Honest wrap-up of our Zone van after our Lap of Australia. What broke? Would we buy it again? Ep54 

Thanks again and I’ve added a long reply to the comment on the pack and consumer guarantee because its a really good topic IMO. cheers

Thanks again for watching and another great comment on the views on water and how much you carry. It’s a whole extra topic isn’t it about what you need vs what you’d like etc? people will have quite varied approaches to how they want to use their vans. In our view, If weight and fuel economy were not an issue then you’d always carry as much water as you can. For sure. I suppose for many people - us included -is they are watching weights, they might not be able to afford the best new truck etc in every case or they might be managing the ongoing costs like fuel. And American truck isn’t an option for us due to access for where we live at home in any case. One of the take away for us in our wash up was we’d like to go a bit smaller / narrower not larger. In our case we always operated around 300kg below GCM, but also had to manage the rear axle capacity of our Defender once it was set up and loaded and hitched we were within 20kg of GVM And we also got better and better at managing water and knowing our usage. So we took the view in the vid that just because we had 270 litres capacity, if we were confident where the next water was we didn’t need to carry more water than we had to. Hence 1-2 tanks normally and filled the third if we were going into less well known or longer off grid options. We knew we’re going to get cut off for a while in the GRR/Kimberley as an example. We kept filled up for the first half of the GRR but as the road opened we also knew that getting water was easy. Very easy. So we dragged less with us. People will always have to make their best judgement for themselves and the risk balance for their own risk tolerance, which compliance and safety aside the thoughts we share are how we operated, but we know others will set up differently and that’s great. One thing is for sure - there is no use buying extra water capacity if you are overweight when you fill to capacity and there is limited use having 270 litres of fresh water if you have to be self contained with great water while off grid. And no question if you got trapped for a while and had to compromise and release some grey water you would (but we’d urge people to be considerate where and how they do that to protect eco systems or where people are going to camp etc - but beyond that if your trapped for a bit you’d compromise) Another great topic and it really could be a whole new video - but we won’t as we touch on it here and in a couple of other places in the series. We’d leave anybody else wit the thought that you should set up your van as you intend and expect to use it - not just max on everything. If you don’t like spending 2 weeks completely off grid you might never need extra solar and and extra water. If you don’t want to do Gibb River Road or the Cape or the Oodnadatta track you might not need the top level off road suspension systems. None of those things are necessary if that’s not how you swing. If you do go very remote, if you are into sitting by a very remote river for 3 weeks at a time and dropping a line in then yes you need more water and higher levels of of solar and battery and the more of all that and the bigger the van the more you you need a bigger and upgraded tow tug etc and that means more expense and wider access and firmer sand access etc. It’s a great comment and if anybody else is following and had a view on this topic please let us know. Thanks again.

Yes everyone attacks the setup in different ways. We carry a couple of water bladders (160L) as well. Our tanks only hold a bit over 200 L so hence the extra capacity. You can make power but water is the limiting factor when off grid. Yes American trucks are big and bulky (and not cheap but when you look at setting up a new landcruiser or a chopped cruiser they are in similar price bandings) we are luck enough to have space to put it up to the driveway. Great information. Love the quality of your videos.

@@jorobson1cheers. And yes a portable bladder is a good idea. All the best.

Thanks for watching and the kind comment. We love sharing and TBH it’s a bit hard settling. Take care also. cheers

Thank you for being so kind and glad it’s helped with some tips. We’ve learned heaps from so many other vanners along the way. We will get back on the road at some stage in some form, no doubt - just have to work out what that looks like. Thanks again and stay safe.

