Keith Gooden
In today’s episode of the Motorhome Matt podcast…
Matt Sims
What is the Entry/Exit System and what do you need to know about it?
Keith Gooden
Oh, Matron. In the news, it’s time to plan your first 2025 motorhoming event.
Matt Sims
And we answer your questions on paper licences, layouts for families and finding the right tyres.
Keith Gooden
Welcome to the Motorhome Matt podcast. I’m Keith Gooden.
Matt Sims
And I’m Motorhome Matt.
Keith Gooden
Industry insights and expert advice for the world of motorhomes, caravans and campervans, and it’s brought to you by www.thatleisureshop.com.
Matt Sims
Now, please remember to follow on your favourite podcast app. And if you’re watching on YouTube, please would you subscribe and hit that little bell? Brought to you by www.arobasecreative.co.uk.
Get tickets to the Caravan, Motorhome & Holiday Show 2025
Keith Gooden
In the news this week, get your tickets for the first show of 2025 – the Caravan Motorhome and Holiday show, 16th to the 19th of January 2025. You’re going to be there, Matt?
Matt Sims
We are. We’re in Manchester for this. It’s a brilliant event. It’s the first event of the year that gives a good kind of scene setting for the year ahead for the industry. New products there will be on display for sure, 2025 models, and probably some 2024 models on special offer as well.
So there’s always a mix of motorhomes, caravans, campervans and static lodges too. So it’s a great show. It’s only a small show. I think people go expecting the Birmingham kind of scale. It’s not as big as that at all. It’s far more introvert. It’s a lovely event.
And yeah, very much looking forward to it. And we have a stand there, so we’ll be there. Mrs. Motorhome Matt will be there throughout the weekend, waving the Motorhome Matt flag loyally, like she does.
Keith Gooden
Lovely. It’s an oasis of motorhoming, caravanning and campervan wonderfulness. Do you see what I said? Manchester, Oasis? Do you see that?
Matt Sims
Very clever.
Keith Gooden
See where I’m coming from?
Matt Sims
Very good, right in the heart of Manchester too. Love it.
Keith Gooden
You can save some money on tickets.
Matt Sims
You can, yeah, just use the code MHMATT to save a little bit on your booking fee. Brilliant.
Keith Gooden
First of all, you’ve got to go to this site, which is www.caravanshows.com, and then use the code!
Matt Sims
Okay, let’s do that.
Keith Gooden
MHMATT to save on the booking fee. Everybody got that?
Matt Sims
Hopefully.
Keith Gooden
Fantastic.
Product of the week
Keith Gooden
Okay, every week in the run up to Christmas we’re… well, Matt’s got his sack out. Haven’t you? Go on. Let’s see your sack.
Matt Sims
You leave my sack alone.
Keith Gooden
If you’re listening to this… oh, it’s big and red.
Matt Sims
I’ve got my bells in this. I’ve got bells in it this year. That’s another joke. I can’t get in my sack. Here we are. Look at this.
Keith Gooden
What is it?
Matt Sims
Oh, there’s me bells. Look at that. Me Christmas bells. This is a brilliant little fairy lights kit. Look at this. You’ve seen them on Instagram, I’m sure. They’re on like a little wheel, and they pull out of this little cassette. They’re 30 feet long. They glow white. They glow different colours, like so. And they flash! Look at that. And there’s a little light as well.
Keith Gooden
It’s fantastic. So basically, what it is, it’s like a fishing reel with a string of lights inside it, and you pull them out, and you’ve got a lot of different lighting moods. You can press the button. And as Matt says, you’ve got a very bright… oh, my eyes!
Matt Sims
Do you know what? We had these set up at show when we were there. Look at that flashing away. And this is magnetic. So we stuck that on the wall of the van. On the other end is a hook, and we hooked that over on the gazebo that we had for our stand. And we had this lovely string of coloured lights. Brilliant, really good. They lasted for about 10 hours. They were great.
Keith Gooden
How much?
Matt Sims
£14.99.
