Day camper. Van v Estate v SUV

[AF62]

On the condensation and temperature issues that come from sleeping in a car, the new BEV I own (a Kia Niro) has a 'utility' mode that allows you to continue to run all the non-drive parts of the car (lighting, heating, air-con, entertainment system, etc) from the traction battery (and disconnects the 12V battery) whilst the car is parked and the 'engine' is off - when in this mode you can't accidently put it into drive.

The intended use is whilst you are waiting in the car whilst parked, but there is no time limit on how long you can run it for and reports from people who have used the car to sleep overnight is that it is quite efficient with the energy use with a night's use using up around 10-15 miles of range, which on a car with a range of 260-280 miles is insignificant.

[Tedx]

The guy who I'm getting the van from has fitted a bench seat from a Mazda Bongo in the rear. It's all legit mind - it uses the existing Mazda seat rails and has proper intertia seat belts fitted. It was also MOT tested in February and the V5 has been updated. I've also added the extra seats as a modification to my insurance quote.

Anyway, the Bongo seat comes away from the rails and can be reversed. This actually provides a better van layout for us than the 'crew van' layout it currently has. One of the reasons I was attracted to this van was that, on rare occassions, we might want to carry an addtional passenger, although the fitted inertia seatbelts would be unusable.

So I was in a wee bit of a dilemma as to which way to have the seats (although the seats can be turned, it's not a 2 second job).

Anyway, it appears to me that passengers in rear facing seats don't actually need to wear a seatbelt when the van is in motion. It's highly recommended that they do of course, but it's not illegal. Is that right?

It may well be the case that the bench seat has a lap belt on the middle seat (I'll need to check) or it maybe easy enough to fit a lap belt (i'm currently spending my morning looking at Bongo forums) which would give me the best of both worlds.

[Tedx]

When you own a car that's £20 a year to tax, £320 is a real hoof in the spuds.

[Tedx]

2 nights away in Colin the Caddy. Great fun....other than Colin doing the last hundred miles back to the house on the breakdown truck of shame

Report coming soon.

[Tedx]

Well it was our first trip out in Colin the camper. We spend two nights in north east Scotland in lovely weather (we checked on east v west - east won hands down!).

Night one was in a lovely park up near Ballater. Free overnight parking, clean facilities open 24 hours and lovely scenery - from walks in ancient woodland to a boggy insect reserve. It was comfortable enough, but I can't gut used to a sleeping bag and the self inflating camping mattress is to slidey with the sleeping bag. But we have a solution. The van's seller had bought a memory foam mattress for the van and never used it. It's more bulky but far more practical. And a duvet, rather than sleeping bags should sort it. And proper pillows.

Parkup
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Peaty bogland boardwalk



People get up early when touring in a van. I didn't even know 6.00am was a real time. I'd heard about it, but dismissed the rumours as pure speculation.




The next day was spent just bimbling down the east coast of Scotland.....Stonehaven



.....Montrose.....Arbroath etc. We ended up near Carnoustie in the County of Angus where we spent the night. The next day was more bimbling back up the road before Colin had a bit of a hissy fit and decided to go into limp mode. A recovery was called and took two hours to arrive. But that was ok. We had fresh water on board, a kettle, a stove, food, supplies and a decent internet connection. So we just sat and watched the tv we missed over the weekend until the truck came.

As someone who has broken down on the A9 on a motorbike and waited some hours in the freezing cold to be rescued, this was a piece of piss.

Ach well. It's all part of the journey. He'll be back today.