G'day, although being new to campers we are currently at the 20,000km mark of a 7 month off road adventure. Somehow, unbelievably, I have only just come across this fantastic forum now. I have a few queries, hope this is the right spot for them.
A quick background;
both my wife and I have been camping in various forms our whole lives but with 2 little ones now we decided a camper was finally in order. After months of research we finally decided on a Lifestyle Extenda Elite fitted with independent suspension, d035 hitch and 2nd water tank. Received camper in March 2015 and in July of same year we packed up and headed west.
Where have we been;
Longreach, Birdsville, Birdsville track, walkers crossing, innamincka area, strezlecki track, Oodnadatta track, Dalhousie, mr dare, finke, Alice springs, west macdonnels, Uluru, gunbarrel hwy, csr, ruddall river np, marble bar, the beaches and gorges of WA's Pilbara and coral coast, south west WA, beaches of Albany and Esperance region, Israelite bay and bilbunya dunes, eyre peninsula, SE of SA and now in northern Vic
How has the trailer performed;
In short, bloody fantastic. No major breakdowns or problems experienced however a few niggling annoying things where I thought our lifestyle might have performed better.
1. Failure of zips, both door zips and main top tarp zip. It seems the zips have just worn out however as per murphys law the top tarp zip expired halfway along the Csr! Door zips are virtually unusable at the moment except for one zip we are using now. Have looked after them as best as possible and sprayed with silicone regularly.
2. Dust ingress into main trailer tub via rear tailgate. An awful amount of dust came in through these seals and mainly at the corners where they appeared to be pinched. I always expected dust to some degree but there was up to 5mm on top of the kitchen after one days driving.
3. Water tank outlets constantly broken off from rocks etc. this has happened on 3 occasions now. I manufactured a stone guard for the rear tank outlet in Leigh Creek, the front I just keep replacing.
4. Virtually no paint/powder coat left on underside of trailer.
So, question is, for a trailer in this price range should I expect better by way of zips and dust ingress? It is on day 170 odd of continuous use. Points 3 and 4 are probably less of an issue and with regard to the water points I probably should of protected these prior to leaving.
Cheers