Thanks for watching and taking the time to comment. You raise an interesting point and while I agree with your general comment, the case of the jack probably highlights some of the grey area that people might weigh up. It’s worth noting up front we’ve had a great response from Zone overall and even then some people have a different view to us on where the line gets drawn between what Zone builds and warrants and what happens in the case of third party components. I think this is a general issues across the industry. But that aside we’ve been very happy with Zones response to our requests. But let’s look at the example of the jack and how that might compare with other items. Firstly and most importantly everybody should be aware of their consumer rights and expect to their manufacturer to comply and consumers also have to be reasonable also. The consumer guarantee requires goods to be fit for purpose and durable and that can sometimes go well beyond manufacturers warranties . It is also true we’ve seen too many cases in the motor and van industry of suppliers trying to dodge their responsibility and the law. The fit for purpose rules are important. So take an easy case. A van builder guarantees their chassis and the body for say 2 years and at 3 years there is a major split or failure. The manufacturer says sorry but it’s outside warranty. In this case, unless the van builder can demonstrate the van was used improperly (for example taking a touring van off road ) the consumer would reasonably expect the chassis should for normal use, last much longer and they’d be right. In that case unless they can convince a manufacturer to meet their obligations, they would need to go to a tribunal to get a ruling. But before that they probably have to pay a lawyer to draft a formal letter and seek to get a better response. And regrettably some dodgy companies do just say no to see how long it is before the consumer gives up. For a catastrophic failure of that nature it is worth it for the consumer to pursue their rights. BUT everybody needs to make sure they understand the full law. Let’s say the failure occurs after 5 years. Is that a reasonable time and duration? The law isn’t clear here and “reasonable” takes on some more subjective considerations. In this case a tribunal would consider various factors including relative cost of the good etc. In this case an inexpensive van (they’re all expensive but you know what i mean) would not be expected to last as long an expensive van where the marketing emphasised toughness and going everywhere etc). So, in the case of our jack we didn’t even contest the durability. While we would have liked the van - which are very happy with overall - to have had a better jack in the first place, it was clearly a crappy jack of limited materials and build. Yes it would be nice if it lasted longer as many have, but it was a cheap and nasty jack on an otherwise expansive van. In the Base it was how they kept costs down in an otherwise good off road van package. In this case the options are clear. You might argue they should have put a better jack on it (true) but they didn’t and you can’t expect them warrant a cheap jack in the same way as an expensive one. So you can’t really ask somebody who fits a less expensive and less durable fitting to ensure it performs like a more expensive and hardier one. It still has to be safe though and still do a reasonable job - but only to the level of its general build and cost. Going to a tribunal wouldn’t guarantee getting a better result in that case and there is a cost of pursuing a consumer claim properly. Which would have likely exceed the cost if the jack. Zone wouldn’t replace it free but they would sell an equivalent cheap one noting they were no longer fitting that type in their vans and they recommended the Blackjack. The problem with any expensive manufactured good is that they also comprise a range of third party components and people understandably get annoyed if they have to deal with a run of breakages. So we were in Kununurra, we couldn’t get a new jack of any type at least until Katherine. We could have replaced a jack we didn’t really like with one at the same cost plus postage or buy a better one. TBH even if we wanted to fight the fact even the cheap jack should be replaced under the consumer guarantee - we’d have been cutting off our nose to spite our face. We don’t like the jack. This would be completely different if, say, just out if warranty we defended the cracks in those couple of sections of composite cabinetry had the manufacturer declined to make good. In that case the material is a big issue - it’s a key part of why the manufacturer says the items are lighter and stronger and you would expect the durability to be much longer AND you pay a lot for it. As you saw in this vid, we don’t like the jack and we don’t like some things like the drawer and door catches. But overall we love the van and we had no issues with Zones making good of the couple of issues we had. We could have pursued warranty for the broken gas flameout mechanism in the stove but we would have had to follow that up with Thetford and likely taken it to another place on different times for assessment and repair. In that case Coolum RV found the issue and repaired it for us and the cost was reasonable and much more convenient for us to pay and get it fixed than pursue the warranty in that case. So it really is an interesting issue - thanks for raising it - and we’d urge anybody to be reasonable in their approach with a manufacturer in pursuing their consumer rights and expect the manufacturer to be reasonable in return. The only BUT here is people should read all of the consumer law together and if it is a major issue and you aren’t getting a good response it might then pay to get a good consumer lawyer to assist also. There is some really good case law out there including cars and vans now but don’t confuse the general obligation for manufacturers and sellers to make good on items and repairs with the fact that there are some grey areas around what “reasonable” durability etc means , you can’t expect a cheap item to perform like a specialist build expensive item, some consumable events or components aren’t expected to last as the rest of the car or van. The other area that gets messy is around modifications which some manufacturers try to use to get out of their obligations and in that case the mod had to be related to the breakage and the onus is on the manufacturer to demonstrate the mod caused the issue and in that case you might have a claim from the modification supplier. If anybody has views on this let me know because we did hear of any number of issues people had with both cars and cans during our travels and the different responses they got. Great comment and thanks again -

