy who bought a Chinese offering admitted that you get what you pay for but said that if you are half handy with a welder etc, you can keep them going. Hmmm!!!

Some of the locally manufactured campers at the show were, to put it mildly, gob-smacking, but unfortunately for this OAP, way, way beyond my budget.

It came down to a choice between the three that I was able to physically inspect, the Customline Tracker, the Johnno's All Rounder and the Camel Beachcomber. They were comparable with Duragal chassis, Alko bits and Australian Made Wax Converters Dynaproof canvas.

I went with the Camel Beachcomber, firstly because I was offered a deal I couldn't refuse on a unit that had been used as a display model at a show, and secondly because I was impressed with the enthusiasm that Steve, the GM, had for his product, and his desire to 'do it right'. No, it's not 'perfect', but I think it's going to do this old dude very well, thank you.

When I finish my wiring I'm off for a shake-down trip and will post my first impressions. I've done a couple of set-ups in the yard and was happy with the ease of erection, although I hope I get better at packing-up.

Cheers

Cage