The "Nothing went wrong" thread

[GrannyJen]

Just back from a 4 night, 700 mile trip to the frozen wastelands of Saddleworth, accompanied by my sister and towing Frieda, her caravan.

Bitterly cold nights, kept warm and comfortable. Snow covered roads, stable and predictable handling. Atrocious conditions yesterday, almost a complete grey-out, snow, sleet, heavy rain, strong winds and blinding spray and a big thank you for the high driving position, big mirrors and firm seats. Last thing I wanted to be doing in those conditions, and with so many idiots with no lights on, was towing a caravan but just felt so reassured that Alfie would handle it.

A real soaking on two nights, no drips. Arrived at a waterlogged site in Oxford yesterday, wanting to give Alfie a big hug for getting me their safely, instead had the wardens wanting to give Alfie a big hug when I said 4WD with MnS tyres, but in the end the stuck caravan was pulled out of the mud with a long tow rope.

In summary: Fabulous, competent, capable vehicle giving a superbly comfortable and quiet travelling experience. Everything worked, nothing went wrong and Inever found a single thing to moan about.

Alfie! I love you!

(but we still have only 14 hours to save the world)

 

[Loz]

Who's Caravan? not your sisters' then?

 

[Digger]

Positive and sensible owner who knows what the lifestyle is about. Mirrors my experience too.

 

[GrannyJen]

Who's Caravan? not your sisters' then?

I'm missing something


Edit: Sound of penny dropping....

When we arrived another hardy camper had decided to excavate a large part of a grass standing trying to get his caravan out of the mud....

 

[sidepod]

Did you ever doubt it’s capability? 99% of problems are user error. FACT.

 

[GrannyJen]

Did you ever doubt it’s capability? 99% of problems are user error. FACT.

No.

Any complex piece of machinery goes wrong sometime. Accepted.

From the time that I looked at campers it was apparent that the Cali was in a class by itself.

When I looked to change Albert I went through the whole process again and came to exactly the same conclusion.

My experience with Alfie has been a comforting affirmation of my decision

 

[Joker 1299]

I'm missing something

Yes, Frieda, my Sister's caravan.

I think maybe Loz was asking about the stuck caravan.

 

[GrannyJen]

I think maybe Loz was asking about the stuck caravan.

Thank you.....

Was a bit slow yesterday, late night before, long journey home then straight to the gym. Brain dead by the evening

 

[Eber123]

It is good to hear about good experiences, normally we all talk about the problems only.

I hope that with a good service the (camper) van won't have any (major) problems in the years to come. The basis as a van should be robust to start with, the camper van sections promotes the fact that they even check each van coming from commercial line to the camper van section individually to ensure they are really ok. Regular services from an authorized VW dealer capable to look after the van should do the rest.

At the moment there are about 2,500 km on the clock - I hope that I will get at least 250,000 or even more out of the van. The way it looks that this van (Kelley his name it is) "sees me out" . Maybe I can hand on the camper to my children...

Eberhard

 

[Shane Bennett]

Just to add on to this thread we just returned home from southern Spain and Portugal with no problems what so ever with our Cali. This was Lyla's maiden voyage and she handled everything we threw at her. There was some very bad weather coming through France over the weekend, with the high winds made for a bit of a white knuckled journey. We just slowed down and the Cali took everything Mother Nature hit us with.

Looking forward to our next camping trip when it warms up a bit. One lesson we learned is that we are in fact fair weather campers

 

[GrannyJen]

Just to add on to this thread we just returned home from southern Spain and Portugal with no problems what so ever with our Cali. This was Lyla's maiden voyage and she handled everything we threw at her. There was some very bad weather coming through France over the weekend, with the high winds made for a bit of a white knuckled journey. We just slowed down and the Cali took everything Mother Nature hit us with.

Looking forward to our next camping trip when it warms up a bit. One lesson we learned is that we are in fact fair weather campers

I consider myself to be an all-weather camper but to be honest I am sick to death with mud everywhere, if the freezing winds don't get you so the horizontal snow does and just the incessant rain, sleet and snow of the last 4 days finally got to me.

I think if I had been on my own it would have been a different story but I had Jo, her caravan to tow and two dogs with muddy paws everywhere and I'm thinking "please, just give me a few days of settled weather"!

Whoever it was that decided to put that wood effect lino in the Cali I just want to give a big hug to. So easy to clean, but sadly my advertised as "indestructible" waterproof and dog proof rear seat cover proved not to be Max Proof and his paws just went on the seats in the end

 

[CarrieCali]

Did you ever doubt it’s capability? 99% of problems are user error. FACT.

In IT helpdesk speak, they use the acronym PICNIC - Problem in chair, not in computer.

I guess we could substitute the final C for California in your mantra!

 

[sapto]

I consider myself to be an all-weather camper but to be honest I am sick to death with mud everywhere, if the freezing winds don't get you so the horizontal snow does and just the incessant rain, sleet and snow of the last 4 days finally got to me.

I think if I had been on my own it would have been a different story but I had Jo, her caravan to tow and two dogs with muddy paws everywhere and I'm thinking "please, just give me a few days of settled weather"!

Whoever it was that decided to put that wood effect lino in the Cali I just want to give a big hug to. So easy to clean, but sadly my advertised as "indestructible" waterproof and dog proof rear seat cover proved not to be Max Proof and his paws just went on the seats in the end

Great to read everything went well and your "new" Cali is just as great as Albert was and for sure is!
It's this kind of threads/post than make this board such a great source of inspiration and sometimes "cheer up" to go out, travel and get off the beaten track/day to day routine! Thank you @GrannyJen.
Wish you some nice weather for your next journey!

 

[Yorkie]

As we say up here in the Frozen North: "that's not bad weather. I remember when I was a lad it wer raining so fast ducks drowned and complete houses blew all the way t, coast"