Camper Trailer

[Tonks]

Just saw a Skamper Kamper off road camper trailer on some ones front lawn for sale,

Looked pretty good on the eye but have never heard of them before,

Any feed back, good or no good.

Cheers,

Tonks

[threedogs]

Never heard of them , maybe google for more info, what state

[Tonks]

I saw it in the ACT

[MudRunnerTD]

Never heard of them either mate. Did you take any pics? Climb under it. That's where the truth lay.

[Cuppa]

Here you go (http://skamper.com.au)

And here (http://ozcampingtrailers.com.au)

[Steve4wdin]

They are to the best of my knowledge a chinese import asembled in Penrith NSW. Buyer beware

[Tonks]

Thanks for the info guys

[mudski]

They are to the best of my knowledge a chinese import asembled in Penrith NSW. Buyer beware
Something I have learnt of the last few years. Not everything that comes from China is crap. These a lot of crap made in Australia too. But like everything, do your research. I'll go put on my flame proof suit now.

[Steve4wdin]

Something I have learnt of the last few years. Not everything that comes from China is crap. These a lot of crap made in Australia too. But like everything, do your research. I'll go put on my flame proof suit now.

No need for flame proof suit, I 100% agree. End of the day ,"YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR" no matter where it's manufactured.
Steve

[Bigrig]

Hard for me to comment in an unbiased fashion, however, I'll keep it straight forward.

Through the last 14 or so months I've learnt that most trailers sold in Australia are in fact made in China - very few (small %) are truly made here. Most will use terms like "Australian built" to give a perception that they're a quality Aussie unit, but are flat pack delivered from China and assembled here. Most of that once again is both recycled steel, inferior quality steel (smelted by the same factory in certain circumstances) and more often than not, smaller gauge steel - that is, just say you can meet the VSB standards etc with 2mm steel, then that is all it has ... The strength difference between 2mm and 2.3mm (whilst a tiny increase) is actually fairly substantial, and so on if its 2.6mm etc. there is usually a balance between the how thick to go (with decent metal) and how much weight is permissible on the trailer - that's where bracing and support come into play. The cheap trailers will use thin metal of whatever quality which presents the first problem of welding - harder to weld, and more likely to break a weld. Secondly, they will brace the trailer frame (with the same metal) to give an appearance of structural strength - same problem, welds break, bracing too light to have long term benefit of structural support. With many also, the drawbar and chassis are separate, and again welded together ... Ok if good quality mild steel, not so great if not.

The other thing as heaps have found, is when things do go kaputsky (Russian for stuffed!! lol), the so called warranty is actually a bloke at the yard who's employed as a welder to fix it, or a "leave it with us" response and whilst they have it, they try to book it into the cheapest and nearest paint and panel joint ... who both usually adopt a practice of more welding stick = repaired!

The last thing is balance - a lighter unbalanced trailer will give a lot more car movement on the tow ball than a far heavier balanced one - sounds like a crock, but head over to my joint this weekend and I'll prove it. I have a small Chinese made cage trailer here that would probably weigh 200kg. Put it on the back of my truck, and I can feel it move (as can passengers) more in all areas (take off, driving, and stopping) than I can the 1.4 tonne camper. Was a bit surprised myself at that one.

Sorry for the long winded response, and yep, once again I can't speak unbiased to a point due to starting up the camping business, HOWEVER, we are bringing our gear in from China also, and have spent over a year assessing quality and setting up contracts to ensure the trailers are built to a high standard .. might be wrong, but I highly doubt this practice has been adopted by most trailer companies in Australia selling Chinese trailers currently. As an example, and I can't say which one, but there's a company website of a well known maker that currently has their "VSB Certificate" proudly displayed on the front screen. Problem is, it's done in word and isn't the actual government certificate you receive ... not saying they don't have one, but ours will be a scan of the original rather than something that looks pretty to suspecting buyers ...

Not a topic that would normally interest me as such, as a year ago, I would have just purchased like everyone else does, but has been a real eye opening experience dealing with the Chinese and my last comment would be:

The Chinese don't make inferior products to dump in Australia, it's the Australian market demand and lack of knowledge that allows inferior products to be dumped here with everyone thinking they picked up a bargain ... "The feeling of dissatisfaction of a poor quality item buy lasts a lot longer than the feeling of comfort given by its cheap price".

Take your time with all purchases in this space. We will have 1 camper trailer product only to begin with and it doesn't sit in a competitive price point to these trailers in any way (i.e. there will always be a demand for cheaper trailers to meet budgets, and not a space we intend to play in), so not as if I'm trying to turn people to our camper once we have have it. Simply saying, in whatever price range, do your homework and certainly feel free to lean on us for information - happy to help and can easily provide some business names of products we think are good quality that are both competitive to ourselves, and sit in higher and lower price categories. Competition doesn't scare us - buyer choice based on lack of knowledge and/or an incorrect perception of a product by company sales people does though. Happy for someone to compare ours and then buy an alternative (as we can't satisfy everyone's needs), but do so fully armed with as much information as you can.

Hope this helps.

[mudski]

Last paragraph is well said.

[Bigrig]

Last paragraph is well said.

Second last one now ... lol

Couldn't help myself and added another!


I'd Tap That!!