Planning a motorhome journey? Earlier than you permit, make certain your car is secure with these important motorhome checks.
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Important Motorhome Checks earlier than a Street journey
Should you’re a new motorhome proprietor, it may be formidable to know what it’s essential do earlier than every highway journey.Â
A lot as I’d like to, I can’t give a particular checklist of pre-trip and departure checks for each single doable car you is perhaps doing a highway journey in- not least as a result of I don’t know that a lot about autos!! 🙂Â
So this publish is a normal guidelines of issues I take a look at earlier than large Motorhome highway journeys. Whether or not you’re travelling by Motorhome, Campervan, caravan or automobile, the guidelines will likely be roughly comparable.
After all, in case you are hiring your motorhome, you received’t have to fret about it at this stage. HOWEVER, the data is price a fast learn by means of, in order that you understand what to search for while you choose the rent car up. For everybody else, let’s dive in.
Here’s a checklist of important issues we examine on our Motorhome earlier than our Street journeys:
- If the car hasn’t been began for some time, begin the engine and provides it a run, simply to make certain!
- BRAKES. Verify your brakes and brake fluid. Please. Halfords do a free brake examine and after our horrible expertise of driving down a mountain in Switzerland with none brakes, we examine ours repeatedly!
- Tyre tread. Our tyres are at the moment okay on our Motorhome- however we’re about to do a HUGE journey over 6 weeks (Helllllooooo, Norway) and so we’ve chosen to switch them earlier than we go. In case your tread could be very low and also you’re about to set off round Europe, take into account doing the identical. Should you’re going for a few weeks and your tread is okay, you need to be effective till you get again. Should you’re unsure, ask your native storage.
- IMPORTANT- motorhome accredited tyres are NOT the identical as regular automobile tyres, even when the sizes are the identical. On our first motorhome, we had three tyres break up on the seams as a result of customary automobile tyres had been placed on earlier than we purchased it… and we didn’t know sufficient to examine. If unsure, ask your storage to substantiate you could have the precise tyres fitted.
- Tyre Strain
- Windscreen. Verify for chips, cracks or different imperfections. You might be coated by insurance coverage in Europe, but when it cracks fully, it’s going to eat into your vacation time. Higher to get it sorted now and never have to fret about it.
- Lights. Ensure all of your lights, indicators and many others are working. It’s scary what number of motorhomes and caravans we’ve seen with indicators or brake lights which aren’t working accurately. Don’t give the European police a straightforward cause to effective you. (And people fines are on the spot!)
- Washer fluid
- Oil
- Water ranges in radiator when you have an older motorhome/ campervan.
- Adblue
- Battery- in case you are in any doubt in regards to the starter battery or home battery (or some other battery you might have), get it checked and substitute if vital
- Verify awning
- Verify hydraulic legs when you have them
- Ensure all inside lights work- substitute bulbs as vital and take into account carrying a pair for spares
- Verify batteries in smoke alarms and CO2 detectors- after our motorhome caught hearth we’re insistent on this stuff
- Change on inside electronics and guarantee all the pieces is working
- GB Sticker- be sure you have a sticker fastened to the rear of your car.
- Headlamp adjustments- as a result of the English drive on the opposite aspect of the highway to the remainder of Europe, our headlights level the fallacious approach. You have to connect headlight stickers with the intention to adjust to EU regulation.
Do your Important Motorhome upkeep BEFORE your vacation
One in every of my greatest motorhome suggestions for learners is: when you have jobs which you KNOW want doing, like a defective bathe/ rest room/ faucet, you will discover it a lot simpler to repair it within the UK than looking for elements in Europe. The hose sizes we use right here within the UK are usually not the identical as the remainder of Europe, and it’s quite a bit simpler to seek out your native motorhome/ caravan store and ask for what you want than it’s making an attempt to do it in signal language out of the country!
Having mentioned that, the Europeans love motorhomes/ caravans and there are retailers and suppliers in all places. Ought to the worst occur and it’s essential repair one thing urgently (like, say… you rip the faucet off your freshwater tank and lose all of your water!), then you may often discover one thing to assist repair the issue till you come back to the UK, even when it’s not the right resolution. So don’t fear an excessive amount of about damaging your car while abroad. (We’ll cowl insurance coverage on a day very quickly!)
Different issues to examine on a motorhome: Trailer or bike rack
If in case you have a trailer/ bike rack, be sure you give that some consideration too.
- Verify to make sure bolts haven’t labored unfastened on bike rack
- Verify towbar and all electrics
- Verify straps for fraying
- Verify tread on trailer tyres
- Grease wheel bearings in trailer
- Verify brakes if it’s a braked trailer
- Look over covers (we use covers on our motorbikes) to examine for rips/ holes/ injury
- MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A PROPER NUMBER PLATE and a GB sticker for trailer.
- Verify fixings on roof containers/ exterior baggage carriers to make sure they’re nonetheless correctly fitted.
ESSENTIAL MOTORHOME CHECKS- TASK LIST:
- Full your checklist of auto checks
- E book in any MOTs, tyre checks, battery checks and many others.
- Verify any trailers/ bike racks/ exterior baggage holders
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Final replace on 2025-03-15 / Affiliate hyperlinks / Photographs from Amazon Product Promoting API
