Caravan Lengths ?

Hi. With my 12ft Jayco Eagle it is 12ft from the front of the cabin to the rear of the cabin, when closed.
It is 21ft when opened .
Cheers Des.

Dfine people Owners???? Manufacturers???


If the latter You will have to ask as they are all different
EG a 754 Coromal is 24ft 6in whereas a 19ft6in Roadstar is the inside measurement.

So if in doubt ask

Hi Lionel,
Manufacturers, as far as I know quote the internal cabin length or perhaps the external cabin length and generally that is what we look for when we buy a van.

If someone advertised a van as being 22 feet long, when the cabin length was around 15 feet, it would scare a lot of people off as many are daunted at the prospect of towing something that long.

I guess it is mainly due to the fact that we have a picture in our minds of what we want in the way of inside room in a van, and manufacturers try to cater to that.

A friend of ours manages a caravan park and they prefer to know the overall length, tow hitch to back of spare tyre, if it is attached to the rear of the van. This has been backed up by a query I made to another park operator I spoke to a couple of years back when on the road during holidays.

It seems that there are different sized sites in some van parks and it helps the management greatly if they know what the length of your van is so they can best accommodate all comers, I suppose.

Cheers, Bruce.

Hi Lionel

It seems to me that the upper end manufacturers (such as Bushtracker, Kedron and others) quote the inside measurement, whereas the mass produced model brands are usually quoted in external length not including draw bar. There are also long and short draw bars. Why they are quoted in feet these days is beyond me, but that is what we are used to.

You need to know the whole length if booking on the Spirit of Tasmania, and someone once gave length of van as he knew it (internal) and length of vehicle, quite forgetting about the bit in the middle. Although rigs are not individually measured when going aboard, on this occasion the discrepancy was noticed and he had to pay extra. Overall length of entire rig may be critical on some small car ferries.

Motherhen

This length measurement thing is another that needs to be standardised.
IMHO vans should be given as a total length including drawer gear etc plus travel and set up height as well as cabin exterior length.

EG.
Length 6 meter van.
Overall length 8 meters .
Travel Height 2.1 meters.
Set up height (pop top) 2.4 meters
Weight Tare 1440kg
ATM 1840kg
Ball weight 140kg.

hi lionel
years ago it was always the outside lenght plus the drawbar and width was always measured outside
but ive noticed of recent years manufactures have started quoting inside length and width to try and make their vans sound bigger and better
and as you know the end shape of vans has changed dramaticly for aerodynamic reasons depending on the make
hence the confusion has crept in
it seems we live in several states in australia
plus confusion and the state of gobbleygook
we were supposed to have changed to metric several years ago but we still have both measurements mixed and matched
what ever different peopleor companies chose to quote
i walk on 2 feet
but there 21.5cm's long each ?????
the pommy language does'nt help much either
cheers

Hi Lionel,

I think most would agree, that generally speaking, the quoted length of a van is the length of the cabin which of course excludes the drawer bar and bumper/spare hanging off the back.

In my opinion if a person were talking about an 18' foot van the only question I would have in relation to the van length would be whether or not they were referring to the internal or external length of the cabin. Cheers

Many years ago I bought a van and the roofline was the old roll type front and rear at the top. Not like the newer squared off or aerodynamic types now.

Unbeknown to me, the measured length was at the forward part of the front of the roofline to the rearmost part of the roofline.

When I questioned the manufacturer about the dimensions as it looked smaller inside than I expected, he said it was an 18 footer, measure the roof.

I told him I wanted to live inside the van, not on the bloody roof.

Dave

If the overall length (coupling to spare wheel) of a van is given it is usually usually labelled something like "overall length." This is not very often given, although I see some magazines quote both length and overall length.

Way back all vans were measured over the length of the body and did not include the drawbar and spare wheel or bumper bar. This gave a realistic idea of what you were towing. Iin those days a van weighed one hundredweight per foot plus one hundred weight. All vans were of pretty much the same constructions and that rule of thumb was fairly accurate.

Then came along some dodgy bastards and started using some fictitious internal lengths to trick people into purchasing vans that were that were really too big for them to tow. There seems to be no standard now. You get all sort of dodgy lengths like internal length, floor length, furniture length and others I can't remember. I will defy most of you to find out where the given dimension of your van relates to.

A case in point is a Roadstar single axle van a mate purchased 12 years or so ago. It was sold to him as a 16' 6" van. There may have been a measurable length of that amount from the bed head to the rear seat back rest in a twin bed version. However the double bed version did not have the the kitchen/dining area altered as some manufacturers do. There was length added between the bed and the kitchen. This made for a heavier van than the single bed version but they still sold it as a 16' 6" van. My friend ordered it with an extra 6" in space between the bed and the kitchen. And guess what, on the invoice it was described as a 16' 6" van. The body length is 19' 6" (and it is on a single axle.) This is probably the blatant misrepresentation you will probably find in your vans. All because these dodgy bastards think that they will loose a sale if they attempt to sell something smaller within the capability of your tug.

Lets get back to specifying something we can reliably measure. When we purchase a van we look at the layout and see if it suits our wishes (and not our actual needs.) We then ask what weight and length it is. What is wrong with the overall length being quoted - that is what we are actually towing. It sounds like some of you may be surprised by what you are actually towing. If this body length frightens some frightens some people and then they start looking for something shorter we may have less ungainly rigs swaying their way down the track.

Thankyou everyone for your input.

Still scratching my head on this one.



Cheers......Lionel.