Tagged: caravan maintenance

Loose wheel nuts cause more roadside dramas than blown tyres. Here's the torque figures, re-check intervals and pattern I actually use on my 21ft off-road van.

Twenty years of fixing rigs taught me most breakdowns interstate come down to picking the wrong workshop. Here's how I vet one in an hour.

What an actual annual caravan service should cover beyond a quick tyre kick, and why families touring school holidays get caught out most.

Corrugations don't just rattle your fillings. They crack chassis rails, snap welds and kill fridges. Here's the physics and the driving technique that actually works.

How often to repack caravan wheel bearings, what a proper repack actually involves, and why the servicing sticker interval isn't the whole story off-road.

Most caravans tow around Australia with the factory brake controller gain setting still sitting where the dealer left it. Here's how to actually tune it.

A quick, honest walk-through of the tyre check I do before every trip — pressures, tread, age and the spot most parents skip.

Worn brake magnets and a poorly tuned controller can quietly rob half your stopping power. Here's the check I do on my 21ft van every few months.

A hand on the hub after every fuel stop tells you more than any warranty book. Here's how I check bearing grease and hub heat on remote corrugated roads.

Tread depth isn't the test. Here's how to read the manufacture date, spot sidewall cracking and know when a caravan tyre with plenty of rubber left is still done.

Denise reckons I service the van more than the car. Here's the actual schedule we run for bearings, brakes, tyres and the annual once-over.

A standard caravan service misses the things that actually strand you on the Gibb or the Anne Beadell. Here's the checklist I run before every remote lap.

Electric brakes fail quietly until they don't. Here's the pre-trip brake check I do on every van before a big trip, and what actually goes wrong.

A hot, roaring hub on the Oodnadatta doesn't lie. Here's how I check caravan wheel bearings before every big trip, and what the warning signs actually mean.