Autosleeper Kingham - what's gone wrong in 2 years of use? HD 1080p 

Thanks for watching! I had reached the point with the Whale heater that if it couldn’t be made to work reliably I’d have to put my hand in my pocket and have it changed for the set up you have. You don’t hear of many problems with Truama set up…

Hi. Not sure if you have a Motorhome at present, but if you do and it is reliable and suits your needs then - unless there is a compelling reason to change it -you’d be better off keeping it ! If you are looking for a motorhome, then to be honest all new motorhomes and campers have issues. For example, we have had two new Hymers before, and both needed warranty work for leaks and corrosion (wheels and internal fittings), so the Kingham issues we had seem to be pretty par for the course. It’s not really good enough, but I’m afraid from my own experience and what I read on various forums, it’s just how things are in the modern cost and corner cutting world. If you are looking for a Kingham, maybe one that’s a couple of years old might suit you as the teething problems we had should have been sorted by the first owner 🤔. Good luck with whatever you end up with 👍🏻

What a moronic reply...

Glad the videos have been helpful. The single glazing isn’t as big a problem as I expected, although you do get a small amount of condensation if it’s cold outside and you’ve had the heating on all night. The blinds have a silver foil type backing which I think helps. I think I’d prefer a couple more opening windows as overnight when it’s hot it can get a bit stuffy. If you open the skylight and close that blind to keep the light out, it restricts the airflow benefit so you have to kind of mostly close the skylight blind and leave an air gap and hope the light doesn’t wake you too early

Thanks that’s very helpful Wolfie. Appreciate the quick response.

From driving the van, the turning circle seems to be very good indeed. The brochure suggests a turning circle between kerbs of 14.24m or 46.7 feet which seems a lot to me. But compared with a Mercedes Sprinter, this has a turning circle of 16.2m or 53 feet so I'm guessing the brochure figures are right. All I know is that its very good and no problem in use! Hope this helps.

Thanks for watching and the question. We have not upgraded the battery or solar, as for our needs (up to 4 days off grid) the factory set up works fine. But we did find that watching the TV did have a big impact on the battery level so if you watch TV a lot and will be off grid for extended periods then more solar and battery upgrade would be worth doing. Personally I would not use this van for full timing, the insulation and heating systems are not really in the same league as the fully winterised A class Motorhomes from the European manufacturers such as Hymer. These have double floors and heating ducts between the floors, and all the water pipes etc run through this void and are far less susceptible to freezing than the set up on the Kingham. The blown air heating reaches all parts of the Motorhome too, as opposed to the cab area in the Kingham feeling cold as there are no heating outlets in the cab. For what we use the van for, the Kingham is a great van. But I wouldn’t want to live in it full time.

@@WolfiesWheels ok thanks

Thanks for watching and commenting. I was apprehensive about the single glazed windows when choosing the van as our previous vans had all been double glazed. However they seem to be fine for the use we put the van to, we tend to use between March and November so don’t do prolonged cold weather camping. The blinds fitted to the side windows are foil backed, which I think helps reduce heat loss and condensation. At the front (windscreen and door windows) I would recommend an external screen such as Silver Screens as the windscreen definitely suffers from condensation overnight. Hope this helps😀

Thanks for watching and your kind comment. One problem when discussing “how your dogs travel” on open media such as Facebook, RU-vid etc is that whatever you say, someone will always tell you you’re doing it wrong/illegally/unsafely and so on. Hence I am very reluctant to say what we actually do, but suffice it to say it complies with the appropriate legislation. I am sorry I can’t be more helpful but I don’t want to put my head above the parapet on this one!

@@WolfiesWheels no problem I know what you mean, cheers

Thanks for the tip re the dimples, I’ll give it a go 👍🏻 . I’m not sure how to get the photos of the installation to you, but if you email me on Wolfieofbaildon@yahoo.com I’ll send them over. Regards Wolfie

Hi - thanks for watching and taking the time to comment. It certainly does sound as if these are areas that AS should reconsider - especially the Whale set up. I wonder whether you and I have had vans from the same production batch as mine was from May 2021. 🤔

I'm not that keen on SMC . . . they admitted to damaging my van whilst there for warranty work, but it shouldn't really have happened. It necessitated a train ride home and a train ride back again the following weekend. My last visit was a for a repair to the shower, which should have been covered under warranty, but wasn't, and they, in my opinion didn't do a very through job. I won't be going back (it's a 2 hour drive for me anyway).

We had a Motorhome from SMC. They were very poor at fixing faults and always had a reason why the fault wasn’t repaired or parts replaced. The service manager was always unavailable to meet with you. Their service costs are disgraceful £350 +. I would not buy from them again.

Did you not ask service costs upfront ! I would only EVER buy from a local dealer simply because factory/production line builds are far too often the problem. The caravan/motorhome/campervan industry does not seem to improve it's build quality issues and I believe they factor in warranty work into their new unit costs. Let the customer and franchised dealer fix it

Gotta say I agree…we even discussed swapping it out at our own expense but in the end decided not to (for now anyway..)It does do a great job on the hot water though…

I'm one my third heater other 2 would work on electric but error with 5 lights on gas apparently water damage on one of the circuit boards. Not good. If this one goes I will look into getting a diesel heater fitted.@@WolfiesWheels

Bailey endeavour models have a diesel electric system for heating and hot water. Surely this is the way to go. LPG supplies ( for underslung tanks) are getting more sparse. Probably because forecourts know that removing an LPG filling point and replacing with an EV point is MUCH more profitable. Motorhome/campervan dealers won't tell you this. Put it this way! When was the last time anyone witnessed an LPG point being installed at a fuel station!!