Ownership Diary - Dethleffs XL Family A7872-2 Motorhome

Thanks chaps.

Handover was pretty good. However I tend to find I research my vans so well I feel sometimes like I could do the handover myself! Chap was nice and polite though and keen to help.

Good point on average speed. I had another look and it was 62mph. Still very good though. Considering it was rush hour on a Friday everything moved very well the entire way. Only two very small 50mph sections, the rest of the time I was between 67-70mph on the cruise.

I’m actually quite ok with the mpg. It’s a brand new vehicle so will loosen up a bit in due course. And I never expected any better than 20mpg given the 5.4t max weight and bluff Luton bed. Still better mpg than my house!

What was surprising but hugely important - aside from a headrest which needs a bit of attention, the van was practically silent on the move. Shows really good quality of the build. It’ll get a bit noisier now that it has a lot of our kit in it but at least that’s easy for us to attend to.

Today is being spent filling it back up with all our kit. Then it’s back to the storage yard tomorrow, with a return on Friday a likely trip away with my daughter.

 

So had a good long play with it over the weekend. Saturday day saw us loading in the various bits from previous van and trying to make sense of where everything could go. For the first time ever, the storage is so significant, we're actually looking like having more capacity than we know what to do with! Also means that we're having to buy storage containers for shelves/cupboards to keep things tidy as the space is so vast, things would otherwise be rolling around. Nice problem to have!



Saturday night saw the first overnight. We eased ourselves in gently with putting the baby down it the house with the monitor initially inside the van. We then put my eldest son (4) into our bed at the rear and closed him off with the bathroom door. That left us an hour or so with our daughter (12) to play Uno around the table, then she went to bed in the Luton, I removed the backrest from the side sofa, popped sheets on and made up my eldest son's bed. I then made up the travel cot, which fits perfectly in the kitchen with just enough space to squeeze past. I was able to scoop my son up and put him into his single bed without waking him. And then it was back into the house to bring the baby downstairs and into the travel cot. Amazingly, he slept like a log - as did all the other kids - not a peep from any of them until the baby awoke at 06:05 on Sunday morning.


Myself and the wife retired to our bed just after 22:00. Although the transverse bed layout is the ultimate compromise, the mattress is so comfy and by pulling the curtain across to separate us from the bathroom (we had the door open for this first night test-run), it felt like a very private and cosy space. I slept like a log - Mrs Spuff was on high alert for any noise out of the baby - so she didn't sleep hugely well. But overall a roaring success!
We kept the baby in with us in our bed for an hour to let the other two lie in a bit and then we all convened around the table for breakfast & coffees before getting on with the rest of the day! If it goes as smoothly as that every day/night, then we're doing well!

I then had a play with all the bits of kit on the van. There are various Victron bits needing pairing with phone, together with the hydraulic rams which, when paired with the phone app, can weigh the vehicle! No more heading off to a weighbridge to check axle weights and whether you're overloaded. The app puts the vehicle up on the rams, then somehow weighs it, then drops it down and shows you your axle weights and total.



As expected, the front axle doesn't have much room for manoeuvre. This was myself & wife in the cab and 55% fuel. With full fuel we'll be on the limit and with my daughter in the rearward facing dinette seats, we'll be over. However, I also had c. 30kg of camping equipment under the front lounge plus we have 50kg of leisure batteries under the drivers seat. Once I replace those for a 25kg LifePo4 lithium battery, have moved the camping equipment to the garage at the rear and put 160l (160kg) of fresh water in the tank over the rear axle, I'm confident the front axle will get sufficient relief to ensure we're within a 100kg or so of the limit. The rear axle is no problem at all with >800kg available.

Sadly, after showing my Uncle & Aunt around en route back to the storage yard, it was back it went to its new home. Looking absolutely resplendent in the sunshine. It was a real bind to leave it there but I don't want to push my luck with the neighbours. As a test, I've left it with the heating on 8C for the coming week. Let's see what it does to the leisure batteries and gas in that time. I'll be back down again on Friday for the first trip out with my daughter. No exact plans yet but will have two nights away just the two of us. Can't wait!