The annual caravan service most families skip (and shouldn't)

Our van sat in the driveway for four months over winter last year, and when I finally booked it in for a service before the September holidays, the bloke at the caravan repairer in Yatala pulled a wheel off and just went quiet for a second. Not a dramatic quiet. The kind of quiet where you know it's going to cost you. Corrosion on a brake magnet, grease gone the colour of honey and starting to separate, and a jockey wheel bearing that was one bumpy driveway away from seizing. None of it showed up on my usual walk-around. That's the thing about an annual service done properly: it's not the ten-minute check most of us do before backing out of the driveway. It's a proper inspection, and if you're only doing the quick version, you're gambling with school holiday timing every single trip.

I've written before about the brake pad and shoe wear check nobody does before a lap and the wheel bearing repack intervals in detail, so I won't repeat all of that here. This one is about the bigger picture: what an actual annual caravan service is meant to cover, why so many families skip it or half-do it, and what it actually costs versus what it saves you when you're three hours from the nearest town with two kids melting down in the back seat.

Why annual, not just "before a trip"

Most families I know service the car every 12 months or 15,000km without blinking. The van sits in the same driveway for eight months of the year and gets a wipe-over before the next trip, and that's it. But a van isn't a static object when it's parked. Grease settles and can separate, seals dry out in the sun, brake components corrode from moisture even under a cover, and tyres develop flat spots and sidewall cracking from sitting loaded in one position. A caravan that's towed 4,000km a year and one that sits still for ten months both need the same annual once-over, because the failure modes aren't just about kilometres. They're about time, heat cycles and moisture.

The workshops I use recommend an annual service regardless of distance travelled, with a bearing repack roughly every 12 months or 10,000-12,000km, whichever comes first — and that lines up with what most van manufacturers put in their handbooks. If your van's warranty is still current, check the service schedule in the handbook itself, because skipping the scheduled service can technically void cover on some models.

What a proper service actually covers

A genuine annual service on a caravan should go well past kicking the tyres and checking the water pump works. At minimum, I expect the following to be checked, and I ask for a written report, not just a verbal "yeah she's right":

Wheel bearings pulled, cleaned, inspected for pitting on the races, and repacked with fresh grease — not just topped up. Brake magnets and shoes inspected for wear and even contact across the drum, and the electric brake wiring checked for corrosion at the plug. Tyres checked for age (the date code on the sidewall matters more than tread depth on a van that sits idle — I've seen five-year-old tyres with plenty of tread that were still due for replacement because the rubber had hardened and started cracking). Chassis and coupling inspected for cracking, especially around the drawbar and A-frame welds. Suspension bushes and shackles checked for wear. Jockey wheel and corner stabiliser legs greased and checked for bent or seized components. Gas system pressure tested and hoses checked for perishing. And the 12V and battery system checked for corrosion at terminals and correct charging voltage.

That's a lot more than most of us do standing in the driveway with a tyre gauge. If your service invoice just says "general check, all good," ask what was actually inspected. A proper written report should list each item.

What it costs versus what it saves

Depending on your state and the workshop, a full annual caravan service with a bearing repack typically runs somewhere in the $250-$450 range for a single axle van, more for tandem or off-road setups with disc brakes. That feels like a lot when you're also paying registration, insurance and a caravan park site fee. But compare that to what a bearing failure costs on the road: a tow truck call-out in a remote area, a new hub assembly, a night or two in a motel because your van's now on a truck instead of a campsite, and the holiday you'd already paid a deposit on. I've had readers write in after a Queen's Birthday long weekend gone wrong who spent more on the recovery than three years of services would have cost them combined.

There's also the insurance angle that doesn't get talked about enough. If a bearing failure or brake fault causes an accident and the insurer's assessor finds evidence of neglected maintenance, some policies allow the insurer to knock back or reduce a claim. I'm not a lawyer and every policy's wording is different, so read your product disclosure statement, but it's a real reason to keep the paperwork.

The family timing problem

Here's where I'll be a bit opinionated: I think the caravan industry does families no favours by not pushing pre-holiday servicing harder. Workshops get flooded in the two weeks before school holidays and turn people away because they're booked out, which means families either tow on unserviced gear or miss the trip. My rule now is to book the annual service at least six weeks before the first school holiday trip of the year, usually straight after Easter for our winter trips and again in October for the summer run. That gives the workshop time to order parts if something's found, and gives me time to actually use the van once before we load the kids and the dog in and head off.

If you're planning something bigger, like the East Coast Run from Melbourne to Cairns or committing to the Big Lap, I'd push that further out again. Book the service two to three months before departure, not the week before, because if the workshop finds something structural, like drawbar cracking or a chassis issue, you want time to sort it without blowing your departure date.

Doing it yourself versus a workshop

I'll be honest, I don't repack my own bearings. I've watched it done, I understand the process, but with two kids and a dog and limited driveway time, I pay someone who does forty of these a week to do mine properly. That's a personal call, not a rule. If you're mechanically capable and have the right tools (a bearing packer, correct grease, torque specs for your hub nut), doing it yourself is entirely reasonable and plenty of grey nomads and off-road tourers do exactly that. What I wouldn't do is skip the check altogether because you're not confident doing the repack yourself. Even if you're paying a workshop for the physical work, you should know what "done properly" looks like so you can ask the right questions and read the report they hand back.

Where I'd add a bit of nuance to the standard advice: I don't think every van needs the same interval. A van that only does the odd weekend trip on sealed roads near home can probably stretch toward the 12,000km end of that range if it's serviced annually regardless. A van that's done a Cape York or Old Telegraph Track trip, or spent a season on the Gibb River Road, needs bearings and brakes checked as soon as you're home, corrugations cook grease and shake dust into seals faster than any manufacturer interval accounts for.

What I actually book in for, twice a year

Our routine now is a full service in autumn before winter trips, and a shorter interim check in spring, mostly tyres, brakes and a visual on the coupling and chassis, before the big summer run. I keep every invoice in a folder in the van's document wallet along with the compliance plate details and rego, so if anything does go wrong on the road and I need a workshop in an unfamiliar town, I can hand over a full history rather than explaining it from memory with a toddler yelling in the background.

None of this is exciting reading, I know. But the families who get caught out are almost always the ones who assumed the van was fine because it looked fine, and the van looking fine and the van being fine are two completely different things once you're past the driveway.