WillSS
2 seater beach
VIP Member
- Messages
- 129
- Vehicle
- T6 Beach 150
Hi all,
Is it just me or did anyone else wonder whether they've made a big £40k mistake after staring at the lovely trim detail along the underside of a Cali roof for several hours in the middle of the night urging for a speedy dawn?. A tadge chilly, not helped by the fact that the double sleeping bag we thought we'd bought a few days earlier turned out to be a single and naturally the previous nights ale now didn't seem such a good idea with the prospect of a sub-zero van exit waking the whole family in the process. And I'm sure I read somewhere on here that the heater remote control was pointless and all too easy to lose on your first night away. Oh yes, at not one point during those long dark hours was I yearning for my clever fob residing all warm and cosy in the key pot back home. (Note to oneself - pack a long cane as a remote backup for trip2)
Ok so admittedly a bit on the chilly side last week just outside Bath (-2 overnight) and not helped with over excited kiddies who took an age to go to sleep, plus the dog not exactly chuffed about his new cooler accommodation.
Thankfully night two saw a huge improvement in the sleep stakes as we'd sorted ourselves out a little better though this may also have been down to the overnight temp lifting to a lofty 1 degrees and the pure exhaustion on behalf of the kids having been dragged up and over Cheddar Gorge for most of the day. Even the dog didn't complain.
So first impressions baring in mind we've come from, (many moons ago), a ratty 1972 type 2 and more recently a T4 day van.
-Night heater... can't believe how lovely that was.
-Light grey carpets won't be light grey for too long with our family.
-Need a bin of some description.
-Lower bed a bit small for us, can envisage 'if' summer comes we might sleep in an attached awning with kids in the roof thereby not having to rearrange the living quarters.
-Its a lovely refined engine with more than enough oomph (we have the 180 though tbh we would have been happy with the 140 we test drove).
-Seems a lack of places to store bits'n'pieces especially those that have been residing on top of the cooker/fridge units and then need to be shifted to make a brew. I see Brandrup offer the 'back of the seat hanging compartments' thing. Not a massive fan of the looks and will they allow the seats to spin?, is there any other alternative?
-I do like the clean minimalist look but I think access to the rear 12v power supplies could be more friendly. (And why no power point in the glove box?). Of course all these things can be easily rectified.
-Liking the economy, taking it easy we managed a respectable 35mpg for the trip. (500 miles).
-Enjoyed the car like creature comforts over our T4 but a bit disappointed in the ride/handling. Clearly its a top heavy monster but the shocks seem somewhat under damped. Appreciate it suits some people but for me there's too much body roll/wallow for comfortable driving along anything other than flat straight roads. And yet oddly seems to 'crash' quite hard when going over a speed bump, etc. Definitely want to improve this as our daughter greens up after a short period and our Cali in the back lanes will give the Channel ferry a run for its money.
Its not going to spoil the experience though as I'm sure its nothing a decent set of HD shocks won't sort out. I'm interested that VW only offer the sportline springs as some sort of resolution to this. I don't really want to lower it but will be taking advice on you peeps that have gone this way. Ideally I'd like to retain the ride height and sort out the shocks.
So in the end a successful first trip of 4 days/3 nights.
I'm also strangely ok about our first morning's breakfast spillage when we managed to christen the rear bench seat with a full bowl of milk laden cheerios along with our lovely new deep pile Brandrup carpet we negotiated so hard for in the VW dealers. Not so deep pile in places now but definitely the highlight of the trip for the dog.
Its difficult not to be overly precious about such a lovely van but we bought this to be used and are hopeful, (once that first night experience fades), it's a keeper, still with us long after the kiddies have left us... we can dream.
We're just rearranging a few things so we can hopefully come to the Cali on the Farm jolly so we can learn from the pro Cali folk. You'll recognise us, we'll be the ones shouting at our kids to go to sleep late into the night. And I'll be sporting some big bags under my eyes.... and a long cane under my arm.
Will and Maddy
(from deepest wildest Surrey)
p.s.1. we do like our children really.
p.s.2. comment from son aged 8 following some post trip analysis. "its nice but I think I prefer our red van" (that'll be our 13yr old T4 panel van with a bench seat in the back, value £3k).
p.s.3. we have a perfect set of 17" thunders for sale (came on the van with demo miles) as we swapped for some Dakars. Will attempt to post in the for sale section in the very near future.