Keith Gooden
Well, we’ve also got the That Leisure Shop cart, which we saw at the NEC, the big show, back in October, fantastic. And you do a great deal on these as well. £99.99 of your English pence. You can get 10% off with the code MOTORHOMEMATT. Just go to www.thatleisureshop.com/gifts.
What is the Entry/Exit System?
Keith Gooden
The main bit, the main part, the meat of the podcast this week is the Entry/Exit System. We’ve spoken about it before, but what exactly is it, Matt?
Matt Sims
It’s a security system being introduced by the EU Parliament to protect the Schengen zone. So basically, they want to know who’s coming in and who’s going out and when. So non-EU citizens, which, of course, we now are post Brexit, we are going to be required to let people know.
We will let the authorities in Europe know when we’re coming into the Schengen zone and, more importantly, when we’re leaving. So it’s basically a digital security system. So the days of scanning your passport or having a customs officer look at it and stamp it are gone. It’s all going to be done digitally.
Keith Gooden
Digitally?
Matt Sims
Digitally.
Keith Gooden
Oh, that sounds fantastic. And remember when you go into the Schengen zone – and Ireland is in the EU, but not in the Schengen zone, so they’ve got to do this as well, by the way. It’s not just people who’ve Brexited like the UK. When you go in, you’ve got to give fingerprints and stuff now, do you?
Matt Sims
Yes, so this is the big change. So on arrival at the border, you will have to have your passport scanned, have your photograph taken and give your fingerprints. And you’ll have to do that every three years. Your passport will be scanned every time you cross a border, but your photo and fingerprints will be taken every three years, so when you enter and when you leave.
And the point is that the authorities will be able to track the date and time and type of travel document you’ve used. It’s going to normally be your passport, and they’re going to be able to keep track of it, so if your passport has gone out of date, they’ll know. But more importantly, if you’ve outstayed your 90 day welcome into the EU, you will become what’s known as an over stayer, and they’ll be able to track you.
Keith Gooden
Now, you can stay a total of 180 days in the Schengen zone, but you have to do it in 90 day blocks. So you can go over for 90 days, you could then come back for 90 days, and then you can go out for another 90 days.
Or you can have the bits where you’re back in the middle. But whatever happens over the 12-month period, you can only go through there for 180 days, but it must be separated by at least a 90 day stay back in your home country.
Matt Sims
So the EES was originally planned to be implemented in 2022 and then it was delayed to May ’23. Then it was delayed to October ’23. Then October ’24 and then the eighth of November 2024.
And then it was recently, just a few weeks ago, kicked into the long grass, and has been detailed as being rolled out in a phased manner at some point in the future, detail of which will be worked out in the coming weeks, says the parliamentary website.
Keith Gooden
Rolled out in a phased manner. That’s parliamentary speak for, “We haven’t got a clue what we’re going to do. We’ll let you know when we come up with a plan.”
Matt Sims
“We don’t know, and we’ve got no money for it either.”
Keith Gooden
And what is ETIAS?
Matt Sims
ETIAS is the European Travel Information and Authorisation System, and basically this is a visa waiver. So to prepare to go into the Schengen zone as a non-EU citizen, you’re going to have to buy a visa waiver, a bit like when you go to America. You did the ESTA thing, didn’t you? So it’s exactly like that. You’ll be able to do it on your phone.
This is new, so it was going to be on the web. It’s now going to be a phone app, so done digitally. It’s going to cost you seven euros, and it’s going to last and be valid for three years. If you’re under 18 or over 70, it’s free of charge.
You must still apply for an ETIAS visa waiver, but you’re not going to have to pay. So it lasts for three year. Once you’ve done it, it’s deemed that it will arrive with you in a couple of days, and it will arrive electronically in your email or in the phone app.
Keith Gooden
Absolutely, because people travel on business at short notice into Europe all the time. So it’s going to have to be a quick turnaround. The ESTA system in America is very quick. They let you know usually within 48 hours. Really, it’s brilliant. So how’s this all going to impact us?
Matt Sims
Well, my fear was, you imagine it’s anticipated to take a minute and a quarter to process every individual at the border having their fingerprints taken and their photograph taken and passports scanned. Imagine a coach of 50 people. That’s over an hour just for one coach.
