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Hi everybody

Ive picked up my new van a Tribute 665, its the same layout as the Adria twin and were calling him Mr X because of his number plate, we've had 3 nights in him up to now and he's brillient, we downsized from a Lunar Champ H591 so took a bit of organising but we still managed to fit everything in.  Looking forward to going to Brothers water on the 14th june we go over the Kirkstone pass so it'll be great to see if its easier with a narrower van.

Im really excited!!

This is my first attempt at photos, but I think they will be a bit small, but here goes

We looked around one of these ,for the first time in the flesh ,this week at Don Amotts. It looks a real alternative to our 2004 Tribute. We liked the forward facing dinette seats and belts, the huge storage area potential in the rear for transporting fridges, furniture and the like when needed. It would be useful feedback, if you could post and update once you have used it more to let everyone if the bed is as comfy as it looks!  Enjoy! I bet you will not be disappointed!

Thanks Dinkum,

We had a memory foam topper on the bed in our Lunar so transfered it over, there seems to be more support on this bed as the slats are the curved ones, our other mattresses seemed to dip a bit, so this is very comfy but wont be able to tell you what its like without the topper, I do have a bad back so thats why we got topper.

We've actually found the under bed storage a lot bigger on Mr X than on our Lunar even though it had a fixed bed, and the waste tank is a lot better as well as it drains from the bottom, so it emptys everything out, and has a really good pull handle.

It's also a lot more like camping as we get a great view from the side door and feel closer to nature, we were tenters before and I did miss that with our coachbuilt van.

I'll let you know how we get on.

we have also  moved down from a lunar moonstar 570 to a swift mondial panal van.

we thought we would never get every thing in it .but was surprised at the storage space .its a pleasure to drive ,can park it anywhere and no rattles like a coach built.

had the van a month now .been away for week end to try it out .now ready to go for a few weeks now.will be going to all the places that we could not go before in a coach built .

WE also moved down from an Auto-Sleepers coachbuilt, and we have more room in our Trigano 650 than we did with coachbuilt.

John.

have a look at the swift as well http://www.swiftleisure.co.uk/motorhomes/mondial

its a  cracking good van with large shower-room .i am 6.2 and not small have no problem using it .

Fiona..

They're testing a Tribute 650 against the Devon Aztec in Nov MMM(..which is out now  )..

Not the models you're after I know  but it may contain some points of interest,as to build quality etc...

Hi Don

We have had our van 5 months now and are really enjoying it, we did look at the Adria twin before we bought the tribute, we saw the tribute first but didn't want to rush into anything so went to look at a twin on the same day, it was after looking at the twin that really made our mind up, we have the sport 665 and it was so much more appealing  it looked more comfy and a lot nicer finish to it, we went home and phoned up straight away and bought the 665.  I have read in a mag recently that the twin is having a face lift so that might bring it up to the same level.

There are quiet a lot of vans now with this layout and some of the others are suppose to be better put together and finished than the tribute but we have found ours really great, and the price was really good we got ours for £31,500 some of the other vans are a lot more than this.

We did have an over in our other van, and we tended to use it in the winter as we use our Cobb in the summer, so Iv'e asked my kids to get me a double skillet for Christmas as lots of people on here swear by them and you can cook everything you would normally cook in an oven, so i'll have to let you know how I get on with it.

The fridge isn't big, but if you pack it carefully you can actually get quiet a bit in there, but we like to have cold beer and found it not really big enough for food and drink, so now we have our food in the fridge and just a couple of beers and the rest of the drinks go in our cool box, the small freezer holds 4 small ice packs so we alternate them with the cool box and that worked really well.

We took one of the doors of the underbed bit so we could store the cool box and its really handy to put my arm round the other door to get to thing at this end of the understorage like my slow cooker, wine boxes, table lamp, Cobb.

The shower room is an all in one, it has a deep tray with one plug hole and it drains really quickly, it has a shower curtain that has popers to hold it under the cupboards so its away from you and covers the toilet and the sliding door, and the hand basin moves along a rail, I usually put my shampoo and stuff in this, I find theres enough room to have a shower and the pressure is good, I put a curtain up behind the bench seat that can be drawn accross to the kitchen when I have a shower so I can step out into passage way to fully dry myself and get dressed, I just give the shower walls and tray a wipe down afterwards which keeps on top of the cleaning but the only down side is waiting for the curtain to dry off afterwards, opening the window helps of course.

We are not sure about the winterisation yet but its suppose to have 27mm insulation, we have had a heater fitted to the fresh water tank as its underslung and I would really like to insulate it as well, even though my dealer said it wouldn't need it but we like to go away in all weathers including skiing im scotland so we'll have to see, the waste tank is underslung as well but we just drain that into a bucket in winter with our other van so will do the same with the 665, we've found the diesel heating good its nice to be able to have it on while you drive, though the back of the van isn't as warm as where you sit in the cab seats.

There is a website just about Tributes, see link below, it should have any information you want on them.

 http://www.tribby.co.uk/forum/index.php?sid=ca97b5fe60901cd218b916de0303555f

We really like our 665 and wouldn't go back to a coachbuilt van as it really suits the way we camp, we did a 2500 mile trip in europe in september and it was brillient, we couldnt fault the van, yes its smaller inside but its got a really comfy bed, the cab seats make great arm chairs and if you slide them forward we can both get our feet up on the bench seat, the tables always ready to use but dosn't get in the way, we've actually found our stuff fits in this van better than our coachbuilt as we always had to travel with something in the shower in our old van but in MrX they only time weve had to store something in there was on our way back from europe and it was full of beer.

If you have any more questions, ask away I love talking about my van

p.s. theres a lot more photos of my van on the tribby site that will give you a better idea of the inside.

Hi Don

The magazine MMM is doing a review next month on the 665 thought you might be interested