Stoney Creek Campers: any experience?

[fazza513]

Hi all,

We are in the starting stages of looking at a camper for our family of four. At the Melbourne Caravan, Camping, Touring show I stumbled across Stoney Creek Campers, and their soft floor walk through model seemed a good layout and offering for us.

Anybody out there with any experience of these? Good, bad, "meh"?

Selection criteria (so far): family of four; tight-ish budget; want easier setup / pack-down than our tent offers (suitable for a couple of nights away through to a week); no serious offroad cartage in mind yet, but want flex for some adventures or touring in the future; x2 boys getting tall.

Cheers, fazza

[Dicko1]

Hi all,

We are in the starting stages of looking at a camper for our family of four. At the Melbourne Caravan, Camping, Touring show I stumbled across Stoney Creek Campers, and their soft floor walk through model seemed a good layout and offering for us.

Anybody out there with any experience of these? Good, bad, "meh"?

Selection criteria (so far): family of four; tight-ish budget; want easier setup / pack-down than our tent offers (suitable for a couple of nights away through to a week); no serious offroad cartage in mind yet, but want flex for some adventures or touring in the future; x2 boys getting tall.

Cheers, fazza

I,ve had a few campers in my life and By far the best one to buy is secondhand!! A good second hand one will have modifications done and set up ready for decent camping. Any faults or warranty claims would have bee sorted. Too many chinese crap campers flooding the market now. There are some real horror stories of sevearl makes and their absolute disgusting treatment of customers. Check out gumtree in your local area and get to know which ones are Australian made. Look around and DONT RUSH IN. Its a buyers market. Get something with a good 12 volt system set up. Make sure you have a good look at the canvas for tears/rips or damage. You will save quite a few dollars and these can be put towards more accessories or holiday money!

[fazza513]

Great advice thanks Dicko!

[Trisome]

I,ve had a few campers in my life and By far the best one to buy is secondhand!! A good second hand one will have modifications done and set up ready for decent camping. Any faults or warranty claims would have bee sorted. Too many chinese crap campers flooding the market now. There are some real horror stories of sevearl makes and their absolute disgusting treatment of customers. Check out gumtree in your local area and get to know which ones are Australian made. Look around and DONT RUSH IN. Its a buyers market. Get something with a good 12 volt system set up. Make sure you have a good look at the canvas for tears/rips or damage. You will save quite a few dollars and these can be put towards more accessories or holiday money!

Arh Dicko, one of those chinese campers companies are in the final for the camper of the year.

Trisome

[Poita]

Arh Dicko, one of those chinese campers companies are in the final for the camper of the year.

Trisome

And just how long will it last? Just because it has the most features means squat.

I would rather Australian (repairable) canvas, fully seam welded, Australian steel and decent support than 1,000 funky features.

[dbdb]

I'm now on camper trailer number 3. First was a locally built one (near to Adelaide), including the canvas. The trailer quality was average at best, made from Chinese steel (later discovered) with wax converters canvas tent. Quality of workmanship and support was at best woeful.
Number two was from Modcon in Queensland, all Australian built and same with canvas. Great trailer, good support. Would still have it but our needs changed.
Number 3 is also from Modcon, their design, Chinese built, some Australian finish. Not quite as good as the local made one, but solidly built with little 'bling'. Support is good, issues have been addressed (and we had issues with the locally built number 2 also).

Short answer is that local does not necessarily = good, just as Chinese does not necessarily = bad. Do your homework, look past the shiny bits and try and look at the stuff that will matter in the long run.

[Peterng]

I have a second hand Australian local built camper, which was owned 7 years prior to me acquiring it 8 years ago.
Yes, the canvas has some stains, but still as solid as the day it was made, the trailer is made of gal and has dome some hard tracks.

I purchased it for a grand total of 5k...very very basic, but after a few mods (who doesn't do em) with internal and external lights, battery, etc the camper does the job.
The old girl was in a rain storm event near Swann Island, where we had overnight..120mm of rain and 50kph winds...I thought the whole bottom floor of the camper would be flooded...just a small cup full in one corner of the annex.

If you are on a tight budget and camp a couple of times a year in caravan parks...well, then the Chinese option may be the answer.
Just to make a short story long, I go to a few of the caravan shows...I've got to have my fix...anyway, I went to one on the Gold Coast 2015/6 that had very wet weather. I might add was a real bonus...for all the cheapie campers (There was a few) had many water / moisture leaking problems especially when the canvas came in contact with the structural poles and along the canvas connection seams. Plus on the internal side of the canvas they felt and smelt damp...so really, these cheapie campers have in some cases very light canvas. I counted about 10 of these cheapie campers with the same problem.
To me it was really a major downfall with these type of products...I like sleeping warm and dry.
If you look at the cheapie camper trailer design, generally, they seem to come out of one or two manufacturing plants, get shipped to Australia, put together and different decals put on them.

[Shopping Trolley]

Hi all,

We are in the starting stages of looking at a camper for our family of four. At the Melbourne Caravan, Camping, Touring show I stumbled across Stoney Creek Campers, and their soft floor walk through model seemed a good layout and offering for us.

Anybody out there with any experience of these? Good, bad, "meh"?

Selection criteria (so far): family of four; tight-ish budget; want easier setup / pack-down than our tent offers (suitable for a couple of nights away through to a week); no serious offroad cartage in mind yet, but want flex for some adventures or touring in the future; x2 boys getting tall.

Cheers, fazza

Make sure that you fully set up and pack down the camper trailer when looking at them. I have an old one that the wife and I can set up faster than the brother in law can set up a swag. Father in law's camper trailer takes so long to set up that he is now selling it.