Is it just me or did anyone else wonder whether they've made a big £40k mistake after staring at the lovely trim detail along the underside of a Cali roof for several hours in the middle of the night urging for a speedy dawn?. A tadge chilly, not helped by the fact that the double sleeping bag we thought we'd bought a few days earlier turned out to be a single and naturally the previous nights ale now didn't seem such a good idea with the prospect of a sub-zero van exit waking the whole family in the process. And I'm sure I read somewhere on here that the heater remote control was pointless and all too easy to lose on your first night away. Oh yes, at not one point during those long dark hours was I yearning for my clever fob residing all warm and cosy in the key pot back home. (Note to oneself - pack a long cane as a remote backup for trip2)
Ok so admittedly a bit on the chilly side last week just outside Bath (-2 overnight) and not helped with over excited kiddies who took an age to go to sleep, plus the dog not exactly chuffed about his new cooler accommodation.
Thankfully night two saw a huge improvement in the sleep stakes as we'd sorted ourselves out a little better though this may also have been down to the overnight temp lifting to a lofty 1 degrees and the pure exhaustion on behalf of the kids having been dragged up and over Cheddar Gorge for most of the day. Even the dog didn't complain.
So first impressions baring in mind we've come from, (many moons ago), a ratty 1972 type 2 and more recently a T4 day van.
-Night heater... can't believe how lovely that was.
-Light grey carpets won't be light grey for too long with our family.
-Need a bin of some description.
-Lower bed a bit small for us, can envisage 'if' summer comes we might sleep in an attached awning with kids in the roof thereby not having to rearrange the living quarters.
-Its a lovely refined engine with more than enough oomph (we have the 180 though tbh we would have been happy with the 140 we test drove).
-Seems a lack of places to store bits'n'pieces especially those that have been residing on top of the cooker/fridge units and then need to be shifted to make a brew. I see Brandrup offer the 'back of the seat hanging compartments' thing. Not a massive fan of the looks and will they allow the seats to spin?, is there any other alternative?
-I do like the clean minimalist look but I think access to the rear 12v power supplies could be more friendly. (And why no power point in the glove box?). Of course all these things can be easily rectified.
-Liking the economy, taking it easy we managed a respectable 35mpg for the trip. (500 miles).
-Enjoyed the car like creature comforts over our T4 but a bit disappointed in the ride/handling. Clearly its a top heavy monster but the shocks seem somewhat under damped. Appreciate it suits some people but for me there's too much body roll/wallow for comfortable driving along anything other than flat straight roads. And yet oddly seems to 'crash' quite hard when going over a speed bump, etc. Definitely want to improve this as our daughter greens up after a short period and our Cali in the back lanes will give the Channel ferry a run for its money.
Its not going to spoil the experience though as I'm sure its nothing a decent set of HD shocks won't sort out. I'm interested that VW only offer the sportline springs as some sort of resolution to this. I don't really want to lower it but will be taking advice on you peeps that have gone this way. Ideally I'd like to retain the ride height and sort out the shocks.
So in the end a successful first trip of 4 days/3 nights.
I'm also strangely ok about our first morning's breakfast spillage when we managed to christen the rear bench seat with a full bowl of milk laden cheerios along with our lovely new deep pile Brandrup carpet we negotiated so hard for in the VW dealers. Not so deep pile in places now but definitely the highlight of the trip for the dog.
Its difficult not to be overly precious about such a lovely van but we bought this to be used and are hopeful, (once that first night experience fades), it's a keeper, still with us long after the kiddies have left us... we can dream.
We're just rearranging a few things so we can hopefully come to the Cali on the Farm jolly so we can learn from the pro Cali folk. You'll recognise us, we'll be the ones shouting at our kids to go to sleep late into the night. And I'll be sporting some big bags under my eyes.... and a long cane under my arm.
Will and Maddy
(from deepest wildest Surrey)
p.s.1. we do like our children really.
p.s.2. comment from son aged 8 following some post trip analysis. "its nice but I think I prefer our red van" (that'll be our 13yr old T4 panel van with a bench seat in the back, value £3k).
p.s.3. we have a perfect set of 17" thunders for sale (came on the van with demo miles) as we swapped for some Dakars. Will attempt to post in the for sale section in the very near future.
everybody is different some like sleeping bags,other' quilts as for storage again over time you will find out what works.It
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