Which motorhome is the best?

Hi all.We are looking at getting a 7 metre motorhome.As the title says,does anybody no which is best out of the.Toyota coaster and the mitzibishi rosa for reliabilty and economony.Age of vehicle would be in the late 90's with about 130k's on the clock.Thanks

I have a '99 coaster with high k's as it was a shuttle doing about 600km per day for most of its life. It has over 800,000km on it. Because it is a reasonably recent model, there isn't any rust, and it is quite modern looking in the interior (dash etc) compared to the older ones.

Of course it needed some maintenance items done - shocks, brake adjustments, tyre replacements as the tyre load indices differ by more than 2 (watch out for that one when you buy). It also spat a couple of clutches in the trans, so that required a full rebuild. Small electrical problems like dash lights not working, alternator brushes. Recently, the rear air bag suspension has stopped working. Again, it's an electrical problem.

By the time you build them as a motorhome, you'll be running around 4,000kg+, so they aren't really economical. Probably around 15+ l/100km. But they have enough power for the load. Easy to drive (especially with the air suspension and automatic), handles the corners fine at the speeds on the recommended speed signs. A bit noisy at 90k, as they are doing just under 3000rpm at that speed for the auto model. The auto has a lock up torque converter in 3rd and OD, so it works pretty much like a 6 speed.

This website is good for general motorhome information. Or contact me if you want some more details.
http://www.nzmotorhome.co.nz

What sort of price range are you looking at? Ready made or are you going to get it built?

Thanks johotech for the info.We are looking at one already done,spending around 60 grand.

That's a reasonable budget. Plenty to choose from in that price bracket.

You really have to think about how you want to use it. Either mostly freedom camping, or mostly camping grounds with a little freedom camping.

Mine is set up for freedom camping. Never went into a camp ground or plugged in while travelling (never even took the power cord), while using it for over 4 years.

You can get a lot more modern vehicle - VW or Mercedes for example - for that budget. But you're paying for the vehicle, more than the camping setup. They would probably be lucky to be able to go 3 days without requiring plugging in or having to fill up and dump water. Mine on the other hand could last 5+ days without having to fill up with water - Longer if you don't need to have a shower ;) . Power on mine is all solar, with charging from the alternator when travelling, so pretty much never need to plug in except maybe every 3-4 days in the winter.

With a Coaster or Rosa, their capability is with the weight, storage and towing capacity, whereas most of the others are limited to around 3,500GVM.

Anything with less than 100L of water is going to be a waste of your time. 150-200L allows you to go easily 3-4 days without refilling. You'll notice a lot of the 3,500GVM vehicles don't have a lot of water storage, don't have awnings, large house batteries and a lot of other "features" that can make life more comfortable. Plus they may be limited in towing capacity (if they can tow at all? ).

So there are a lot of things to take into consideration to suit your needs.

You can get an ex-maui VW CT35 for your budget. excellent vehicles, happily cruise at 100km/h (in manual transmission form). all the cabin fit-out you need, shower, toilet, 100 litre water tanks. Engine out in front like a car, for driver safety and a bit less mechanical noise.

Never driven a Mitsubishi Rosa but my father has told me all about his experiences being a passenger in the ones the Rotorua council ran as a bus service: there are automatic ones that are fit for inner city bus services only, and manual ones that go alright on the open road. but "alright" is all they are.

Unless you are just going to park it up and not do any real miles, the Japanese bus based motorhomes are horrible, thirsty, slow, expensive to run/maintain things.

Much better to go for a common rail diesel Fiat/Mercedes/VW you can get those in 7 meter form but even if you had to go slightly smaller, I would trade the space for considerably better driving vehicle any day of the week.

Take some for a drive and be amazed at the difference, especially where passing and hills are involved (they get up and go like a car). Remember you are supposed to be relaxing and having a nice time of it, so why would you want to be driving an absolute pig?

If you decide on any of those 90's small buses, get them thoroughly checked out for rust, many of my panelbeater customers make a good income fixing the significant rust issues, often just bogged over in order to make them look tidy to pass their cof and appeal to the next sucker. The worst was one up in Thames that looked pretty until digging was done, end result too expensive to repair and was written off.

Very narrow bus's

I have never driven either a Toyota Coaster or a Mitsi Rosa, but have travelled in a Rosa automatic bus on the open road - seemed to handle well and the ride was comfortable with a full load of 28 passengers (but very hard when empty!) and had 110 on the speedo on some rather windy roads, but the noise from the engine at open road speeds could get to you. Driver said he was getting about 20 miles per gallon (work out the kms and litres) and good for town work, being quite lively in its performance.
Nowhere near as bad as a rental Mistubishi Canter 6-berth camper we had for a South Island holiday in 1999: handling was no better than a 1950s Bedford with worn steering and at 80 km/h the racket from the engine under the front seat was deafening. We couldn't drive for more than an hour before having to stop for a cup of tea to let our ears recover! Definitely built on a round-town delivery truck chassis.
If you want to enjoy the driving side of it do as richardm and the jazzpianist say: buy a European camper van!

The best motor home is the one that stays off the roads!

be carefull of the continentals, repairs and parts very exspensive,go for a japo, anybody can fix them if you have a problem on the road

Is that you Paul Henry

We recently purchased a 1996 Coaster and agree with the high revving, but we added sound deadening to the engine cover and that's solved a lot of the noise issue there.

My advice would be to check the GVM, as ours somehow falls into a 6,200kg catagory with a tare of 4,220 and puts us into a higher bracket for RUC. We know of a few other similar vehicles that have a 5,700 GVM, giving them a lower RUC.