Sunday, Aug 29, 2010 at 19:32
Hello Howard.
We (my wife and I) have had our Cub Supamatic XTD 'Off Road' camper for just under 2 years now and love it to bits. We have had a couple of minor issues with it early on when we should have paid a little more attention to weathering the canvas, especially along a seam that runs the length of the roof plus we were not happy initially with the set up shape of the canvas. We had trouble closing the main entrance door zipper after getting most of the wrinkles out of the canvas walls. Our Cub DVD showed us one way and the salesman told us the complete reverse and said that the DVD was wrong. Needless to say that frustrated us big time. In the end we worked it out ourselves by purchasing 2 extra extendable poles that were placed in each corner at the head of the bed. This supported the area that was creating the wrinkles and basically fixed our problem with the closing of the door.
I know this is a little long winded but it describes our experience with our cub to date.
We haven't done a great deal of extended travel with our Cub but we did manage a 3 week trip last year taking in
the Painted desert,
Oodnadatta,
Birdsville and Strezlecki tracks and some 2,500ks of dirt.
Prior to the trip we made sure our clothes were in sealed zipped bags, our food stuffs were in sealed containers and we placed a sheet of clear plastic over our bedding prior to closing the camper each day.
Not once upon opening it up for set up did we find any real intake of dust inside the camper. No doubt there must have been some but it paled into insignificance compared to the amount of dust that is simply in the air. Not to mention what we were bringing inside on our shoes and clothing etc. Our 3 day stay at
Birdsville was during severe dust storms and still the camper remained fairly clean considering.
Our friends also had a new Cub camper for this trip and they also found very little dust problem.
Yet another friend on this trip hired a brand spanking new Pioneer camper and this was no better or worse than our Cubs. We were all very impressed with our campers but sadly the new Pioneer was totalled after it rolled near
Innamincka.
Improvements since initial purchase :-
1. Ditched the foam mattress (as supplied) and purchased a 170mm inner spring queen size mattress from Ikea (it was on sale at $179).
2. Replaced the sink hand water pump after the original seized.
My wife said to tell you that if she was buying a new camper she would choose to delete the sink from the purchase because we never use it. We have never used the sink as such and always do our dishes in a bucket. If you do use the sink you will probably drain the water into a bucket anyway so why worry about a sink in the first place. Just use a bucket. That's what suits us anyway.
3. We have boxed in the storage area beneath the bed where the sliding kitchen and pantry enter the camper. We found on several occasions that when you slid out either these on several occasions an object stored under the bed fell into the slide out area. Consequently when you attempted to slide the kitchen/pantry back in it would be blocked. Not much fun if the camper is closed. We used an awning pole to clear the space. The result is that we can pack right up to the boxed in area now and has made this space much more efficient. It cost us probably around $40 to do this and it is so worthwhile you wonder why it doesn't come this was from the factory.
If you buy a Cub camper (and probably any camper) the first thing I would
check would be the wheel bearings. Both of these on our camper probably had a tea spoon of grease in them. I repacked them and do so after each trip and always keep 2 new greased bearings in a sealed plastic bag with our other goodies.
Would I recommend a Cub??? Bloody oath. We love it.
Again sorry for the length of this response but hopefully it's all good if you see yourself as a potential Cub owner.
Cheers, and happy travels.
Wayne
AnswerID:
428864