BobR

Chris, I am enjoying your trip reports, they are interesting and informative. Thank you for sharing your travels with us. Bob

I have an Enerdrive 40 amp charger. It has a silent button on the case, when you press it it goes into silent mode for 12 hours, with reduced output but the fan doesn't come on at all. Fantastic at night, totally silent. It was installed by Enerdrive two years ago to replace my previous charger which failed during the warrant period. The old charger was so noisy I used to turn it off at night.

Ash, I have a two year old XC3 and I had to have the battery charger replaced a year ago under warranty. The old charger was also noisy at night and I resorted to turning it off when we went to bed. The new one is an Enerdrive 40A charger that has quiet button. When the button is pushed it puts the charger into a low charge mode that prevents the fan from running - so you don't hear it at all. After 12 hours it automatically resets to its normal state. As a bonus, it can also be programmed for lithium batteries, which I will get when my AGM's conk out. i am quite happy with the charger and can't hear it at all at night. Even during the day the fan is not noisy and mostly we don't notice it. Hope this helps. Bob

Spyder, I had a carport built last year for my 22ft XC3. The height of the van (top of airconditioner) is 3.12m. Since the approach to the carport is not flat in both directions I made the entrance height 3.4m to make sure it was OK. The van fits in nicely. if you have a flat approach 3.3m should be fine. Bob

We drove down Brown Mountain on Saturday - no problems at all. Put the cruiser in first gear and crawled down at about 30-35 kph. Didn't need to use the brakes much, mostly on corners. We couldn't go any faster if we wanted to - the mountain was covered in low cloud and we couldn't see more than 20 metres in front of us. We found a couple of good spots for a free overnight stopover - the first one was at Bredbo where we parked on the side of the road next to the recreation reserve - a nice quiet and flat grassed verge, two blocks from the highway. Just parked on the verge for the night,no traffic at all and no close houses. The second one was at Candelo, about 20km from Merimbula. Dr William Loftus park is opposite the shops. We didn't stop there but there were a number of vans there for the day. Flat, next to the creek, with cafe's across the road. Good comments in Wikicamps.

Sue and Tony, Thank you very much for your feedback. We'll give it a go. We also have a Tekonsha brake controller, but I'm not sure what setting it's on. I'll check it and make sure it's aggressive enough. When we went down to Kangaroo Valley last week we went down in first gear at about 30kmph without having to do a lot of braking. The engine did most of the work and we couldn't go much faster anyway due to the sharp bends. I tried it in second at the beginning but kept speeding up too much and needing lots of braking. Once again, thank you. I'll let you know how we get on. Bob and Janine

We are planning on taking our 22ft XC3 down from Cooma to Merimbula this weekend. Tow vehicle is a diesel 200 series, and the van weighs close to 3.5t. We have been told that Browns Mountain is very steep, and we are wondering if it is too steep. We have been down Barrengarry Mountain from Moss Vale to Kangaroo Valley without a problem, so if Browns Mountain is no steeper then no problems. Has anyone towed a big Kedron down Browns Mountain, and is it too steep? Bob and Janine

Geoff, We had the same problem with our charger (a different brand) - the fan would cut in and out at night and was really annoying - we ended up turning the charger off at night when we went to bed. The problem was solved permanently when the charger stopped working - fortunately it was still under warranty and the supplier (Enerdrive) replaced it (on our request) with one of their Epower chargers which has a silent switch that you can turn on for night time use - it prevents the fan turning on for 12 hrs but with a reduced power output. Bob

