Which Caravan

i have a abi st david 3 bedroom van placed at new milton it is 13 months old. it has had 9 weeks use. one of the mattress in the twin room has worn out to the strings.[all the top padding has worn away]we have made a complaint, as over the winter we had not been to it and dicovered this on our easter vist, 13 months after it was placed there. we have been told so far that the gaurentee is only 1 year and they can order another at our cost, we cant see that anyone would expect only 9 weeks wear from a mattress, also it has only been used by a child, please think about this when buying a caravan that it may cost you new mattresses very soon as abi dont want to know once they have got you money, 50.000 they have of my money,in cash, i now have a mattress i cant use which means i have to reduse the amout of foster children that i can take away with me now untill this has been sorted with abi..

I don't agree with their towing car / carava matching. The Swift Challenger 570 & 580 have the same MPTLM if 1595 kg, and are identical in all other aspects of weight and size. Yet they categorise the 570 at tow match band C and the 580 at D. They then rate Toyota RAVA 4 4WD Diesel which has a Kerbweight of aprox 1585kg a category D tow car, a band above it's rivals the Honda CRV and Nissan X-trai which are category C, and in the same category as Kia Soretno, Hyunai Santa Fe, Range Rover Frontera.I wouldn't like to tow a 1595kg caravan with 1585kg tow car.

I would like to see more reviews of older vans in Which Caravan. In the current ecomnomic climate many caravaners (and new commers to the hobby) will be buying second hand. Also more smaller vans and seconhand cars (smaller of course). Loking through old mags most of the vans can be towed by smaller cars. I have a 10 year old Skoda Octavia (kerb weight 1275kgs). When I bought the car I could tow at least 50% of the vans now it's only a hand full.