Thanks for your longstanding support and for the comment. We try to keep it real and we get it that people make different decisions based on their own preferences and considerations. While it was clearly a wrap up of our Zone, we tried to keep the thoughts broadly based in case that also helped others with their own thoughts and decisions beyond Zone vans. So glad you enjoyed it. Thanks and safe travels.

We’re so envious!! 😉. We’ve enjoyed the shares and all the people we met. We spent a couple of weeks at Geraldton 😢 Enjoy. If you haven’t done so already, drop by the HMAS Sydney memorial and when you get to Denham watch the 3D doco at the Visitor Centre. It’s a very sad story but very historical. Travel safely and thanks again.

Hi - Thanks for watching and how exciting! I hope you have a wonderful time in your new van. Thanks for the feedback. One doona cover is no longer in production sorry. Paula got it from Bed, Bath and Table the year before we picked our van up ( so 2021). It’s fun and bright and we get a few comments about it. Good luck with your new rig. Safe travels.

Paula found the pattern - it’s Scion by Harlequin (if that helps)

Thanks for watching. That’s great if it’s helped a bit. We don’t mind throwing it out there and if it helps that’s brilliant if not m, no problem. We’ve been pleased by our Base despite a couple of minor easily fixed items (in the end). How is your Base going?

Absolutely love our Base 17. We’ve now got the same coffee machine and sink bag! We’ve done a couple of weekend trips to work out how things work. We were so overwhelmed at first and after watching your videos along with Graham Belby’s and The Lifestyle Pioneers feel much more confident with what this and that do etc. We noticed the smiles on your faces in that last video and we feel the same - excited about whatever future travels lie ahead. I’m not yet grey but am looking forward to my future nomadic lifestyle. Just waiting for an Everest to arrive and we’ll weigh our rig fully loaded and then start travelling.

@@AbbynDoogs Good on you guys. How exciting. And you will love it and be absolutely great because you’ve thought about it and covered of the main stuff and the rest will just fall into place. We know you will have a ball.

Thank you. We will miss lots about the travel, especially all the people we met. We’ve loved sharing and learned heaps from many along the way as well. Safe travels and thank you so much. ❤️🙏

Hi. Should be in a week or two. I’m waiting for an update on some parts and that will help with the bottom line of the wrap up. Good luck with your new 300 and the upgrades. People have to decide what’s best for them and we’ve never bought into the car brand tribal stuff. I’m not so sure on resale values. The 300 wasnt available when we bought and the 200 was out of production. Toyota was refunding thousands of buyers for orders they couldn’t fulfil. There’s going to be some interesting impacts given the new fuel and vehicle emissions requirements on its way so be interesting to see how Toyota, Ford and Nissan react. Safe travels and thanks again for watching and taking the time to comment. See you when the Defender wrap up is released

Thanks Rob and Alana. Trust you are well. Safe travels and enjoy your Zone. cheers

Thank you. Should have seen the first edit! 😉😂 Glad you liked it and really appreciate the feedback. Safe travels. cheers

Thank you as always for watching the kind comment. All the best.

Hi. Thanks for watching and great to hear it’s working well for you and yes they are good stable tows. When you upgraded the car did you do a GCM/ axle upgrade or just wheels and airbags. We run at 6400kg fully loaded and a bit under if we only fill one tank of water. In our case the airbags were standard on the car so the two rigs are within the same ballpark. Thanks again and safe travels.