So in the old days, in our motorhomes, we would just get the pile of passports together and they flick through and go, “Yeah, that’s fine.” Give you them back, and off you went. Took seconds, didn’t it? Not anymore. So I predicted they would have to introduce some kind of tablet system that would be passed around a vehicle, and everybody in the vehicle would have to use that to have their photograph taken.
And guess what? That is exactly what they’re going to do. So a coach will be required to disembark and queue up at a machine. But a vehicle, a car or motorhome, will be given a tablet to pass around inside. And children under 12 will not be required to give their fingerprints. This is all recently published on the 18th of October 2024, on the parliamentary website.
So you can go and find out for yourself and find out all the information there. There are changes already being implemented. And the phased out manner – where it will be rolled out in a phased manner, I think what that means is if the queues back up, they’ll turn it off.
And probably for six months. There was talk previously that for six months, it would be, “Well, we’ll see how we go. If it gets really busy, we’ll just turn it off and revert to the old system and just let you through,” because it’s going to cause chaos. So I think prepare at the border crossing, and be prepared to queue for a wait, because that is probably inevitable.
Keith Gooden
Remember those wild old happy days before the Brexit referendum took place, and everybody was campaigning, and they said, “They need us more than we need them. Don’t worry, everything will be fine. It’ll be exactly the same. We’ll be able to import as many BMWs as you possibly can get your hands on. And traveling over the border – well, why would they change it? It works.” They changed it.
Matt Sims
They did. And they’re changing it again. And what’s interesting is this parliament are blaming the last government for the cock up, which, of course, they’re bound to.
Keith Gooden
Governments do that all the time.
Matt Sims
Yes, of course. We don’t do politics here, but this is going to be a mess. I guarantee it. It will happen, for sure, because the EU wants security on their borders. They want to know who’s in, who’s that and when. Interestingly, if you overstay your 90 days, that’s going to now be very easily tracked.
And you would become an over stayer, and you would make a very special list which would be visible to a customs officer. So if you are going over you need to make sure you’re planning those 90 days, because when this is implemented, you are easily traced.
Keith Gooden
Yes, and return on the 89th day just in case there’s some travel issues, which means you cross the border late, because they don’t care if you cross the border late, you’ll go on the over stayer list.
Matt Sims
Well, they do say on the parliamentary website, if there are extenuating circumstances, like you were taken seriously ill and you can prove that, they will take you off the list. So there will be some exceptions. But I mean, if you’re in that position, you are going to be in for a long wait. I guarantee it.
Keith Gooden
Absolutely. So crossing the border is going to get more difficult. What I don’t understand is now, when you apply for a British passport, we can take a picture on our phones, a selfie ourselves, and send it off with the application.
By the way, here’s a tip, whatever you send off will always need you to go into the editing mode and brighten it, but they will always refuse it unless you brighten it. I don’t know why. They just will.
Matt Sims
I think that’s just you.
Keith Gooden
From my cave. So if we can do that, send our image, which is then going to go on an official document, why can’t we do that with fingerprints? Phones have fingerprint mode, don’t they? They can capture a fingerprint. So I would have thought that would have sped things up, and then all they’ve got to do at the border is random checks.
Matt Sims
Maybe that’s coming. I don’t know. The technology probably is the limiting factor. It’s all going to cost money, isn’t it? It’s worth pointing out there we’re not going to go on holiday with black fingers, where you’ve put them in an ink pad. It’s going to be electronic.
Keith Gooden
I’ve been to America. You go through and it’s automated now. Stand there, look here. And there’s a screen in front of you, and it sort of lines the line up with your eyes, and then put your thumb and your forefinger on here.
And click – the gates open, and you go through. That’s after you’ve waited two hours in the queue from the plane. But getting through it is pretty quick. So I would have thought the same would happen in Europe.
Matt Sims
I think so. But they’re anticipating it’s going to take a minute and a quarter. And of course, once you’ve done that, you’ve not got to do it again for three years. You’ve just got to have your passport scanned.
