Jayco/Coromal rough road durability

Hi Gazza,

We have just returned from the Gulf with our Jayco some pictures of us crossing some rivers here

http://caravanersforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=9682&p=131856&hilit=jayco+water+crossing#p131856

Christian

Hi Gazza,

Don M makes some excellent points.

Coromal makes a "good" off road van. Better than a Jayco. I say this as I travel full time with a Kedron and we get to the really off road places. I see a more Coromals there.

22 ft I think is about as big as you can go in an off roader. Ours is 22.5 but I would prefer 19. You get a big swing in the tail of the van and this makes it much much harder getting around trees on windy tracks. It also reduced you ability to cross steep creeks as well.

There is not free lunch with caravaning. You cannot get a silk purse for the cost of a sow. Take the chassis for example. If it is not "hot gal dipped" the rocks on a gravel road will just chip all the paint of it. The Stirling has PVC plumming under it and the rocks will just bleep ter this as well.

Make a list of the things you want in you van. Independent suspension, airbags, coil springs, shock absorbers, leaf springs etc. Look at the cupboards inside, quality fo hindges, locks. How well is the fridge mounted. Take out draws and look inside. Check how neat cabling iand pipes are layed out.

The best thing (not certain where you are located) is to visit some off road caravan displays and crawl under them. Look at how they are made and take a digital camera to take pics. You can then compare at home on the computer. Don gave you the names to look at. You can see how the very best are made and then do the cost - quality equasion. My list will be yelled at but this is my ladder.
Bushtracker
Kedron - Spinifex
Trackmaster - Phonex -Elross - Lotus Trooper

I stand to be corrected but havent Jayco got leaf load sharing suspension and not Simplicity.
My Roadstar had Simplicity and have never seen a Jayco with similar.

Hello Gazza51....ours is a 2005, underslung axle with ordinary suspension with no shocks,at 21ft and weighing at 2 and half ton.....and I am able to take her offroad a reasonable amount BUT not as much as the you would with say kedron etc....dust can be an issue but so far manageable but no other issues, ie cupboards etc.
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As you can see I am fairly carefull where I go but I manage to be able to get into most places without too much trouble......I guess there is offroad and OFFROAD if you know what I mean.

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Hi gazza I have a 2009 steling 21ft full van offroad its only done about 1500kms offroad gravel and corrugations standard offroad suspension as supplied by jayco and have had no problems not even with dust ingression
all the best steve