A question of quality

Why should I pay $60,000-plus for a caravan that’s poorly finished?

COMMENT

From about the 1990s, something significant happened in the car industry. Better computerisation, new materials and assembly methods resulted in better cars.

Cars began to have far better panel and trim fit, had much better water/dust ingress protection and paint no longer crazed or became dull in five minutes. In 2016, there are still crap cars, but most don’t leak or fall apart until they’re old and crusty.

A pity then that some caravan manufacturers still seem to build vans in 2016 like the Industrial Revolution happened just yesterday.

Caravans that have gobs of silastic smeared all over the place are just the start. Then there are those with, let’s say, a wall-mounted clock poorly screwed on that falls off its perch on the first bump, to be discovered smashed on the floor at the next stop.

Or drawers chucked together with tiny screws and made of cheap laminate that peel away into their constituent parts the first time you open them. Then there are cupboards with shut lines so random they appear to be the work of Salvador Dali.

There are much nastier quality-control errors in the caravan industry. Like the coupling of a certain new caravan that pulled away at its weld points on its first trip.

Or the brand-new van that took water capture too seriously and dumped several litres of it in a storm -- inside. Nothing like the sweet smell of rotting wood and mould to get you into the spirit for a caravan holiday.

We’re not making any of this up. There are some obvious problems with the caravan industry, some of which can’t be avoided.

Around 22,000 caravans are pumped out each year from Aussie factories. That’s against 1.1 million cars sold annually down under. While it’s a bit unfair to compare caravans with cars, the relatively poor economies of scale in the caravan industry make it hard to ramp up automated manufacturing processes.

There’s nothing wrong with a hand-built caravan, you say. There are craftsmen and women whittling away in caravan workshops right now creating bespoke works of art that you can lug around the country and sleep in.

Sorry, but these guys and gals aren’t paid what Roll-Royce pays their artisans to build a Roller, and no caravan builder in their right mind would slap a $650,000 sticker price on their latest luxury van like Roll-Royce can on their cars.

There are plenty of vans built using new materials and methods, such as composite wall cladding, aluminium chassis and sophisticated electronics. Yet the basic principle of building a towable box with furniture inside hasn’t really changed, and maybe there needs to be a complete re-think about how a caravan is constructed.

Some manufacturers stick to the tried and true old-time construction methods such as the trusty timber frame and corrugated sheet cladding. Some of them are built superbly -- enough to give Rolls a run for its money -- but the materials themselves are not exactly of a luxury standard, or in any way cutting edge.

To be a member of the Caravan Industry Association of Australia, you have to be willing to submit your caravans to ‘Recreational Vehicle Manufacturing Accreditation Program (RVMAP)’ audits.

Yet the CIAA itself acknowledged last year that it found inconsistencies with height and visibility of lighting and reflectors, insufficient load carrying capacities, the trailer plate (VIN Plate) missing regulatory information and missing or incorrect gas labelling.

Most of these irregularities are minor infractions; the insufficient load carrying capacities are not. A van we looked at recently had a suspiciously high ball load mass when put on the scale -- well above the plated mass. A trip to a weigh bridge confirmed it wasn’t just the ball load -- the caravan was 200kg heavier in Tare mass than specified on the VIN plate. That’s a hefty 200kg pulled out of payload.

Yes, we emptied the water tanks. We didn’t open the two 9kg gas bottles into the atmosphere. So you can minus 18kg, if you were wanting to be precise… which the caravan manufacturer in question was clearly not.

There will be caravan manufacturers who read this and reflect on their own practices. They may question, ‘Are we doing enough? Are our caravans good enough?’

Then there will be those that are up in arms about what we’ve said. ‘How dare you say those things? We build great caravans, always have, always will’.

For anyone buying a new caravan, I’d suggest those brands will be the ones to stay well clear of. To never question your strengths is a sure sign of weakness.

A question of quality

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