And I guess once your three years is up, it will flag up, “We need your picture and your fingerprints.” So you’re going to need to make a note of when you first did it or last did it, and set a three year reminder, I guess. A lot of people have expressed objection to me at this whole system, which is important to note, does not exist yet.
Keith Gooden
And Matt hasn’t made it up, by the way.
Matt Sims
No! It’s happening, but it hasn’t been implemented yet. The ETIAS bit, so the visa waiver bit, the seven euros thing, is due to be rolled out in the spring of 2025. Now, the closest I can get to an actual date is May, but let’s see.
I predict this will get delayed as well further into the future. The EES has been kicked into the long grass, so the whole fingerprint photo thing doesn’t exist yet and doesn’t even now have a date for implementation. So if you’re going on holiday in a minute, don’t panic. If you’re going on holiday next July, be mindful of the ETIAS.
You might have to go and get a seven Euro visa waiver if you’re going into the EU. And keep an eye on this podcast, because we will be updating when this is rolling out. But the objection I’ve received from lots of listeners is one about data. It’s like, well, who’s keeping my data?
So they’ve got the day and time that I went into Europe, and then the day and time I came back. They’ve got a copy of my passport, they’ve got my fingerprints, and they’ve got my photograph. And they can, of course, as well, ask you, “Where are you going to stay?” If they want to, a customs officer can ask you for that. They can also ask you for proof of means.
So they don’t need to get your wallet out and show them all the pound notes or get your bank statements out. They want to see a credit card. So they could have all sorts of data. It’s said that they will hold that data for non-EU citizens for three years, and every assurance possible is given that it will be kept securely. But surely – imagine if that was hacked!
Keith Gooden
Well, that’s not good. Listen, come closer. No, closer.
Matt Sims
Careful.
Keith Gooden
They’re governments. Okay, they make the rules. Imagine if it’s hacked? Government websites hacked.
Matt Sims
Never!
Keith Gooden
It could happen. It probably won’t. But as far as them asking for it, you don’t have a leg to stand on. If they want it, you give it, or else you don’t get in. It’s that simple.
Matt Sims
It is. But one thing as well they have added, though, is you have a right to request the information that’s held on you. You can request that information. And if anything on there is deemed to be incorrect, you can request that it’s changed and deleted.
So that’s been made really clear. So this whole data protection thing is a massive issue with this, and it’s being taken very seriously by the EU, of course. But a lot of people have expressed concern that their data is out there, wherever there is, and being held somewhere. But it’s true, it’s the way of the world, and if you don’t like it, don’t go to Europe.
Keith Gooden
Tough, simple as that. If you’ve got a mobile phone and use cash machines, they know where you are anyway. So, you know, come on, it’s their country. They make the rules. It’s that simple.
Matt Sims
That’s what it’s all about. It’s about security in the EU. They want to know when you’ve gone in and when you’ve left, and they want to know that you have left if you should have done. One thing is – you mentioned Ireland. Cyprus is also exempt from this. So if you go into Cyprus, you don’t need to do this. Same with Ireland.
Keith Gooden
It’s not just people who’ve Brexited, by the way. It’s the Schengen zone, which is the group of countries that are land locked, generally. They used to have land borders. Remember, you used to watch those old TV shows like The Persuaders or The Saint, and he’d go speeding along in his Volvo.
When you get to the Swiss border, you still have to show your passport at the Swiss border. But if you’re going from France to Germany, now the border is open. That’s the Schengen zone. You just drive across the border, and they have treaties which allow them to do that. We were always a non-Schengen country. We were always subject to extra checks. So what can I do if I’ve got my motorhome, I’ve got the family, to speed things up at the border?
Matt Sims
First thing is to make sure your passport is in date. That’s really important. And make sure it’s actually got three months left to run after the date you plan to come back into the UK. That’s really important as well. So look at the expiry date.
And in actual fact, what a customs officer and this system is going to check – and this is a bit complicated – they’re actually going to look at the start date. So there was a time when the British passport office were issuing passports with 10 years and nine months on them. And I can’t remember why, but there was a reason.
Keith Gooden
That was to give you a benefit if you updated your passport before it expired. If you had nine months on the old one, they’d give you that nine months.
