Closed - Auto trail Imala 734

there is an autotrail supplement in all this months MH magazines.....i binned mine, so cant give you much info other than from memory...

but as with all these things, check your weights before diving in...good luck.

BoleroBoy

Thanks for this Im going to the show and have a look it may be what we are looking for.

Bob the bodger

according to What Motorhome, the new imala will be 7.05m long.

the nearest in length in the current range is the 715 at 7.06m.

according to the AT weight calculator, the 715, with just its two occupants and their kit, will leave only 245kg of spare payload, and this is without ANY water on board at all and NO EXTRAS inclused, so at best 145kg with a full tank of water.

IMHO, this means the van is virtually unusable as a serious touring van, once you add bbq, bikes, wastemaster, hoses, leads etc, etc....not to mention the good stuff like wine....

so the 3650kg upgrade is virtually mandatory just to make the van 'work'....hence my comment about checking weights..

.i assume you have the licence to upgrade weights should this prove necessary (a virtual certainty)....

Not a bother, we dont intend to take the kitchen sink with us, we never travel with a full tank of water, and yes we can upgrade to 3650Kg should we feel the need...............

lol, i believe this van has a litchen sink as part of the std spec

seriously, it doesn't actually take much to rack up those kilos..

 

according to the AT weight calculator, the 715, with just its two occupants and their kit, will leave only 245kg of spare payload, and this is without ANY water on board at all and NO EXTRAS inclused, so at best 145kg with a full tank of water.

IMHO, this means the van is virtually unusable as a serious touring van, once you add bbq, bikes, wastemaster, hoses, leads etc, etc....not to mention the good stuff like wine....

so the 3650kg upgrade is virtually mandatory just to make the van 'work'....

 

So assuming you don't travel with ANY water at all, either in the fresh or waste tanks, maximum payload would be 395kg.  We don't travel with water in the waste tank, but always have the fresh water tank 25%-ish full.  That really is not sufficient payload even for us!   As you say BB, the kilos add up quickly once you add a few of the necessaries like wine and beer....

Seriously though, the issue of payload often is hidden, especially by an over eager salesman.

i know i do bang on about weights, but many folk think that, because a MH is based on a commercial vehicle, it must be able to 'carry the kitchen sink'....

yes, if there were nothing else inside it, this might be the case...but with loads of furniture and appliances (including said sink) the original payload soon gets eaten up.

we run on the Ducato 4250kg chassis and our 7.35m van has over a tonne of payload. however, try and work this van at 3500kg and its just not doable (without severe compromise to our equipment inventory)....

bob, above, has the appropriate license to upgrade the Imala should this be required, yet, some who run even larger vans than ours or his, and with larger rear overhangs, dont even consider that they could be overweight, and are happy to add even more weight in the most inappropriate place (a large towbar for example) on to a vehicle that is already virtually unworkable at 3500kg.

7.5m length and 3500kg MTPLM dont mix well, if at all....

Ina, the issue is now further 'masked' by a ruling that allows manufacturers to include (read 'omit') whatever they like from the the MIRO figure...

75kg for passenger, 50kg for their personal 'stuff', 100kg for water, 100kg for a few 'extras' (wind out awning, sat system, extra battery, solar panel etc, etc), 'essential kit' (hose, levelling blocks, ehu cable, toilet fluids etc, another 50kg....thats 375kg gone without even trying....none of these will be included these days...

to give an idea of how things mount up, the packs and 'extras' on our van weighed around 325kg....

The manufacturers are supplying vehicles that they must know are going to be overloaded by the end user. The customer on the other hand has no idea how much it all weighs and never thinks of a trip to a weigh bridge. On the odd times we have been on a CC Site I am always amazed at how much STUFF some of the MH's carry. Couple of electric bikes with batteries 50kg. 50kg nose weight for the car on the back + the substantial tow bar. Awnings, PEOPLE and PETS all add to the weight. So a proportion of the 3500KG vehicles on the road have to be over weight. Not surprising then that the Police are taking an interest and stoping MH's for weight checks.

Presumably this Amala 734 is to give folk a cheaper version of the Frontier Savannah ?  I had one of these, liked it very much, except for the large overhang, we found we used all of the load allowance even at 4250kg, mainly carrying stuff we hardly ever used (as you do). And at 7.6 metres we ended up towing our car so we could get parked anywhere. So we downsized to a V Line 600 PVC. Which meant i didnt need to keep my C1E license, was 70 in June. We miss the internal space, but not the bulk.

I entirely agree, 3500kg is unrealistic for family sized coachbuilts, asking for trouble.

Will chihauhua's now be the pet of choice for MHomers?