Drive-away attachment without fitted awning

[Spitfire]

Our Ocean is due to be built next week. We're very excited about taking delivery and have been thinking about the practicalities of ownership. The Cali will come with an awning but we plan to remove it until we take longer trips in the summer, because it is a bit too conspicuous for our liking (I appreciate that this is a matter of taste!). We will get a drive-away though, not least to provide some containment for our dogs.

I have looked at all the comments I can find on the subject of attaching a drive-away awning when there is no factory awning present. The VW rubber insert for the rail seems a good solution, but I have seen comments to the effect that you can attach a drive-away with a pole (as I think is standard on Outwell and possibly other awnings) direct to the rail without using the rubber insert. I can't work out how this is actually done though. Any advice on attaching a drive-away with no factory awning would be very much appreciated.

 

[Hotel California]

It's your choice to take the wind out awining off .
But when using a drive away awning it can come handy to pull the wind out awning a bit out , attatch the drive way awning and turn the wind out back in to tighten ...gives also more space manouvering the Cali in place afther you left the pitch with awning in place.

A drive away awning can be attached in the rail on the Cali using the correct adaptor (figure of eight) there are other treads with more info.
Or using suckers.

Before taking off your wind out awning , try things out , you will see the benefits

 

[kave]

I looked at removing ours for the winter and decided not to. The fact that it is attached with bolts trough the roof and required shorter bolts when awning is removed made me decide to keep it on.

 

[LowMan]

Have to agree with Hotel Cali. We considered removing ours, but actually find it handy working in tandem with the Drive Away awning. Might be worth a trial first, but I guess it's ultimately all personal preference.

 

[Spitfire]

It's your choice to take the wind out awining off .
But when using a drive away awning it can come handy to pull the wind out awning a bit out , attatch the drive way awning and turn the wind out back in to tighten ...gives also more space manouvering the Cali in place afther you left the pitch with awning in place.

A drive away awning can be attached in the rail on the Cali using the correct adaptor (figure of eight) there are other treads with more info.
Or using suckers.

Before taking off your wind out awning , try things out , you will see the benefits

I've seen reference to the figure of eight, but I wasn't sure how robust that would be when inserted into the rail. It sounds like it would do the job though, so I'll give that a try.

I don't doubt the merits of the fitted awning but our Cali will be a daily driver and will be parked at times in very busy areas and I don't want to draw attention to it.

 

[Spitfire]

I looked at removing ours for the winter and decided not to. The fact that it is attached with bolts trough the roof and required shorter bolts when awning is removed made me decide to keep it on.

I'm wondering if the T6 fitting is different - this post and the photo in it make removing the awning look fairly straightforward?

https://vwcaliforniaclub.com/threads/alternative-to-vw-wind-out-awning.15834/#post-173575

 

[Chris Greaves]

I fitted a standard VW awning to my T6 this summer and the fitting is exactly the same as shown in the photo on the link. 2 Torx screws, 1 at each end, fixing awning to the brackets and three bolts on each bracket.

 

[briwy]

If you do decide to leave the wind out awning on this is how the pole method of attaching a drive away works.
Bit of a bodge as I was just trying it out but you get the idea. One advantage is that it gets the awning tunnel closer to the van cutting down draughts and leaks. The pole is an extendable clothes prop from Wilko, about £3. It's considerbly easier to reconnect to the van as well rather than fiddling about with figure of eights or sliding the kador strip into the grooveJ ust throw it over the awning and fix.

 

[deccauk]

How do you connect the drive-away awning to the pole?

 

[briwy]

There's a slot in the awning that it fits in. At least all the awnings I've come across have one.

 

[deccauk]

Ah, yes - now that you mention that, I remember that when I got my drive-away awning 18 months ago, it came with a metal pole for that very purpose.

I never used it, I use the tried and tested kador strip. We've never yet driven away from site once set up, however.

 

[ejmoore]

We have an awning (canopy) and a tent awning, both of which are drive-away. They both fit via the kador strip sliding into the rubber track. But both of them rip out in the wind (it doesn't have to be seriously windy). Last trip, we tried using the pole & clamp method of fixing, but the connection seemed very weak and unlikely to solve the problem. We are now wondering if the rubber track has perished - the van is 2008. Maybe it would be best to remove the rubber track and fix the awning with the pole and tie it onto the nuts (which we have, but there's little room to fix them into the metal track with the rubber track in place). Still working on this one...

 

[peregrinus]

We wind out the awning a bit then trap the tent awning in it as we wind back in again.
It is easy for 2 to do and hasn't ripped out yet.
A bit saggy although that is as much the Van being too close to the tent.

 

[Highflyer]

We use an Isabella Shadow 240 sun canopy as an alternative to the Cali wind-out canopy. It is high quality and simple to erect, the canopy edge slides directly into the awning rail on the Cali. We have discarded the VW rubber insert. Here’s a link to a demo video

.

 

[AlisonF]

The rubber awning attachment rail that comes with the van when you don't have the wind out awning works well with a kador strip and drive away awning. Not had any problems as yet.