Hi all, great to have found this forum - it has already answered a number of questions that confounded our two local dealers (auxilliary heaters....) so thanks for being here!
We have been looking at vans for months, thought we had settled on the MP but have to have 5 seats for daily use, and for cold weekends sitting in sailing club car parks while the kids train, but still want to be able to use it for longer UK/Europe events where we'll use it to camp with tents - realistically we think we'll be about 90/10%, but it seems as though the 5th seat makes using it as a camper much more problematic.
We both much prefer the MP offering over the VW, so turned our attention to the Horizon which on the face of it fits our bill perfectly - we've found an established removable Pod manufacturer who is keen to get his hands on it to adapt their existing VW based systems to the Merc rail systems so providing cooking / water flexibility for when we need it, but without being able to see a Horizon in the flesh, the brochure seems overtly complicated, and our local dealers do not inspire confidence in their knowledge.. :/
Our main issue is the electrics - it appears to have the auxiliary battery system included, but our dealer assures us that there is no option to have an external hook-up specified. Can anyone confirm this, and/or has anyone had any experience with aftermarket adding a hook up to a merc? Can't imagine that the warranty gnomes will be overly happy with the idea, but it seems to us to be a fairly major failing for use a camper.
Any help / advice gratefully received
We have been looking at vans for months, thought we had settled on the MP but have to have 5 seats for daily use, and for cold weekends sitting in sailing club car parks while the kids train, but still want to be able to use it for longer UK/Europe events where we'll use it to camp with tents - realistically we think we'll be about 90/10%, but it seems as though the 5th seat makes using it as a camper much more problematic.
We both much prefer the MP offering over the VW, so turned our attention to the Horizon which on the face of it fits our bill perfectly - we've found an established removable Pod manufacturer who is keen to get his hands on it to adapt their existing VW based systems to the Merc rail systems so providing cooking / water flexibility for when we need it, but without being able to see a Horizon in the flesh, the brochure seems overtly complicated, and our local dealers do not inspire confidence in their knowledge.. :/
Our main issue is the electrics - it appears to have the auxiliary battery system included, but our dealer assures us that there is no option to have an external hook-up specified. Can anyone confirm this, and/or has anyone had any experience with aftermarket adding a hook up to a merc? Can't imagine that the warranty gnomes will be overly happy with the idea, but it seems to us to be a fairly major failing for use a camper.
Any help / advice gratefully received