Advice needed please.

[dogseal]

Hi to all,
Its been a while since I visited this forum, I've been looking for a S/H Romahome Dimension for nearly a year now..I think I may have found the perfect van within my price range.
It's an 04 model at Brownhills at Durham, the mileage is pretty low but the van has had 7 owners..Seems a lot!
Any practical advice on owning one of these vans would be appreciated. Or as the Romahome owners seem to be a tight knit community, is anyone familiar with this particular example? It was taken in PX 3 to 4 weeks ago.

Many thanks,

Tim

[Tentpeg]

Please be careful because Brownhills do not have a good reputation. Welcome by the way, I would go to a proper Romahome dealer or even private sales before I would go near Brownhills.... and yes to me that sounds like a hell of a lot of owners.

Welcome as a well by the way

[Ian.C.S]

Hi to all,
Its been a while since I visited this forum, I've been looking for a S/H Romahome Dimension for nearly a year now..I think I may have found the perfect van within my price range.
It's an 04 model at Brownhills at Durham, the mileage is pretty low but the van has had 7 owners..Seems a lot!
Any practical advice on owning one of these vans would be appreciated. Or as the Romahome owners seem to be a tight knit community, is anyone familiar with this particular example? It was taken in PX 3 to 4 weeks ago.

Many thanks,

Tim

It looks good,if the test drive is ok and its service history is ok, GO FOR IT!
good luck.
Ian

[Tentpeg]

Ian are you serious?????? This is from Brownhills and has had 7 owners????

Please check every bolt on this machine, please.

[Ian.C.S]

Ian are you serious?????? This is from Brownhills and has had 7 owners????

Please check every bolt on this machine, please.

Yes I am aware that it is at Brownhills. But I say again if it drives sweetley,and the service history is OK,the photos show no damage to the caravan,
SO,go for it!

I have 30 years of motor caravanning in quite a few types and you can put most things right,yes ask about the 7 owners of course,but the last was trading up to a bigger van.
That leaves 6 owners in 6 years, any fault that scares off that many people would be fairly obvious, either crash damage badly corrected or major caravan failure, if none of these are present then its just an exception to the norm, I had a dodge which had had a crowd of short term owners,me too,why?high insurance -it looked fabulous,but it broke the bank.
Go see it, crawl all over it, if you dont know vehicles take someone who does,drive it for a good way. see the caravan bits work.

it looks good.

[glenw]

7 owners in 7 years does seem a lot, but then we are onto our 3rd Motorhome in 3 years, 1 per year!!
I would be tempted to go see it and ask to see any paperwork that it has, it may well have been transferred within a family, ie owned by dad, sold to son, then sold to a dealer, sold on by them, kept for a year then traded in etc. It is easy to mount up the number of owners!! As Ian says, if it looks good, sounds good, runs good, service history is good, it may well be good. No idea about brownhills as dealers, they must do something right to be still in business I guess!

[wendy]

We bought our 04 Dimension from Brownhills about 6 years ago and cannot fault them. We had a problem with a leaking Heki rooflight and they were very good about arranging for us to have it fixed by our local motorhome dealer under the guarantee.

Our van was only 18 months old when we bought it and we were the 3rd owners so they do sometimes change hands quite a lot.

We love our van and certainly would not change it for something bigger.

[Graham]

We've got an 05 Dimension we bought from Freeborns and we love it, I think I am right in saying the beds in the 04 model are a bit of pain to make up. They changed them for the 05 model (ours) to be a lot easier but that is a minor thing which you can probably put up with.

Give it a good look over, ask to see the beds made up, definitely have a test drive and ask about service history, if all seems well then go with your gut instinct.

[dogseal]

Many thanks for everone's replies, a couple more questions if you dont mind.
How well are they insulated?
What is the fresh water capacity & do they have underlslung tanks?
What mpg can I expect?
How reliable are these Citroen based vans?
What are these vans like to work on, bearing in mind I prefer to do all my own maintainance?

We've owned our current van for nearly 7 years and it has done us well. The main reason we want to change it is that we need a separate washroom/ shower/ somewhere to keep wet walking gear. Plus we love the overall design of the Dimension.

Tim.

[Graham]

How well are they insulated?

The insulation is pretty good but you will need things like silver screen covers, electric heater (if you haven't got van heating), warm bedding etc. when camping in winter.

What is the fresh water capacity & do they have underlslung tanks?

The fresh water and waste tanks are under the van, I think the capacity is 100 litres fresh and 80 litres waste.

What mpg can I expect?

We get around 34 mpg on a run and around 26-28 mpg around town.

How reliable are these Citroen based vans?

We've had ours for 6 years and not had any major problems, they are designed to be workhorses so very reliable.

What are these vans like to work on, bearing in mind I prefer to do all my own maintainance?

I can't help you with that one, I wouldn't have a clue, we take our to Ant at Avon Motor Caravans and he does it all for us.

The separate wash room is great, that is the main reason we wanted one, plus there are four front facing seats with belts so our grandchildren to come with us.

Good luck.

[peterholden]

Citroen Reliability

We have had our Berlingo car for 10 years with very few problems and it is now up to 140000.

Our current Romahome is just coming up to 4 years old and 40000 miles no problems.

The Dimension is based on a commercial vehicle which by its nature is designed to be overloaded, thrashed and cover a high mileage. A motorhome although permanently loaded is never near the kind of loading that white van man puts them to. Most people do not thrash their own vehicles.

The only downside is that the paint treatment is not always the best because the manufacturer expects them to clap out before they rust away. As with any vehicle inspect for rust and when you get it home protect it as best you can - polish and underbody wax etc.

Just look how many C15 based Romahomes are still going and that was not very well proteced against rust by Citroen

[Tentpeg]

The thing is about Brownhills is that they have folded before but I believe they were bought out a couple times by the management and sort of sprang to life again.

With any motorhome if there are no problems, or only minor probs with the vehicle you are fine generally BUT if a real problem arises then you find out whether you have a good dealership or not. It maybe now it has reformed. If you are mechanically minded that is not such a problem......

[gadgetman]

Usually when someone runs down an establishment they have had an unpleasant dealing with them, others have nothing but praise for them, as we see here, go by your own gut instinct, my first buy was a twenty year old C15 very good condition, ran well, perfect buy, sold it PX for a larger van and received the same as I purchased it for.
If it seems all OK, and you are happy, go for it

[loneranger]

Hi to all,
Its been a while since I visited this forum, I've been looking for a S/H Romahome Dimension for nearly a year now..I think I may have found the perfect van within my price range.
It's an 04 model at Brownhills at Durham, the mileage is pretty low but the van has had 7 owners..Seems a lot!
Any practical advice on owning one of these vans would be appreciated. Or as the Romahome owners seem to be a tight knit community, is anyone familiar with this particular example? It was taken in PX 3 to 4 weeks ago.

Many thanks,

Tim

Hi Dogseal i see your post on this forum i have read this and its seems alot of owner i think i would be a bit worried as its only 7 years old thats a new owner for every year of its life seems strange if its also has low mileage i would be careful any way good luck and hope all goes well LR

[Ian.C.S]

Hi Dogseal i see your post on this forum i have read this and its seems alot of owner i think i would be a bit worried as its only 7 years old thats a new owner for every year of its life seems strange if its also has low mileage i would be careful any way good luck and hope all goes well LR

if you read the previous posts you will see it is not excessive for that vehicle.