Matt Sims
That’s what it was. It was up to nine months. Thank you. Yeah, that’s exactly what it was. But they are going to look at the start date, so they want to make sure that your passport is still valid nine years and nine months at the point you come back into the country.
So check the start date of your passport as well as the expiry date, and gear up some time at the border. It could be that you’re in a queue for an hour – could be longer – once this is implemented. At the moment, there’s no change.
But as soon as EES is implemented, I think we can expect delays. With regards to the ETIAS bit, the visa waiver, once that’s kicked in – hopefully beyond May 2025 but at some point next year, it’s likely to happen.
Make sure you’ve got your visa waiver paid for. Seven euros, apply in good time. It’s valid for three years, so do it a month before. It should arrive in between two days and two weeks. But it could be hours after you’ve applied for it. And make sure you’ve got organised and you’ve got that with your passports.
Keith Gooden
Remember you can do all that online, and if you’re not confident using computers and doing stuff online, ask a relative to do it for you. You don’t have to buy postal orders and fill in forms and send them off anymore.
And as Matt says, it could just bounce back and say, “Yeah, you’re approved,” within just a few hours. A little tip for you. I was in Spain not so long ago, and coming back to the UK, I was at Murcia Airport. There were a few flights going out at the same time for whatever. There was a bit of a delay on something. It was quite a queue getting through.
It was a Saturday morning, getting through the border. And so you had the EU passports bit, and then you had the foreign passports bit, which we now as Brits have to go through. You know, we are now aliens.
But what they did do, and all credit to them – I was gnashing my teeth because I’ve got an Irish passport. They changed the EU one to all passports, so they can ease the queues that way. They’re not our enemies, they’re our friends, and they do try and make things happen if they can.
Matt Sims
Absolutely. It’s going to be a nightmare, though. I fear it’s going to be chaos.
Audience Q&A
Keith Gooden
After all that talk of borders and form filling and fingerprints, let’s do the Q&A – questions and answers. We look forward to it every week, because you get to talk directly to Motorhome Matt and ask him questions. He’s the expert, and if he doesn’t know the answer, he’ll ask somebody who does. So first of all, we hear from Angela Laking.
Angela Laking
Hi, Matt. I’m thinking of taking my motorhome to Europe. I still have the old pink paper licence. Can you tell me if this would be valid to drive abroad? A lot of people tell me I have to get the photo card, but I’m not sure. Thank you.
Keith Gooden
Thanks very much. Angela. I can’t believe she’s still got a pink paper licence.
Matt Sims
A lot of people still do.
Keith Gooden
It must be from 20 years ago.
Matt Sims
That’s right. My advice, Angela, is to apply for a photo driving licence only because – although your paper one is valid, customs officers and police officers around the EU will not necessarily recognise or understand your paper licence.
Your photo license that would replace it has all the ID docs on and licence permissions to drive on it very clearly. And the point is, they’re used to looking at them. So my advice is, it’s a better form of ID. They do expire.
They only last for 10 years, so you’re going to have to renew one. And lots of people don’t go for one for that reason, whereas the paper licence keeps on being valid. There will come a time when I suspect the DVLA will announce the paper licence is no longer valid, and everybody must have a photo driving licence.
That may have already happened, I don’t know, but that inevitably will happen. I have a photo driving licence. It’s a recognized form of ID. So my recommendation is for ease and peace of mind, just go and suck up the fee and go and do it.
Keith Gooden
It’s not a fortune. It’s really not a fortune either. And Angela, because it’s got your photograph on it, it actually works, as Matt says, as a photo ID across the world. You know, even checking out in the supermarket in America, they sometimes – you hand them a foreign credit card they say, “Have you got any photo ID?”
And you’ve got your driving licence in your wallet, and they look at it. So it’s handy for that. My wife recently renewed her photo card driving licence, and you can go to the post offices now, and she paid £20 or something like that.
You stand there, they take your photo, they do all the filling in. They take your old licence off you, they cut it up in front of you, and two days later, my wife had her driving licende. The service is brilliant.
