Message Forums

hi all,

i have just sold my motorhome and am going back to a caravan,i'm looking at twin axle 6 berth vans but cant decide on what make or model to go with.

i am tempted with the bailey senator Carolina or the bailey ranger 620,or maybe an avondale 650/640 or the elldis range, i could go on forever..! any good or bad advice on any 6 berth van would be grateful, i am looking at buying used up to £11,000. thanks Geoff

Very much a case of horses for courses this one......

we did some research before buying our present van, notes as follows:

Twin axle -dream to tow but more difficult to reverse, motor mover definitely useful.

End bunks - look good on paper, but would you disturb sleepers going in and out of van? draughty maybe?

Triple bunks - heard lots of good things but restricted headroom and perhaps draughty  for the bottom occupantt.

Fixed bed - great for mum and dad with good storage under bed, but sacrifice the space for a shower/toilet combination - depends how much you're going to use the shower - (quite a bit in our case when we are rallying) Also have the fag of setting up the dinette bunks every evening. Easy to set up the front bunks but would you need to move the children onto the double if you are entertaining?

Fixed side bunks - rare layout (only sprite and coachman do them to my knowledge)gives us separate toilet and shower plus double wardrobe for storage. Bottom bunk folds away for storing bikes whilst on the move.Still need to convert the dinette. (we have three kids so this is easy to do) fixed bunks useful for kids to crash out during the day.

As you can see we are somewhat biased towards fixed side bunks - but the best suggesting is to find out what sort of caravanning you do i.e are you on sites all the time, or rallying etc. Then take the whole tribe to the dealers for a viewing.The kids will soon tell you their verdict!

hope this helps.

thanks all, we seem to be swinging towards the bailey ranger 620/6 although this layout was totally not what we wanted ,we viewed one today a 7 mth old 2008 model with motor mover ,awning ,alloys etc just under 11k,is this a good deal? seems it to us. we loved the interior and lighting ,kitchen and general sense of space,kids loved it too.

we did fancy a bailey senator caroliner too but to get an 06 model with mover and the like was a bit more pricey.

we also saw a 2008 avondale mayfair 630/6 on ebay starting bid £9,950 (still on there) but were a bit concerned that avondale went into liquidation in september last year and wondered about parts and warranties, but we are pleased with the bailey 620/6.

Geoff

We had lunar quasar Fb with fixed bunks and big end bathroom. Was great till we started winter caravanning and there seemed to be no where to sit in the early evening as kids didn't want to sit in there bunks or at the diner !!

Well daughter grew about a foot this summner and was touching the end of bunk so decided to change to superstorm and it is absolutly FAB !

Kids have the two end sofas as a bed each at night, and by day they work as sofas and where we all eat and the kids can lounge and relax whilst we are up front relaxing reading the papers! best thing we have done.

I agree sean P, a little niggle with our FB became a big problem! we compromised too much and ended up changing to the van we originally wanted although it was a little more than we could really spend if we had bought it originally we would have saved a lot of hassle and money, we were too short sighted and rushed into the quasar because it was as my husbad said a cracking deal so we compromised big mistake !

So go for the one your heart really wants and you'll love it even more, after all these are our memories and family times in our vans.