@@nextleveloz thanks for reply. No we avoided gvm upgrade as best we can. On tow we run rear car bags at 40psi, rear tyres at same pressure and front at 35psi. Keep in mind we are travelling with less than 50kg in the car, method wheels and Mickey Thompson tyres. We now have a roofrack which will carry lighting, maxtrax and an awning. We have no bullbar. Having had a launch for many years we learned about weights. Eg: we love coffee in the morning so bought the smallest breville mini at a third of the weight of the bells and whistles model. No inbuilt grinder. Every item for the van was purchase with weight in mind. We’ve just completed a 3000k trip with 16lt diesel per 100k. We prefer to shop locally when travelling rather than loading up supplies. The additional cost of doing this helps save with fuel economy. Manage the 270 kg on board water in an “on demand” way. Coastal travel in Eastern states doesn’t need to be with full water tanks. Each to their own I guess. Safe travels

@@brianhood9779 Thanks Brian and safe travels.

No worries. Taking notes? 😉❤️. Wow! Glad our travels might have promoted some thoughts and options for you guys to consider. Thanks so much for watching and the lovely comment. cheers Paula and David

You are so welcome! Thanks for watching. All the best.

Thank you kindly! Doing the set piece, review type vids isn’t our fave, but the viewers do seem to enjoy them, so we try to keep it balanced and flowing even though you have to cover a lot. Appreciate you watching and the comment 🙏🙏. All the best.

Thanks for watching. Gear, van and car reviews aren’t our favourite shares but hopefully it’s of interest to anybody choosing, planning or just into it all. All the best.

Thank you for the feedback and for watching. Glad you are enjoying your van and hope it takes you on many adventures.

Thanks for watching and the kind comment. I how the Peregrine gives you many great adventures. It’s an interesting question what to do next. Yes there is much to option of keeping the van and continuing to go where it takes us. As we said in the vid we’ve also come to want to get a bit further into some tighter places so it’s a toss up - if indeed the ideal van ever exists.🤷. As you say reliable and comfortable has much going for it. Thanks again for the thoughts.

Thanks Peter. We certainly tried to be mindful that many others have different brand vans so hopefully there was something in there that helps a wider group. Grey water isn’t prohibitive everywhere and a lot of places still allow it to be directed to the ground. But more and more places asking for 100% self contained. So worth thinking about.

Now live

Thanks so much. We’ve been practising 😉🙏. How exciting that you are about to pick up the new van. I’m sure you will have some amazing adventures. All the best. Paula and David

​@@nextleveloz0:18

@@petermarlow3171 ??

Thanks for watching. Yes we’ve been very happy and the thought process is now about what’s around that helps us get into even tighter places without losing comfort and amenity. If you don’t mind - what did you get? All the best.

@@nextlevelozWhilst it didn’t tick all the boxes for us, it ticked the most - Mountain Trail LXV 5.7.

@@Tiderock Thanks for sharing. Good looking van. We’ve liked the look of them as we’ve got around but must confess to only knowing as much as the marketing stuff.

Thanks as always for following along and the lovely comments. The feet haven’t stopped itching since we got back 😉 All the best and thanks again.

Thanks. Yes they are by all reports very good vans. They were on our original list but at the time they couldn’t show us any. The dual axle variants might come back onto what we think is a very narrow list of options for our needs.

Do you know if they have a composting toilet option? We aren’t too thrilled about black water management.

Yes they do and are dust tested like Zone. I have toured both facilities and they are very common with after sales and services. We have a Quantum and have looked at the expedition. They are at Caloundra. Phone for a tour.

