Weekend and Family Campers

Not what owners expect. The dramatic items get all the attention and the boring ones do all the damage.

On a bunkhouse fifth wheel, the top three are bunk structure, entry steps and the bathroom floor. Bunks carry loads they were not designed for once children become teenagers. Steps take every entry and exit for a whole family and step replacement runs $400 to $2,000. Bathroom floors go soft because a shower pan seal failed two seasons ago and nobody looked.

On a pop up camper, it is the lift system, the canvas and the roof seal in that order. Pop ups also suffer disproportionately from being put away wet, which is the single most expensive habit in family camping and produces mould, rot and a canvas replacement that could have been avoided by an afternoon in the driveway.

The one thing somebody broke is usually a door, a latch, an awning arm or a window. Awning fabric replacement runs $400 to $2,500 and arm and motor replacement $500 to $3,500. Compartment and baggage door repair runs $200 to $1,800. None of those are expensive if they are handled before the next thing depends on them.

Three buckets, and we will help you sort them honestly rather than selling you the whole sheet.

• Now. Anything structural, anything that lets water in, anything that carries weight over sleeping children, and anything on the running gear. Brakes, bearings, axles, tyres and the roof are not negotiable and they are also not usually the expensive items. Wheel bearing repack and hub service runs $250 to $1,200 and tyre work $250 to $1,500.
• Next season. Cosmetic body damage that is sealed, an appliance that works but poorly, cabinetry that is ugly but sound, flooring that is worn but dry. These genuinely wait, and telling you so is more useful than a quote.
• Never. On an older family trailer there is a point where a full interior remodel at $1,500 to $35,000 exceeds what the trailer is worth and what your family will get out of it. Somebody should say that out loud.

Every one of those figures is on the posted rate card, so you can check the arithmetic rather than trusting it.

By treating spring break, summer and the long weekends as fixed and everything else as available. Family campers cluster their trips into perhaps six windows a year, which means there are long stretches where the trailer sits doing nothing useful.

Use them. A trailer dropped in the last week of a term for work due in the first week of a holiday is a scheduling problem. The same trailer dropped in the middle of a term with an open date gets the parts ordered properly and costs less because nothing has to be expedited.

If you are booking against a specific trip, say the date at intake and say it accurately. We will tell you honestly whether it fits. A shop that says yes to every date is not being helpful, it is deferring the disappointment.

Quite a lot, and none of it costs anything except an afternoon.

Get on the roof twice a year, or get somebody to, and look at every seam and every penetration around vents, fans, the antenna and the air conditioner. Sealant that has cracked, lifted or gone chalky is the entire early warning system on a camper. A reseal is a few hundred dollars. What it prevents starts at $750 and does not stop.

Never put it away wet. Open it, dry it, and let the canvas or the interior air out before it goes back into storage. Check the tyre pressures cold before every trip and look at the wear pattern while you are down there, because uneven wear means an axle or a load problem that no amount of air will fix.

Cycle the awning, the slides and the jacks a couple of times between trips. Mechanisms that sit for months seize in position, and the first cycle of the season is where seals tear and motors give up.