Beginners guide to buying a new caravan in Queensland
These tips on how choosing the van that’s right for you the first time round can save you a lot of expense both at the point of purchasing or post purchase. These are some of the things that you need to ask yourselves before diving in and looking for your first caravan.
How will you use your caravan?
Are you thinking primarily off-grid or are you more of a caravan park type of person/couple or family with the occasional off-grid stay?
If you are looking for more off-grid features that allow you to get away & stay away then power & water and how you intend to use them both are your biggest concerns. Kaz and I, for example, are soft when it comes to camping off-grid in the heat. We want to be able to use our caravan all year round in complete comfort so we need a large lithium battery system with a matching roof mounted solar panel array so that we can confidently run our air conditioner all night and still have capacity left in the morning. We run a 216 litre Dometic compressor fridge. Kaz loves her coffee machine, the toaster, the hair dryer etc. All this needs a reliable power supply.
If you’re thinking more caravan park stays then you can get away with a much simpler system and can run a 3-way fridge instead of a compressor type, a smaller battery capacity and using AGMs as well as just a couple of roof mounted solar panels. There’s also no need for an inverter or a 12V DC2DC battery charger so there’s more money to be saved. In case you didn’t know, a 3-way fridge can run on three power sources including gas and don’t have a compressor so they can be a good off-grid camping in cooler climates only. We wouldn’t choose this personally for anywhere warm they just don’t get cool enough and struggle in the warmer weather.
Do you like cooking outdoors?
If so then you might like to consider a drawbar mounted storage box that’s big enough for your BBQ. Add a slide to it so that you can use that platform without the need to shift your BBQ. If you do this, make sure the the slide-out is long enough that the hood of the BBQ doesn’t rest on the J mould. This will avoid damage from a hot BBQ lid. You might decide that you can then just turn your BBQ around so that this doesn’t happen but then your right shoulder will be hard up against the side of the caravan…not very comfortable, let me tell you. The other option is to look at an external kitchen that slides out from the tunnel boot area.
Suspension types and ride heights
These two things become critical depending, once again, on how you plan to use your van. Kaz and I love to free camp and to get off the road to find “that” perfect spot. Heck, I even take my whipper snipper with me in case I need to pretty my spot up a bit. We have the standard rocker/roller leaf sprung suspension with shock absorbers at each axle end and a 100mm chassis raiser on our 22’6 Coolum. This will take you most places and has served us extremely well. Trust me when I say that for 95% of people, this is all you will need. Here at Sunvan Caravan Sales, it’s your van your way so in saying that, we’ve now had multiple customers order their vans with Cruisemaster’s XT Freestyle and their ATX independent suspension systems. Some are sprung with air bags while others have just opted for the springs only. Both the XT Freestyle and the ATX independent suspensions are now offered with Cruismaster’s new Body Control System if ordered with air bags. Air bag suspension makes levelling any caravan an absolute breeze.
Dust Reduction Systems (DRS)
If you’re travelling on dirt or dusty roads, then you should consider adding a DRS at the time of your build. Kaz and I only use and recommend the Gusto DRS. It mounts to the wall of your caravan and is powered by your 12V system and unlike the others, the filter can be easily cleaned and reused. We DO NOT recommend nor do we fit any DRS that requires forward movement for it to operate. These systems are inferior, have poor performance results and our experience of hiring vans out in the Northern Territory attests to this.
More questions about buying your first caravan?
If you have any other questions about buying your first caravan for travelling in Australia then send them through and we’ll give you the answers you need based on our own experience and what we know from caravanning around Australia.