Hi Doyley, When we bought our Kedron a year ago we had Inawise tyre pressure monitors fitted to the van and the Landcruiser. The base unit is a TPMS-203 which comes with eight sensors, and we bought another three to cover the six van tyres and the five vehicle tyres. The unit can handle up to 12 tyres, and monitors pressure and temperature and has alarms for low pressure and high Temperature. So far it has worked well without any problems. It has no trouble receiving the signal from the van tyre sensors - in fact it picks up the signal from about 40 metres away. I have the base unit permanently mounted to the dash on an aluminium angle iron bracket just below the right hand side air vent where I can see it easily and it is out of the way. I chose Inawise because my brother has the same sensors on his 4wd, and has done extensive driving in outback, sand and mud and they have worked well. The sensors include a metal valve stem, and the sensor mounts inside the rim which minimises risk of damage, so the tyres need to be removed to install the sensors, and then balanced. The cost of the base unit with eight sensors was about $600 and the extra sensors cost about $50 each. Kedron installed the sensors in the van tyres for no charge when we purchased the van, and the tyre dealer that we bought the system from installed the sensors in the vehicle for $10 per wheel. The batteries in the Sensors are supposed to last for 7 years. Regards, Bob

Hi Graeme, We had to make the same decision as you last year. We were tossing up between a new 22ft ATV or XC3 and had a few discussions with Kedron about weights and fit out. We were advised that an XC3 would weigh about 2700kg, and an ATV about 3000 to 3050kg - this was with an extended A frame, second spare wheel, diesel heater , 3 solar panels and inverter, 3 water tanks and grey water tank. We figured that with full water tanks, chairs, BBQ, food etc that the ATV would end up at or over the ATM of 3500kg. Our vehicle is a diesel 200 series so we could tow up to 3500kg. We wanted a van that was capable of dirt roads such as the Savannah Way or Gibb River Road. Since we didn't plan on extreme conditions like you see in the Gall Bros videos, we decided an XC3 would be robust enough, and we picked it up in March this year. We couldn't see any point in towing extra weight that we didn't need. The factory tare weight is 2770 kg, with at ATM of 3500kg which gives us plenty of capacity. Overall we are quite happy with the van, and Kedron worked closely with us to meet our requirements, but there are a number of things that they could have done (and should have done) better that would have improved our overall experience. If you would like to contact me on 0419475496 I can give you a rundown on our experiences.

Danny, I can report on recent problems with a new Waeco 215 litre compressor fridge - we are the owners that Andrew referred to in his reply. We picked up our new XC3 in late March and immediately had problems with the fridge - it wasn't getting cold enough on the coldest setting, in mild weather. The freezer was fine, but the fridge wasn't cold enough - only getting down to about 6 degrees overnight. We spoke to Tom at Kedron, who checked that it had been properly installed and wired. Tom then had the fridge replaced with a new one, but alas it was no better. Both Tom and I then contacted Dometic individually. We took our van to the Dometic factory at the Gold Coast and they did some small modifications to improve its performance. This didn't help either. Dometic then changed the electronic control unit and the thermostat, and this didn't help either. Similar problems were also reported by other Kedron owners who picked up new vans at about the same time. After extensive testing by Dometic and Kedron, and consultation with the manufacturing branch of Dometic, it turned out that the fridge had an offset adjustment built into the electronic control system that no one in Australia knew about - and it was set at too high a temperature. This adjustment allows the compressor cut in temperature to be adjusted, depending on whether the fridge was being used in a hot or cold climate. In our case, and possibly for the other fridges in the same batch, the setting was set too high ie for a colder climate. Dometic sent an agent to our place and adjusted the setting just before Easter. We used the fridge over the Easter weekend and it was definitely working colder than before. However the ambient temperature was a lot cooler so it was not a comparable test. We think they have fixed the problem but won't really know until we are in warmer weather which won't be for some months. All up we spent about 2 weeks getting the fridge sorted out, including taking the van back to Kedron twice, once to Dometic, and with two visits from Dometic staff/agents to make adjustments. Would I buy another Dometic fridge - I think I would since it does now appear to be working properly, Kedron believe that it is the best fridge for their vans, and both Kedron and Dometic have worked closely with us to fix the problem and have committed to making sure we have a fridge that works well. Also Kedron have advised that they improved their quality control system to make sure that the fridges are extensively tested before new vans are released to customers. Regards, Bob and Janine