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Well after 6 months with our first van we have made the decision to upgrade to something bigger now we have the caravaning bug! We brought our 2007 470/4 ranger back in August mostly due to the low towing weight of our Vectra. The van has served us well with 3 family holidays but we have found the side dinette a pain as when our 1 yr old is asleep in the evenings we have to sit out in the awning to eat and watch tv so we don't wake him up.

As we have recently changed our tow car to an X-Trail we thought we would see what was out there that might now suit us. We looked at lots of 2nd hand vans bearing in mind it needed to suit us, a 1 yr old and hopefully baby number 2 in the future. In the end we have found a lovely 2008 Bailey Provence series 6 at Oxford Caravans which has had one owner from new and a full service history with them (they sold the van originally).

It has the L shaped front lounge area (I know this is a love it or hate it) which we really like as we can put the high chair here to feed our little one and also it gives him more floor space to crawl / run around. The rear bedroom was the main sales factor as we can now put him to bed, close the solid wooden partition and then we can sit at the front, watch TV and have our dinner (& wine!) without having to sit in the cold awning. Looking at the bed sizes we can also fit his current travel cot in place of one of the bed cushions and then in a year or so he can use this a proper single bed. The seperate shower was again a big plus for us as we intend to start trying some CL sites this year and having our own facilities will be a big bonus (the other half hates the wash room type bathrooms).

We lost a bit on the ranger but Oxford caravans have been great and are moving the motor mover over for free and also doing a few other bits for us in the price. They also offered us the best P/X price we good find as well. The extra comfort is the van comes with 2 years bailey ingress warranty left (lesson learnt here as we didn't check the history on the ranger and then found missed services so couldn't transfer it!) plus they are giving us an addtional warranty insurance with MB&G that runs till May 2014 that covers ingress and also the internal bits like fridge, coooker, etc. We are able to extend this for £199 for 2 years which I think we will do as we intend to keep the van for a while and it will be nice to know if we get any ingress that it will be covered until May 2016......if for any reason we sell the van this will also be transferable to a new owner for £25. As our ranger had a brand new AKS3004 stabiliser on it they are also moving this on to the Provence for us as the one on there looked a bit worn.

Thanks to previous posts on here I was aware of splitting problems with the rear panels and also the front windows rubbing. I had a good look over the van and although the windows appear fine I noted a 1 inch hairline crack on the rear panel at the top nearside corner. I made them aware of this last week and when I took the ranger in today for them to damp check, etc they already had the new panel in from Bailey and were in the process of fitting it (apparantly replaced FOC by Bailey).

So all in all we are really pleased with it and can't wait to collect it. As we aren't going away till April we have asked them to hold it till the end of March as we can then get two more pay months in before paying the balance due

I will be selling a brand new starcamp Daytona full awning (size 11) shortly so will put a seperate note on here before putting it on ebay at the weekend. Sadly this won't fit the new van but cost us neary £600 with the aluminum poles and storm strap kit. If I can't sell it on ebay the dealer has offered me £150 for it towards another awning!

So after this rather long post I only have one quick question and that is are the new direction aerials any good? The Ranger had the flying saucer type but the provence has one that you raise up and can rotate.......are we likely to get a better signal with this ?

Cheers

Darren

Quote: Originally posted by idmainian on 16/2/2012

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The 530 aerials are great Dazzer had ours fitted last year and used it all over the place even down in Norfolk ware normaly the signal is very bad but we had no problem,and nice to here you have a new van sounds like you got a good deal,Ian

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Cheers Ian, as the family are up in Norfolk we are often up that way with the van so good to know we may get a signal next time :-)!

We loved the ranger and said if it was just the two of us we would probably have kept it. We lost about £1000 on the what we paid but got the new van at a fair price and less than another dealer was asking for the same model / year! If we get a bit for the awning on ebay this will off set things a bit more.

The next decision is if we bother to get another big awning. We have been given a porch awning by a family friend so will try this first and see how we get on!

Hi Savanne,

Yes I think the layout is ideal for a young family. One end for the parents and one end for the kids plus they have their own sockets to run things. We were 50/50 on the L shape as it looks a bit more work to make up the bed (maybe wrong on this and won't know till we try) but I think the extra floor space will be useful and it does make the front seem more "open plan". I was tempted with the two single option as we also looked at a coachman with this layout and could have used these as to front singles. In the end the highchair and extra floor space for wet days won the day! We have said we intend to keep this for at least 4-5 years and if we did then change it would be to a fixed bunk model when any children would be old enough to use them. I did look at a few newer rangers but the OH wanted the seperate shower, hence why we went for the provence. Personally I think having a microwave will be a nice change. We are going away for the first week in April to the Cotswolds after collecting the van so this will be the 1st opportunity to see how we get on with it. Our plan at the moment is to try with a porch awning for wet shoes, etc and then maybe look at something bigger before the main summer holidays. We have said we will go for a more universal awning this time (Kampa, Sunncamp, etc) as we have lost a lot of money on our full awning not been transferable to the new van. I also find the full awnings a great space but a pain to put up and I am always checking the weather the last day as I don't fancy taking it down in the wind and rain!

Thanks thats great to know.

Just out of interest how do find the best signal with this aerial? Do you need to get some sort of signal finder or do you just use the TV and keep moving it till the signal is good?

Quote: Originally posted by idmainian on 17/2/2012

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Dazzer don't forget to pull out the two horizontal bits on the new aerial then just look at others then point it in same direction and bingo it will work.Ian

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Hi Mike / Judi,

I did loads of research on the car before changing and it wil easily tow the Olympus. Kerbweights on the X-Trail are a hard thing to pin down as many V5's don't have them printed (shown as Mass in running order) and if you google it you will get weights from 1500kg upto 1700kg!

Ours is the newer (not the very lastest) shape that changed in 2007 and is the X-Trail sport model, 2.0 Diesel, 150bhp (they do a 170 version) manua (2009/58 plate)l. The only extras are the tow bar and the extreme roof rail package (which is plastic and I doubt weighs a lot).

The car with 1/2 a tank of fuel and me in the drivers seat weighs in at 1820kg as I took it to a local calibrated weigh bridge!! I And this was with the car boot completely emptyied out as I wanted a "worse case" figure. I have since found out this is fairly average from speaking with other owners so i would be more than happy towing up to 1550kg and still be just under my 85%. The X-Trail has a towing limit of 2000kg (2200kg on the brand new ones) and a nose weight of 100kg.

Overall we are very impressed with it. We looked at CRV's and Freelander 2's but feel the X-Trail was the best of the three models. If you get a sport model or above (Trek is the base model) it comes with loads of extras! The benefit over the CRV is the 4 wheel drive is selectable by the driver, where as with the CRV it only kicks in when it detects wheel slipage. We are getting an average MPG combined of around 37-38 and can get around 41-42 on longer motorway runs. I haven't towed with it yet as we aren't going away till April but will be expecting something around the 30mpg level.

My view ........get one they are bullet proof and fantastic! If you are going for one 2nd hand then the only thing to watch for is the pre 2007 models had an issue with the Turbo's blowing on the 2.2 engine. This isn't a problem on the post 2007 2.0 engine.

PS: The provence is 1420kg.