Keith Gooden
So let’s hear from Paul Robson.
Paul Robson
I’m sure one of the things that is asked about a lot for a family is, do you go for something that small and compact in a motorhome, or do you go for something a bit bigger and gives you more space?
We’ve been looking at motorhomes for a few years, and it does seem prices are starting to come down, which is good. We’re probably in more of a position to buy a motorhome. But we’ve kind of got two particular layouts that we’ve been looking at for a while, and we’re still not quite decided.
So one is the rear bunks, a lounge and over cab, and the other one is an over cab, a lounge and then at the back, a U shaped because we’re used to it having caravans. There’s clearly very good positives and negatives for both. But I do notice that you have mentioned in the past that you used to have a bigger vehicle.
So clearly you were a larger RV/motorhome kind of person, but over time, you seem to have gone to a slightly smaller van. Could you just give us some reasons on exactly why that happened? There were probably some obvious ones, but that’s a big one for a lot of people looking at a van.
Do you buy something very big, and obviously the disadvantage is parking, access and driving it down small UK roads? Or do you go for something small, which is easy to drive, but then, if it’s wet and windy, like it certainly gets in the UK, you’ve got a lot less space in order to park that, and you can’t park it as easy as other vans.
Matt Sims
There is such a lot. There’s a whole episode in there. In fact, there’s probably a series of podcasts in there.
Keith Gooden
Big or little?
Matt Sims
Big or little, absolutely. Well, one key piece of information you didn’t share was, how old are your children and how many of them have you got? So for me, and I’m going to keep this in a nutshell, we have had all sorts of layouts.
We had a rear lounge, we had bunk beds. We have had numerous big American motorhomes as well, and we now choose to have an Adria Twin, which is a six meter panel van with a sliding side door, and, you know, two doors at the back. There’s a whole journey which I’ve been on in terms of motorhome ownership, and we’ve discussed doing an episode on this.
A number of people have requested that we do it. And I think it’d be a good idea, because I’ve owned A class European motorhomes as well. I had something called an Adria Sonic Supreme, which is a really lovely A class motorhome. And people often say, “Why did you go from that to the smallest product in the Adria motorhome range?” And I think we’ll do that.
We’ll revisit that another time. But the key is, how old are the kids? So my kids, as they got older, they went from sleeping in the motorhome with bunk beds into the over cab bed, where they would sleep north, south. And we then went to a rear lounge motorhome because we were going away in the winter, and we thought this is a great idea. It has no storage, so that’s another big factor.
And we did do a whole episode on choosing motorhome layouts, and it’s definitely worth going back in time to that episode where we kind of unpack this in more detail. And we also recently did one on the different types of layouts as well, which might be worth looking at.
The bit I hated about both a bunk bed and a rear lounge motorhome was sleeping in the over cab bed. I really did not like it, and there’s no way I could do it now. I would wake everyone up when I went to bed, and again when I got up. And I just found it really, really uncomfortable.
A large motorhome, so maybe an American style, which are kind of extreme, or even a big A class, I’d love another one. But I think for us, because we go away on lots of short trips, and now the kids don’t tend to come with us, we have got access to other layouts through our hire business, of course.
So if we are going with the kids, I can take a bunk bed. If it’s just me and Mrs. Motorhome Matt, we love the fact we’re in a small van, only six meters long. I’ll drive it anywhere. We love going down into the corners of Cornwall, in the corners of Scotland, wherever we are. Pub car parks we tend to favour as well.
It’s easy to park, and we can be very mobile, but we do short trips. We tend to only do weekends, because I’m working. I think if we were going to do long term, three months, and we were going to go down into Spain, I would definitely consider a bigger – perhaps an A class motorhome for that kind of trip.
But that kind of gives you some insight into why I’ve got a van now versus an A class motorhome. And people often think – they expect Motorhome Matt to have the most blingiest… I mean, I’d love a MORELO. We saw those at the show. They’re amazing, but they’re three quarters of a million quid. Well, there’s one reason I don’t have one!
Keith Gooden
That’s basically the cost of a two bedroom flat in Lewisham now.
