Just spending our first week in our brand new Eriba Troll 540 and we are so very disappointed with it in so many ways. I bitterly regret buying one and would swap back to our 5 year old Coachman Pastiche in a heart beat if we could.
We love the way it looks, we love how easy it is to tow. It’s proved very comfortable to sleep in with the spring seats/beds with our new Duvalays (which are brilliant by the way). But the build quality is terribly disappointing. Every morning you have to mop up all the condensation around the top edge of the pop top, and all the windowsills. The bedding stored under the seat is damp/slightly wet in places when you take them out in the evening. The slatted bad bases stick and are a nightmare to slide in and out from under the sofas, the sides of the caravan are freezing cold suggesting very poor levels of insulation, the window blinds feel very cheap and sometimes barely roll back up and the bathroom even though we knew is far too small for an adult has such a small sink you can’t even clean your teeth in it without making a terrible mess. What exactly is all the fuss about? Why are they so obscenely expensive? I’m failing to see what exactly I’ve paid all this money for!

I really feel for you. If you can put your disappointment aside and still use it for a few seasons then at least you can take advantage of it's low depreciation.

Yes thank you Steve and Debbie. We’ve stuck with it now and will have to try and learn to love it. Hopefully in a few years time we’ll be able to afford to change it for something else.

I'm sorry to hear that you feel so disappointed with your new Eriba Touring. As the past owner of two 540's I'm trying to get rid of our current 2012 Bailey and get back to a 540.

The condensation is occurs in all caravans at this time of year, in these cold and damp conditions, indeed whenever it's cold and damp, even in mid summer the windows on any caravan will mist up on the inside. It's physics and caravan design can't stop it. It's also physics that the cold metal rail around the edge of the roof will develop condensation in similar conditions. In warmer and dryer times the problem disappears. BTW the condensation will be made worse if you cook a lot and wash a lot in the van as the steam involved has to go somewhere.

As to the the bedding issue this can be a problem in any caravan that gets towed around in close to zero temperatures. The heating ducts tend to only run under benches on one side of a van and don't have outlets inside the bed boxes, relying on just the warmth from the duct walls. On the side with little ducting and furthest from the heat source there is little heat input and it will take ages to warm, Indeed any caravan takes a lot of initial warming as the hot air has to warm all the internal surfaces that start off at near zero when you first pitch up. If you keep bedding in the bed lockers then make sure it's the side nearest the heater, with ducting running right through and don't cover the ducting as the heat needs to circulate, not be encapsulated.

The best way to slide out bed slats is to raise the bed on its hinges to take any weight of the mechanism and to allow you to see what might be causing any obstruction.

Don't forget Eriba Touring's are built to last and it is the materials that create that longevity that you're paying for. An average life of a WWB will be a dozen years whereas Eribas can easily last double that and often triple or more.

Thank you for the advice. I’m really hoping to learn to love it in time and accept its shortcomings as quirky! But the Coachman was a caravan that we loved from day one, in all but it’s visual appearance. And it always felt a very good quality product.

We did loads of research and also attended the NEC Caravan and Camping Show! But nothing can really tell you what it’s like until you stay in one.

We leave our bed made up in the Familia 320 so the damp bedding is not a problem, however when we had the Puck the bedding was put away every night. It was always a lot cooler under the seats and it gave it that damp feeling. To eradicate that problem we put the bedding in waterproof stuff sacks like they use on boats. Usually Aldi have them in every now and again.

The top metal edge always has condensation which usually is nothing more than a quick wipe in the morning, however if you sleep with the top down you will encounter lot more condensation than usual.
We also put pipe insulation on the bottom edge of the window blinds at night time which is mainly to keep the early rays out, however it also cuts down on the warm air condensing on the cold window and dropping onto the sills. The Sink is small, however the more water you use the more you will have to fetch, it can be a bit of an ordeal having a wash but its not impossible and the floor has a tray to capture any mess you make, you could always use the kitchen sink or the site facilities if its a big problem .
Try some furniture polish on the bed slates, it will help them to move more freely


Due to the size of the Eriba it will never have the same attributes of a white wobbly box, but there again a WWB will never have the aesthetics of an Eriba, its very much a trade off.

I am sure you will learn some tricks to circumnavigate the niggles that you have encountered and you will have many years of enjoyment...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Waterproof-adju...L70_&dpSrc=srch

Yes fair point, but the fact it’s so much smaller and FAR less well equipped was a point about it Being far far over priced. This was something we accepted in exchange for a very well built ‘German’ quality van.
But instead we’ve paid far FAR more money than the competitors for a smaller, less well equipped van that also appears to be poorly built as well. Hence my struggle to see what exactly it is that I’ve paid all this extra money for!

