Introducing Sporty and CC

---

Back in May 2011 we took delivery of our Horizon Wattle Motorhome with the intention of keeping her (Bushbaby) for three years. Something went wrong with the timing as we kept Bushbaby for over 4 years and travelled about 85,000 kilometres circumnavigating both the continent of Australia, and our neighbour island of Tasmania.

That time flew fast and resulted in over 200 blogs.

We had come to a time where for a variety of reasons we felt it was time to sell Bushbaby. We started with a sign in the window when we were in Carnarvon Gorge, and then an online ad when we got home. We had a cash sale within 24 hours of the ad appearing online, which rather surprised us. One of the interested parties from Carnarvon Gorge phoned us as they crossed Brisbane to see if it was still for sale, but they went away disappointed as they missed by 3 weeks.

After that hurly burly time, we sat down and asked each other - what do we do now?

We had a cruise booked to Papua New Guinea, but that would only fill in 10 days!

We were thumbing through the Camper and motorhome magazine when we saw a write up about a small caravan 4mtrs long that was fully self contained, and it had a members discount. It looked good, but a brand we had never heard of. Thinking they would be thousands of kilometres away, we looked up their web site and found they were literally around the corner. For those who have not visited Australia, 'round the corner' or 'just up the road' can mean 2 or 300 kilometres. This was much better than that, about 7 kilometres, and we had driven past their building many times in the past.

Next morning we dropped in and they showed us their original prototype and we were impressed - just the right thing for us for short trips, but also to cross the continent to Perth to visit family if desired. But our aging Holden Zafira (Same as a Vauxhall or Opel Zafira) would also need upgrading. (That means replacing) What would easily tow the caravan but fit our small garage and be an economical town car as well.

We looked at all sorts, drove a few and finally settled on a Kia Sportage diesel AWD. The only problem was, none were in stock, but a ship was due and there was only one AWD diesel not already allocated to a buyer. We put our name on that (paid a deposit) and then checked that Silversun Caravans could deliver a van built to our requirements by the last week of October, or worst case, the first week of November. They could and the deposit was paid.

By now you will have guessed that Sporty is the given name to our Kia Sportage. Now it needed a little bit of a separate shake down as they do not recommend towing a van until one has done 2000 kilometres and had the car checked at the dealership. We were a little shy of 2000ks, but the dealer was happy. It would be nice to think that a new car with 7 year warranty would be fault free, but that was not our luck. For some reason it would splutter under low power such as holding 40ks on a flat road. Some of the splutters were substantial and I was concerned that it could damage the engine or transmission.

The dealer checked the engine over and the computer reported no errors. We did, so I think the computer was a little under designed. The fuel filter clean, so they wondered if we had diesel with water. We ran the tank low and put an injector cleaner in the tank with a water dispersant. We still got a few splutters, but not as vigorous. Now, 4000ks later without further intervention, splutters all gone and Sporty runs as sweet as a baby.

We then took delivery of our Silversun Caravan at the end of the first week of November and all looked really good. About the only question was would we need weight transfer bars to keep the combined rig stable. We drove around city streets and then on a freeway gradually building up speed to make sure we were stable. We found a small amount of fish tailing at 100ks per hour on a concrete freeway, so opted to get the weight distribution bars which also reduce fishtailing as well. That done, the rig travels very easy stopping straight under heavy braking.

On Sunday afternoon 15th November we headed south to Yelgun (close to Brunswick Heads) with our friends David and Mary following behind. The short journey all went off with out a hitch (other than the tow hitch) and we settled there for the night. Our shake down was going really well compared to many new vanners we had met over the years.

I guess you are wondering where the 'CC' fits into the name. This caravan is really quite small, but we were amazed at the amount of storage space and the equipment provided in this little van, and yet there was plenty of space to sit around the table and entertain. First thought was a Tardis, like Dr Who, and then Marg described it as a Cubby Caravan, hence abbreviated to CC.

So, did we discover any issues missed by the builder? Yes, so I will summarise those here and what has happened since we returned home.

The first problem was we found water on the shower floor. We thought that there was a leak in the roof hatch, but it turned out to be water from the underfloor plumbing blowing up the plug hole.

The next problem was that after two days the door wouldn't lock properly. That was quickly fixed with the door striker needing packing (Part was in the van) and took me 10 minutes. No problem since.

Another plumbing problem with a small leak into the kitchen cupboard. I wasn't prepared to tackle that so Marg used her nursing skills and put a waterbag in place to capture the slow drip.

But wait there is more. We found that if water was released from the hand basin, waste water flowed into the kitchen sink. This was a simple plumbing error but needed fixing. I phoned Silversun and told them what was up and they agreed that I could fix this myself and they would reimburse all costs. So from a local hardware store I was able to get all but one of the pieces required to fix this problem. (A badly aligned Tee Joint) I was well into that repair when I turned into a surgeon, or so it seemed, and inflicted a deep cut on my left middle finger. Off to the nearest ER and after a wait, glued up and strapped with steri-strips, but not really able to do much more plumbing. Marg organised a caravan service person to come and complete what I had started, and the problem was solved for just a few dollars including the leaking joint in the kitchen cupboard.

We had the van on mains water supply on one camp site and after a while I noticed a steady flow of water running under the van. I did a quick inspect and was surprised to see water flowing out of the fresh water tank filler cap. It seemed that the non-return or one way valve in the pump was faulty. From then, we just used the fresh water tank and pump until we got home. Yes, a brand new pump had an internal fault. This event reminded us of another van on shakedown at Emerald earlier this year. For them, a similar fault was catastrophic because the manufacturer had not allowed for venting of the tank. The result was a very big BANG and 150 litres of water plus half of the tank on the grass.

The final bit of bad news was when the window at the front of the van leaked in heavy rain. Nothing I could do about that other than apply a heavy bandage of sealing tape around the frame until we got home.

The test of a good manufacturer is how they reacted to these warranty issues. We found that Vladimir and Boyan at Silversun Caravans were really keen to fix up the couple of outstanding issues and reimburse us for the expenses we had out laid. They were also keen to hear what we thought could be better ways of setting up the van for the future.

As I said above, these were all minor issues and compared with many others, a very short list. One friend had 22 faults in their new RV. But now we know why a shakedown trip is important before a longer adventure is planned.

There will be 3 more blogs to complete the shake down trip and they will be left to focus on the fun side of caravanning.

---

Photos

Introducing Sporty and CC
All hooked up ready for the road.

Camp kitchen
Twin burner gas stove, range hood, kitchen sink, plenty of drawers and two spacious cupboards.

Dining area
This doubles up at night to be a king size bed.

Shower room with hand basin.
The shower area is separate from the toilet, but due to space had no hand basin. After discussion, about how, I sauced a mixer tap with diverter that either operates the basin or the shower. My design has worked really well.

Fridge Freezer
The Waeco fridge operates from mains or the 12 volt house battery.

Comments

[Mum &, Dad]

Shakedown blog
Well documented interesting reading. Future trios will hopefully free of problems.

[D MJ Binkley]

Looks good
Have fun with sporty and cc