Coromal Camper

Hi Ron,

We purchased a new Coromal Pioneer Silhouette 392 back in March of this year. We are basically very pleased with it so far after four trips including a substantial one to Roxby Andamooka Marree Birdsville Innamincka and Tibooburra.

We had to wait about 6-8 weeks for the order and it had a couple of minor (but surprising) problems on delivery.

1. Poorly fixed step/ inspection hatch inside collapsed when stood on.
2. A waywrd drill had punched through the roof during construction.
3. A stopper on one drawer slide broke off
4. The water tank had a faulty bung and all the water ran out on our first trip.

All of the faults were easily fixed. In fact I fixed most of them myself; but it is disappointing that this expensive camper should have such poor quality control. I believe that this is typical of the caravan industry. You would not accept such workmanship if you were handing over nearly $30,000 for a car.

Having said that the van seems to be quite strongly made. It has stood up to the corrugations extremely well with nothing coming apart yet. We did not experience any dust ingress until the Birdsville trip. The main reason for it coming in was the way that the sides scrunch down when dropping the roof. It is all too easy to have the dust seal not contacting the bottom section of the van correctly. We watch for this now. There was also a bit of dust that came in through the lower fridge vent. We now slip a piece of plastic behind the vent and that stops it (You must remember to take the plastic out for correct fridge operation however. We did observe bad dust ingress in Jayco and Goldstream campers on the track. The best feature to avoid the dust is the one piece removable door; (No vents in the footwell when travelling).

The camper is very comfortable for 2-4 people. It is attractive to look at and it stands out among the run of the mill Jaycos. The push out kitchen is marvellous (no dust problems there). The bench height is much better than other campers. The storage areas are enormous. We have the standard foam mattresses and they are fine.

This is the first "van" we have owned. We previosly hired conventional vans and a Kimberly camper. I can see us getting tired of the work involved in setting up and packing up not too far down the track. It is no big deal at the moment however and the camper allows us to go places where even off road vans would not venture.

It pays to remember that it is only a couple of steps above tent camping. But all caravanning and camping is always a compromise even if you buy a Winnebago.

I would buy Coromal again.

Kings

It depends where you want to take it - to quote Coromal from their brochure -

Coromal Pioneer range is designed to travel on and off sealed roads. They are not designed however to travel over all terrain. Travelling over rough, rocky, jagged, pinnacled and pot holed surfaces may amount to misuse and driver neglect. Any damage incurred as a result is excluded from the manufacturers warranty.

They look like they'd sure beat the old unbranded wind up van we had a few years ago, and we took it anywhere it would follow the Patrol; swept out the dust when we stopped, and put the cupboard doors back on or whatever may have taken a bashing. Built up the muscles winding it up too.

Hi Ron,

In the last eighteen months we have taken our Silhouette 420 X2 into Woods Point in very wet conditions, through the Buckland Valley and up through the centre to Litchfield and Kakadu via the Oodnadatta Track (just after it re-opened). When we are camping we tend to take our time in an endeavour to experience as many "moments in time" rather than just racing through the minutes in a day, and to this end the Coromal suits us perfectly. It takes about 15 minutes to set up and marginally less than that to prepare for the road.

We currently tow our camper behind a 3.0litre petrol Mitsubishi Triton dual cab and most of the time you can hardly tell it's there. Having hauled a full height caravan for a while many years ago there was no way I was ever going to regress to the days of needing a valium at the end of each days travel. On the bitumen the low profile and independent suspension of the Silhouette allows us to comfortably sit on speeds above 130kmh where it was safe to do so, while on the dirt the camper has not sustained any damage from the ordeals which we have put it through thus far. As the second vehicle of two on the dustiest section of the Oodnadatta Track we had a barely discernable layer of dust on the benchtops at the end of the day, whilst unfortunately our travelling companions were inundated with dust.

Obviously you have done your research and have discovered the many positive aspects of the Silhouette so the motive of your post is to ascertain any negatives, so I shall try to find some:
The towball weight of the 4.2 (IMHO) is relatively excessive and we have added storage boxes to the rear bumper to compensate for this. Our accountant has a 420 X1 and has mounted his dirt bike to the rear of his Silhouette.
Slide on end flys and annexe awnings are a PITA! We are in the process of having ours modified to fixed bags for this reason.
Storage space above bench level is non-existent, but we have solved this problem with a plastic set of four drawers which sits in the corner of the bench top when camping and travels on top of one of the seats.

Hopefully this information will be of some use to you.

hey ron i recommend casuarina campers they build a top unit 0397869113 we got one and it is fantastic there in melbourne there kitchen setup up is superb and they are good with keeping dust and water out and they are alot cheaper than pioneer