On the first day of the show at the NEC we walked the halls looking for a good deal on a motor mover for the caravan. We had been thinking of getting one for a while. I'd seen how easy Mr Shag moves his caravan around and have been looking on longingly for quite some time.
Our drive is on a slight slope and the gap between walls to get it in is rather tight. It's a real team effort to get the van on and off the main road where we live, and in the last 12 months we've had two mishaps in doing so. The first resulted in me putting a deep scratch down the side of the van after loosing my footing pushing it back wearing flip flops, and the second rather unfortunate (if rather amusing) episode resulted in herself getting a nice juicy bruise on her forehead after losing her footing trying to push it back wearing flip flops!
Maybe we could have saved ourselves £000s and just ditched the flip flops???
Anyway, back to the NEC. After a few hours trudging around and haggling, we put down a deposit with the very nice people at the Powrtouch stand.
Within a week arrangements had been made for delivery, and their local fitter had been in touch to arrange fitting. On Friday morning the mover arrived, as promised, and sat in our living room until Sunday, the day of fitting.
Sunday morning dawned cold and windy (but at least it was dry), we manhandled the caravan out of it's parking spot in readiness for the fitter who arrived bang on 9.30am as promised. In no time at all the front end had been jacked up in the air and the rather expensive and heavy looking units were being clamped to the chassis.
What a nice man. Turns out he is living in the next village to us, and a fellow caravanner so he must be a decent bloke. Once the fitting was complete he gave me a full demo before handing me the control to have a go myself.
I was happy to play around with it in the open space, signed the paperwork, shook hands and killed time before attempting to get the caravan back through the very tight gap. I don't mind telling you that I was bricking it, but never the less, the van is now parked up (with the rollers disengaged and isolating switch turned off - see I did listen!!) without any major incidents occurring.
When we go away for Easter, Mr Shag and me are going to have a race around the site!! It'll be like Wacky Races.
I have to commend Powrtouch, the process have been smooth and painless all the way through with no hitches what so ever. Customer service and communications have been excellent from start to finish. It's a pleasure(and a refreshing change) to deal with a company these days that values it's customers.
And so to Paraphrase the ... ahem .... Great .... Max Boyce "And then I had a mover!"
I couldn't manage without a motor mover. Up until 10 tears ago I suppose my vans were around 6m long and narrower than today's. I could tow the caravan alongside my house, unhitch and pull it alongside the car. I had enough room to spin the van round and hitch up to go. When I first got a 7m shipping length I could only push the van out onto the road-Uphill and not getting younger. Road too narrow, van too long and too wide to tow out or in. We managed (with help) to get two holidays away and then had a motor mover fitted.
ReplyDeleteFirst time bringing the van in with the mover I nearly backed into the gate post. Thank god my neighbour shouted 'Whoa' !!
I'm a bit nervous with it. But returning from the Bank Holiday weekend away was stress free.
ReplyDeleteI now wonder how we managed for so long without one.