Matt Sims
Is it? Really? Oh, my goodness. Have you been to Lewisham? It’s better than it used to be. So yeah, that’s one of the big reasons, cost as well. But for us, it’s about accessibility, getting everywhere and anywhere.
And I will take our Twin most places, I have to say. So it’s a very unique to you set of circumstances that you need to think about. It’s a great question. There’s so many elements to the question that I could make an hour out of this, but I’m not going to bore you with that. Does that help?
Keith Gooden
Yeah, yeah. Fine.
Matt Sims
Paul’s probably more confused now than before he asked the question.
Keith Gooden
You thought that was a long answer. Wait till you hear this question.
Keith Gooden
John Richmond is in Rugby. “Hi, Matt. We have an Adrira Twin Sport fitted with Michelin Agilis…” is that right? “Camping 225/75r16cp 116Q tyres.”
Matt Sims
I love that he included the tyre size.
Keith Gooden
“I would like to replace one of these, but can’t seem to find them anywhere. When I look at the Michelin recommendations to use, it’s very unclear. They seem to push the cross climate camping, which seems available with some specs.
Can I replace just one tyre, or do I have to do the whole axle? And are these compatible when on different axles with the Agilis ones I don’t know why the tyres Adria fit are so difficult to source. Do you know? There seems so many variants, it’s difficult to work out what is right.” That’s question one. “One other question…”
Matt Sims
Here we go.
Keith Gooden
“Would you consider stocking the Adria USB A and C sockets used in the current Adria Twin vans? I’d like to add one if I can get a hold of one.” Many thanks for a great and very helpful podcast.” Okay, Matt, first of all, the USB.
Matt Sims
Question two first. You know what? I’m about to buy them. We’re about to order them because I want to add them into our Twin as well. We want to put some in the bed so we can charge the phones.
So, yeah, keep an eye on www.thatleisureshop.com. I’m hoping we’ll have a stock of them sometime in the next few months. Keep checking www.thatleisureshop.com. They’ll be on there. In terms of the tyres, I don’t know why you’re struggling to get them. Most tyre places don’t stock the motorhome specific tyres.
There’s two brands, Michelin and Continental, and they both make a camping range of tyre which is used on motorhomes. And where they’re different is simply because the tread pattern is for use all year round, and more importantly, that the tyre walls are thicker and stronger.
The rubber compound is a different mix, so it’s grippier in all sorts of weathers, but the tyre walls are stronger because the motorhome is always at weight unlike a van tyre, where the van is full, it’s empty and light. It’s heavy when it’s full, empty when it’s light, or light when it’s empty, you know what I mean.
But the motorhome is always heavy, right? So the tyre walls are stronger for that reason. You should be able to get these tyres in any tyre shop, but you’re probably going to have to order them. They won’t carry them on the shelf. In terms of replacing one, no, definitely not. The tyres should match both sides of an axle, so you can replace the front two or the rear two, but don’t go doing one with a different type of tyre.
So if you have a puncture, and the recovery service fit you with a van tyre, because that’s what they had access to, my advice is you take it off and get the same tyre as the other side fitted when you get home.
The Michelin Agilis range or the camping range, any of the Michelin camping spec tyres, or the Continental ones which Adrua have also used in the past, are going to be absolutely fine because of that specific spec for it being a motorhome.
Keith Gooden
There you go. Is that the 225/75r16cp 116Q tyres?
Matt Sims
It could also be the 225/75r15 as well.
Keith Gooden
Cheers, John in Rugby, thanks for that.
Ask Matt
Keith Gooden
Now, how do people ask a question?
Matt Sims
Yeah, we’d love it if you did. Just head to mhmp.info/askmatt, hit the orange button and record it. Please tell us where in the country you are, because we love to know. Or if you’d rather just fill out the form and have us read it, you can do that there as well.
Keith Gooden
And leave us a review, why don’t you, at mhmp.info/review?
Matt Sims
If you’re watching on YouTube, please subscribe. Hit the bell too, and then the gods of YouTube will tell you when a new episode is released. And our YouTube channel is sponsored by the lovely folk at www.arobasereative.co.uk.