Given that most of the kit on board caravans is built by the same companies, no matter what brand you choose, the differences between them boil down more to style than substance. All UK manufacturers have quality issues through building down to a price and a weight. Continental manufacturers have some of the same pressures but not all because generally they've chosen a more adult approach to their markets.

I am very sorry your first experience with an Eriba has been so disappointing. However, I would advise you to hang in there. If you have just had a wet, cold and soggy weekend in your new van, the weather might be clouding your judgement.

In 2010 we bought a new VWT5 van and had it professionally converted to tour Europe in it (similar obscene costs like Eribas). On our first European tour we had some nightmare weather for weeks and had our wind out awning blown off and wrecked in a storm in Slovenia, damaging the van too. We were like "why the h*** did we do this?!" However, that one bad experience has been long forgotten after the many super trips we had in it and all the super VW camper community people we met until we passed it on to our son last year (and there are few 'comforts' in a T5). We bought a new Triton 420 GT to go with the VW in 2014 when we fully retired, and we had lots of initial issues with it, bathroom door falling off, beds collapsing.... but again, these (although of course they shouldn't have happened considering the cost) have been long forgotten after the amazing trips we've had in it and the wonderful Eriba owners and other travellers that we've met along the way.

Talk to other Eriba owners, as we have all found workarounds for some of the niggly things. We have the wooden slatted beds in the 420 and I'll admit, they are a pain. As you have a front dinette just leave the bed up when you can, to give yourself a rest from pulling them out. When we put the bed away, we fold our duvets, then roll them up and clip them and they sit in the corners behind the cushions so I don't have to lift the beds up all the time to get at them. Try the singles if you are only staying overnight somewhere. The bathroom we just use for night time pee pees, use the campsite facilites for everything else, it's a lot easier (unless you like to go off grid).

Despite all the issues we had initially with our 420, we are trading it in for a brand new Troll 535 GT in May. We looked at all the white wobbly boxes and we even looked at an Airstream, but we still went for another Eriba. I havent managed to sell the 420 privately but even the dealer trade in loses us very little money and we have spent well over a year in total touring in it!

Eribas are very like VW campers, you dont just buy one, you join a community of like minded owners, from all walks of life, who love to get out and enjoy life, a kind of philosophy if you like. That same community will help you use your van in the best way possible and help you to solve any problems. They'll also provide a great social aspect - and probably make you drink too much

Take a deep breath. If you aren't currently in a position to change your van, embrace it and make the most of it, rather than compound the problem by getting depressed about the fact you bought it. If you still dont like it in a year, sell it, you wont lose very much. I think you might feel differently then though.

(Just out of curiosity, if your last caravan was so lovely, why did you change it?).

If Lunar, Swift, Elddis etc. were the only caravans available, we would still be under canvas, or we'd be using hotels and AirBnB a lot more than we do. Thankfully, Eribas and VW Californias are available, albeit at a premium. They give us the sense of freedom and excitement that we crave, having spent many happy times tucked away in a glade or on the banks of a pretty little river, the sort of places that don't welcome or cannot accommodate a large white box.

That said, the build quality of our Triton has also been disappointing. The furniture is way too soft and is is marked by the slightest knock. Hinge screws that work loose and LED lights that flicker are common issues, and one does question the price tag. Why doesn't Hymer strive for perfection? All this design cudos, yet questionable materials are used in the build.

Would I tow anything else to my favourite campsites? Absolutely not. An Eriba is clever with space, good looking, a joy to tow without needing an SUV, and most people have a pet name for theirs. It's a different world, despite the odd niggle.

We moved from a trailer tent to Eriba triton, mainly to extend camping season and reduce setup/takedown workload at beginning and end of our trips haven't really had any build quality issues although as it is an old van maybe our expectations we not as high as yours. My big adjustment was to the reduced space compared to the tent, but this is balanced out by the ease of towing etc, we see it as a camper (cheaper then a vw camper van), I leave the bed mostly up to avoid putting it up and down all the time, have awning for the summertime to give us more space. We use the washroom mostly for storage and as a plant store when we come home as other half has a serious garden centre habit! We use EHU and site facilities incl washing up station same as we did with the tent - even now we haven't fully adjusted from the set up we had before but it takes several trips to get used to the new outfit, by the way we have a silicone spray (bought in camping shop to make the tent zips run more smoothly) we now use it on the awning rail to help the awning slide in, this could be helpful on the bed boards. We have now used triton for winter weekends and 3 week summer break, it worked well for both types of camping for us - I think you may change your mind once you have been for a few more trips