Thanks for the question / suggestion. We will touch on it noting the wrap up won’t be a comparison but rather straight up on how the defender went and our thoughts. The 300 wasn’t available and had a long waiting list when we bought and the 200 was out of production and prices being asked for many with dubious histories wasn’t ideal. So it wasn’t tribal, timing had a lot to do with it and TBH we did love the Defender and how it drove. It had to be a cross over car between a good touring option and a good town car as well. We did test a couple of others. The only other real option for us was the Y62. It’s a bit dated etc but it’s also petrol and that wasn’t ideal for our thought process. but yes we will touch on it. See you then. 🤣

Thanks for the detailed reply

Hi, thanks for watching and the suggestion. Had a quick look. Good little layout. Is that what you have - looks like it's got all the essentials for many people for sure. You see a few Titaniums around don't you. Out of interest what are the weights for that van fully loaded? I'm always curious how people like to travel and what works for them and their ring combos because it can be quite varied. No issue with the brand or models, we know there are a few good ones out there. But perhaps to explain our considerations in a bit more detail for you and anybody else reading the comments. That model is the same width as ours (it needs to be in that case because it's an east west bed) and that's one of the considerations for us. If we were to con sider alternatives for us it would need to be a bit narrower and also dual axle for us, for a number of reasons including stability and sharing payload over multiple axles. Noting everything has gone up since we bought ours, its starting price is $118k for less water, coil not airbag suspension and half the power and solar we have. So that's the challenge, for the changeover price it doesn't offer what we already have and while a bit shorter on single axle its the same width. We didn't have time in the vid to go through everything we'd ideally like, because it was really a wrap up on how our BASE went but ideally for us its specced to our current spec for all the off grid things you need, its has hardy, ideally composite construction, no heavier but ideally a bit lighter on the ball, a bit narrower, dual axle and ideally hard top not hybrid. As you can see it's why we said we weren't sure the ideal van for us was readily available noting we love our BASE and it's done well by us. So we think there are a few potential options for us to look at and we will knowing, if we kept our current Zone, it is a very good option and has done us exceptionally well. Thanks again for the suggestion - I certainly went and had a look. Safe travels and enjoy your time in your Titanium.

I should add, the Zone BASE Road configured as ours is is somewhere roughly between the Titanium Hardcore (coil suspension and 200ah bty 600 w solar and 245l water) and Hardcore ATX (Airbags like ours but the stronger ATX suspension, same battery, slightly more solar). So no issue with a number of other well known off road brands, but there is a big changeover price for marginal improvements if not same spec. That's our dilemma we actually want same or higher spec in equally tough or tougher package even tighter into a slighter narrower package to go that little bit further. So, we are not brand tribal (we do love our Zone) , we just have a very narrow range of considerations to determine if we would invest in a new van over our current van (and we aren't influencers - so we don't get the discounts as part of the sponsorship deals that some get. Good luck to those who do but we pay like just about everybody else does).

Thanks for replying. We don’t have the Titanium atm, just looking to upgrade our current van as we now know what we want and didn’t really when we first started😊 Your van is great. There are new models coming out all the time but yes, prices are rising as we want and add more “essentials” to our vans. Perhaps just keep what you have-if all the issues are fixed then it’s better than new!😊😊😊😊😊

Yes. It's not a bad default in our case. And yes absolutely many people go through that process of discovering what they like and want. Good luck with your considerations and safe travels. Really appreciate the thought. cheer

We take due cautions everywhere and yes there are some particular areas worth taking extra care. But with prudent precautions, we felt very safe across our trip. Thanks the for the share and it’s a useful experience. Many people tend to stay out of Halls Creek and Fitzroy Crossing . All the best/

