Wind Up camper durability

I think you will find that most failures are in the internal fit-out, cupboards etc.

Anything will break if you push it hard enough. We have a Coromal Magnum Off Road wind-up, it's now 8 years old, we got it second hand a couple of years ago and the owner said it had done around 30,000km on medium to rough roads.

We've taken it on some extremely rough corrugated dirt roads, up to Cooktown and about 10 shorter trips of less than 3,000km of whiich 40% has been dirt roads and we are still going OK. We were cautioned when we first took up off-road camping to be careful how we drive, particularly on any rough surface and we did.

I can't speak for Jayco from direct knowledge Pete n Fran but there are lots of them out there, I had to slow down heaps because I like to get from A to B ASAP, it's different now I can tell you.

Good luck in your choice, and, we have met heaps of very nice people along the way. Fi & Paul

I have a coromal 420 magnum no problems towing over beaches,corrogations,rough roads,except stones from vehical damage the front of the van needs stone deflector,HOWEVER the winch mechanism has failed catastrofic failure if you are away from home as you cant raise the roof easily,apparently a reasonably common failure according to the repairer,cost approx $500 to fix ,a simpton is a still winding mechanism on raising the roof should be very smooth and easy

Hi Pete N Fran We have a jayco penguin and its been every where. One of the roughest roads was port keats and to this stage the only thing to break was the latch on the draw just drive to the road conditions.

Hi Pete N Fran,
we have a 18' Jayco Sterling Outback van, almost 12 months old, and took it over corrugated and many dirt roads last year with no problems apart from dust entering the interior. Have since bought a tube or two of selastic and sealed the floors around wheel arches, something we think Jayco should spend the time, and money (less than $20!)to do before it leaves the factory!
We were pretty happy about how well it travelled the roads really.
Cheers Heather G

We have a golf slipstream camper, it has been everywhere, GRR, Fraser Island, Gulf Track, Cooktown etc and it keeps coming back for more. The 6 inch chassis and independent suspension no doubt have a lot of to do with it's durability. It is now 11 years old and nothing has broken internally or externally. The winch system required attention, with some rerouting of the cable track from the winch fairly early on in the day. But I did this myself and there has been no more problems. The best tip for all wind up campers is keep the guides lubricated with CRC or WD40 or similar. I keep a tin in the camper and spray liberally down each riser every time I put it up.

Driving to the conditions is important as well.

Best of luck with your choice

Eric.

Hi P & F,
Had a Finch from new some years ago. When I had it, we took it on quite a number of very rough outback tracks and the only thing to break, due to heavy corrugations, was a shocker mount. It snapped where the shocker mounted to the fish plate below the spring. I replaced the 5mm plates with 10mm ones and never had any further issues. A friend of ours with a Hawk also broke a shocker mount, but his broke at the top where the bracket was welded to the chassis.

Should mention that we did break the bench seat inside, but that was because we had about 4 fairly heavy people all landing on it at once. Fixed with some addition upright supports.

Generally, we were very happy with the performance and durability in some pretty severe conditions.

Cheers
Gerry

Pete N Fran,

We have a Goldsteam Storm offroad camper (at great expense to the management - Us!!!) and haven't had any problems thus far.

However, I believe that the Goldstreams use thicker cable than the comparable Jayco equivalent. As the Bro-In-Law has a Jayco Flamingo, I have looked at his cables, and our seem to be thicker.

It doesn't matter what it is, if you mis-treat it - it will fail. Let commonsense prevail!

Matt

if you are interested and think its worthwhile, i put a post on here just b4 xmas (from memory) about a repair manual that was for sale on ebay which showed you how to fix any part of these campers and how to get yourself out of trouble until at a repairer (if need be). someone then put a reply in showing a link to where you can still buy this manual for around $35??.

i actually have a copy of the manual which i keep in my swan just in case. it is very easy to read and understand and gives hints on what not to do etc so you dont end up accidently damaging them yourself.

maybe worthwhile for you to look at if you can find the post i did.. cheers .....

Hi Pete and Fran,


We had a (new) Jayco Penguin Outback for two and a half years, and were very happy with it. We only got rid of it to upgrade to a Sterling Outback van, but at times regret it as we could take the Penguin places we can't take the Sterling due to its size. However we love the en suite and the lack of set up/pull down time with the Sterling. The aircon is not bad either!

Note that the Jayco Outback vans and trailers are not "off road" but dirt road vans. Nevertheless ours had plenty of corrugated dirt road travel with no technical problems other than the undersized screws pulling out of a cupboard door.

We think they are excellent value for money.

Hope this helps.

Cheers.

Terry

Hi Peter & Fran

We have a family of 5 & just completed 6months in a jayco Eagle outback its the vans 2 nd complete lap if you are going down the camper trailer path you may need to make some mods depending on how off road you are going to go ! That said I lifted ouyrs another two inches and run prado 17" rims on it with a treg hitch The van will go almost anywhere . However it's mostly the internals that fail and break like having draw bottoms fall out because you have put all the cans in one draw ! Or the cabinetry gets all scrathed because you load the floor with plastic tubs and table and chairs ? Dust is another issue we turned the roof top vent so it faced forward and left it open a crack pressurized the cabin and kept the dust out perfect. The van has served us well and we are off to the cape in July . We paid around 15k and i have to say for what it is capable of and the places we have taken it were people spend 3-4 times that to get the right rig there a bloody bargain

regards

John

Good luck