Date: Tue, 26 Mar 1996 13:24:51 -0500
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@vanagon.com>
From: Dan Herbert <dan.herbert@utoronto.ca>
Subject: EV Winnebago - First Road Trip Report (longish)
Greetings Loafers, VGoons, EVers and all:
Just back from a freezing, windswept visit to South Carolina
(home is Toronto, Ontario, Canada). Thought I would report
back to the list as promised. No travelogue, just some
camper-type talk.
Scene Setting:
Three person trip - me, my wife, and our 11 year-old
daughter. We are all veterans, having travelled a lot in a
1979 camper and a 1988 waterboxer. This was our first trip
in the new 1995 5-speed EV Winnebago.
The vehicle is completely stock (i.e. Canadian stock -
includes 12,000 btu furnace) with the following exceptions:
2" receiver hitch, 80W/100W headlight bulbs (sshhhh!), and
paper towel holder(!). Prior to the trip, with 6269 km on
the clock, I changed the oil and the (prodigiously
expensive) oil filter.
We towed our homemade bicycle trailer with us, since the
vain hope for the trip was to get some early season mileage
into our legs. The trailer is a locked box on wheels, built
on a lightweight trailer chassis, and large enough for a
tandem and two single bikes. It hides reasonably well
behind the 'bago, and probably doesn't add much to the van's
workload.
The Trip:
We left Toronto at 5:00 a.m. on the 16th, headed through
Fort Erie/Buffalo down interstates to Greenville SC. We
also spent time in Aiken SC and Edisto Beach SC. The return
home was on 23 March.
Camper Observations:
Trip Distance was 3681 km (2280 mi approx).
Fuel used was 465.5 litres (122.5 U.S. gal approx, or 102.5
Imperial approx).
Consumption averaged 12.65 litres/100 km. This is
approximately equal to 18.6 mpUSg or 22 mi/Impgal. This is
very similar to the consumption numbers of our 1988. (The
1979 figures are lost in the mists of faulty memory). The
mountains of West Virginia and Virginia took their toll, as
usual.
Pros:
Driveability - excellent. Oblivious to wind buffeting.
Good roadholding (snow and icy roads on the way home).
Front wheel drive - excellent.
The engine. Lots of power and torque. 3300 rpm at 100 kph.
Don't listen to idiot reviewers who call it underpowered -
with careful breakin and the 5-speed box, the engine is a
treat.
Cruise control is fantastic - we typically set the cruise
for 100 kph (62 mph). The only places we had to downshift
from 5th to 4th were in the aforementioned mountains. (No
more anterior shin cramps - hurrah!).
The furnace is great - set the thermostat and forget it. It
simply cycles off and on all night. In freezing
temperatures, the top bed was nice and cozy.
The tent - the canvas is very waterproof - amply tested.
The side windows (beloved of old), are back and great.
The galley. Beautiful. There is now a stainless steel
cover over the burners which can function as a drainboard.
There is also a work surface beside the sink. The grey
water tank finally allows us to comply with the increasingly
common proscription on dumping grey water.
The fridge - big! 2 cubic feet.
The seats - very comfortable - easy to rotate and recline.
The LED control panel - push a rocker switch to check
propane level!
Storage space - we were initially sceptical that it would
work. It seemed that the designers had 2 retired persons
with no hobbies and good clothes (large hanging closet) in
mind. But with the aid of Rubbermaid boxes and some
creativity, we had lots of storage, and didn't encroach on
the giant open space between the rear bench and the front
seats.
Table system. For those who haven't seen it, the van has
two tables which clip into an extrusion the full length of
the galley unit. The folding leg is offset to one side.
Any location and permutation of setup is possible, from one
large (think bridge table) size, to game table in front of
rear bench (played a lot of gin rummy), to flanking tables
for the cook, during food preparation time.
Cons:
The beds are lamentably narrow. The thin cushions, decried
in this list before, are actually very comfortable.
Headroom in upper bunk. There isn't any! The top is held
up by gas struts, which seem to work well, for now. (They
will cost the earth to replace when they go.) But there
isn't enough room to get into the bed without crashing
repeatedly into the poptop. (And don't be snide - I had no
problem in the 1988 - and my sylph-like 11 year old
complained also.)
Lack of rear heating and cooling. In case anyone missed my
earlier complaints, there is NO provision for ducting
heating, demisting, or cooling to the rear. This is
unacceptable, particularly to a former waterboxer owner, the
rear heater of which could cook an egg.
LP gas fridge - although we used 'shoreline' hookups and ran
the fridge on 12v and 110v exclusively, I was unable to
light the sucker on propane. We'll get it fixed pronto.
Summary:
8 out of 10. Better than I expected. As we become used to
the different configuration, I think that we'll like it
better.
Daniel R. Herbert
dan.herbert@utoronto.ca
1995 EV-Winnebago
"Don't take life so seriously.
You aren't going to get out of it alive anyway."
Hanlon's Razor: "Never attribute to malice that
which is adequately explained by stupidity"