Hi. It’s a fair question. There are obvious upsides of generators of course but in our view more downsides - weight (20-30kg for one rated ideally for a generator draw etc) plus carrying an additional fuel. No question when the temp is at 38 degrees in a place like Palm Valley - as we faced - it would be nice - except in many National Park campgrounds they aren’t allowed (including Palm Valley). Lots of other places they are restricted especially at night so if you want to run an A/C at night for an extended period you’d need extra battery capacity anyway. Yes at free camps and away from others it might be useful but if anybody else is nearby it can be very irritating for them. So you have to hope the poor weather also coincides with locations you can use them. Where generators are useful are to top up batteries in poor solar conditions if you are a long time off grid and not driving. When we were stuck at Mt Hart on the Gibb for example - but even then we don’t run out of power and we don’t need the AC then. And while many generator owners are responsible, quite a few aren’t and it can be very annoying. So overall we feel that we’d rather not carry an extra 20-30kg for the small handful of days you wish you had one. So we had enough solar and battery capacity for how we used the van and our figuring was of it got too extreme we’d head to somewhere and pay to plug in. The cost of a decent generator is 12-15 nights at most van parks / road houses. If you don’t have to manage weight and space / payload then it might not be an issue to carry a generator and not use it for all but a handful of days. If you need a generator more often than not it likely reflects your van power set up isn’t matched to your usage. It might be that the value proposition of upgrading the power setup is offset by the lower cost of a generator and its weight, which is fair enough. In our case we never ran out of power and on the 10 days max where we had either extreme heat or we were stuck off grid with reducing power we coped and / or headed to a van park. Hope that helps how we thought about. Thanks again for a good question. cheers

Many thanks for the detailed response. I am looking at buying a Zone and looking at the costs of the various upgrades. That helps a lot. Thanks again.

Worth noting that the new Zone vans are gasless (they have provision for an LPG bottle for BBQ) and use induction. So you probably do need at least 600AH battery for the new vans with max solar. So that's one difference between our options and the new options. Good news is they are now installing the Redarc 100 rather than the Redarc 30 system.

Hello again David. I have still not placed an order because I am struggling to understand what the final ball weight of the loaded 19 ft Van might be compared to the Tare weight which is between 180kg and 220kg. As a guide I thought you might know your tare and loaded ball weights (I know you have a different van). If you do that would be an indicative help to me. My Discovery 4 after several weighing sessions this week (and stripping out the 150kg and gear I have been carrying around) appears to have a practical limit of 300kg ball weight.

@@michaeldallimore8590 Yes. And as a rule of thumb I’ve generally said that once you get a ball weight of over 300kg on the Defender - especially the 5 seater, you are starting to get into the risk of being overweight on the rear axle. We run around 290-300kg on ours loaded, full water tanks etc. And to give me more margin i rarely travel with three full water tanks. So our van works with our car, but as i’ve pointed out took the heavier platform rack off and temporarily removed the third row seats to give me room to carry recovery gear and a fridge with a few bita and pieces in the car. So Gen 1 zone vans are doable with the Defender with juggling and weight distribution and keeping loaded ball weight to 300kg ish. I might add by the time you put a front bar on, as i have you get close to GVM anyway. So our rig is well under GCM, I can easily move some gear out of the car if i need to. BUT if your ball weight is is 6-10% of your loaded van weight as it needs to be for stability, you can never really use the full payload of a 3.5t van and keep ball weight at or under 300kg. While our rig works, it gets better with the Zone gen2 van because the unloaded ball weight (for tare) is lower than the gen 2 vans. The position of the axles for the 19’ is better for ball weight than the 18.6’ and they’ve changed the weight of the tool box and some other things. So the the vans are actually borderline too light on the nose unladen. So they are designed to load a bit more forward now (Id argue they have better accounted for loading). So if you car (any car) is suited to 300kg rather than 350 kg the gen 2 zones are slightly better for you. But let’s not leave any doubt or fudging. Jump onto the Zone Pergrine and Sojourn Owners forum on facebook and ask people to let you know what tow ball weights they have officially weighed in at when fully loaded in the Peregrine. That’s even better than trying to guesstimate. Hope that helps.

AOR are a very good product. We took them off our shortlist last time because they couldn’t show us a van. There are some things we like about them and a couple of things not so much. So we will take some time now to go on a very narrow search of potential options - at least we don’t have to start the process all over again and we have a very good option to keep our current rig for the time being because we’ve enjoyed it and know it. Thanks for watching and the thought.

I should add though, the Synergy does tick a couple of our considerations. Dual axle hard top rather than hybrid etc. So as we re-engage our brains it might well be one of the few we would consider the value of for the changeover cost noting we have an excellent option to stay with our Zone if we can't tick most of the boxes we would want in order to change (and we aren't professional influencers, so we pay the market price like just about everybody else).