[00:00:00] Keith Gooden: In today’s episode of the Motorhome Matt podcast, we.
[00:00:02] Matt Sims: Go behind the scenes of the industry with two motorhome industry special guests.
[00:00:07] Keith Gooden: And we’ve got a very cool product of the week for you.
[00:00:11] Matt Sims: And we answer your questions on using generators to power motorhome connecting two Hook-up leads together and deterring rodents from getting in your van.
[00:00:29] Keith Gooden: Welcome to the Motorhome Matt podcast. I’m Keith Gooden.
[00:00:31] Matt Sims: And I’m Motorhome Matt.
[00:00:32] Keith Gooden: Industry insights and expert advice for the world of motorhomes, caravans and camper vans. And it’s brought to you by thatleisureshop.com and sponsored by Ripe.
[00:00:42] Matt Sims: Please remember to follow on your favourite podcast app or if you’re watching on YouTube, click subscribe and the little bell.
[00:00:48] Keith Gooden: We have got a product feature for you which will make you shiver. Cool cool cool. You can save up to £290 across the Mestic compressor cool box range. What’s the details? Yeah.
[00:01:02] Matt Sims: So these are portable cool boxes that operate on 12 volt and mains, 240 volt to use on the road or on site. Perfect. When you’re away and you’ve got space for one in an awning, they use compressor technology. So they only run on electricity and they deliver reliable fridge and freezer performance.
[00:01:20] Keith Gooden: The 75 litre dual zone model can refrigerate and freeze at the same time. Did you know that.
[00:01:27] Matt Sims: Yeah. There are three models. There’s the 45 litre. They retail for £729.99 but they are now at thatleisureshop.com. Just £439.99.
[00:01:39] Keith Gooden: That means you save £290.
[00:01:41] Matt Sims: You got it. That’s a lot of money isn’t it. And 60 litre model they retail at £799.99 and they are now just £479.99.
[00:01:50] Keith Gooden: Save £320. That’s a lot of beers to fit in them.
[00:01:53] Matt Sims: Yeah, that’s very true. And the 75 litre, the dual zone model. The Big Daddy retails at £869.99 and is now just £579.99.
[00:02:05] Keith Gooden: That’s a saving of £290.
[00:02:08] Matt Sims: You can view all the Mestic range at thatleisureshop.com. Go and save a few hundred quid on your portable fridge and freezer.
[00:02:15] Keith Gooden: The Vanlove Festival is upon us Thursday 18th of June to Sunday, the 21st of June 2026 at the Thruxton Race Circuit in Hampshire. When? Where? What? What’s going on? How? Thruxton.
[00:02:30] Matt Sims: You just said 18th to 21st of June. It’s not long away now at Thruxton. It is new venue for this event. It’s going to be a brilliant event. First time I’ve been to it actually. I’m really excited about it. Looking forward to it. Loads going on. There’s a trade area, there’s live music and entertainment all weekend. That Leisure Shop will be there. I’m there. We’re doing some live podcasts. I’m doing a live talk on the main stage. I’m deejaying as well on Saturday, Motorhome Matt Indie Bangers.
[00:02:58] Keith Gooden: These indie bangers.
[00:03:00] Matt Sims: Being dragged out of retirement, kicking and screaming. It’s going to be great fun, great weekend. And then, of course, the big parade of all the motorhomes around the circuit on the Sunday.
[00:03:08] Keith Gooden: And aren’t you racing The Stig on the go karts?
[00:03:10] Matt Sims: We are. We’re having a go kart race with Ben Collins, The Stig, and Ruby Rides and a whole load of YouTubers and no doubt some other special guests as well.
[00:03:19] Keith Gooden: If the YouTubers are racing, they’ll be photographing themselves. Yeah, yeah.
[00:03:24] Matt Sims: That’s right. Just makes them fair game for me to overtake them. I’m just going to be focusing on [unclear: Ben Collins’ back pipe].
[00:03:32] Keith Gooden: Ben. Sorry.
[00:03:35] Matt Sims: I’ll be chasing his tail.
[00:03:37] Keith Gooden: Concentrating on Ben Collins’ [unclear: back pipe]. Yes.
[00:03:42] Matt Sims: Anyway, there is still time to get tickets. They’re very limited in number, so don’t miss out and you can get 10% off as well. Use the code Motorhome Matt. One word. Head to mhmp.info/love. Get 10% off. I’ll see you there.
[00:04:01] Keith Gooden: And we move swiftly on. We’re once again delving behind the scenes of the industry this week with some special guests.
[00:04:07] Matt Sims: This was recorded live on stage at the new Stoneleigh show in the Warners family of shows. A brilliant show, and I was joined by the lovely Peter Vaughan and the very lovely Tom Lower from Somerset Motorhome Centre to unpack some of the very topical issues facing all of us.
[00:04:26] Tom Lower: I own a company called Somerset Motorhome Centre, based in Taunton. We specialise in just pre-owned vehicles, don’t do brand new ones and we set the business up in January 2009 and we’re still going. Well done.
[00:04:40] Matt Sims: You’re still here. Big cheer. Yeah. Well done Tom. Peter. Now, you’re a familiar face to many of us. But tell us, what’s your background?
[00:04:48] Peter Vaughan: Well, I started writing about motorhomes at the age of 14, as all teenagers obviously do, and I’m still doing it 45 years later. It’s changed quite a bit since the days of black and white photography and print magazines, and now lots of YouTube content and still love it.
[00:05:05] Matt Sims: Brilliant. Well, thank you for joining us today. Now we’ve done a session like that. Yeah. Let’s give Peter a clap as well. It’s only fair isn’t it. Thank you Peter. Things have moved on quite a bit in the last year since we did this last session. So I want to start with accessories. Has anyone ever bought an accessory that they think that was a bad idea? I certainly have, but Tom, you deal with so many motorhomes second hand in your dealership, which accessories would you say are worth the money?
[00:05:31] Tom Lower: It’s very difficult with accessories, because what might be a waste of money for one person is exactly what the other person requires. The most important accessories. I think for us as a dealer on resale, everybody wants to wind-out awning. Everyone wants a bike rack, everyone’s reversing camera. Wi-fi is becoming a really good thing now that people are requesting all the time. When we deal with a lot of first time buyers, they go into great conversation with us about wanting the, is it still called the Safari Room, where you put up the sides in the front and it comes in a big bag, and we try as often as we can to say to people, don’t, don’t buy that yet. Wait. Use it. You just use the wind-out awning. Maybe get some of the windbreaks that go around the side, because I don’t really know anybody that’s used a safari room and got its value for money out of it. And when we buy a van back in or we take a van back in part exchange, we agree a price. And then the customer say, oh, we forgot to tell you, we’ve got a safari room in the garage. It makes no difference to us. You know, we often say, well, take that and sell it. Sell it yourself, because that’s not really an accessory that most people want. What I would suggest to people is not to personalise the van too much. Dealers like ourselves spend quite a lot of time sometimes on a van that comes in that the customer’s personalised so much for themselves. There was a spate. I don’t know if it still goes on where people used to go to Morocco and there was a period of time when everyone came back with a picture of a camel on the side of their van.
[00:06:54] Tom Lower: We spent a fortune getting rid of it. Have you seen the ones they get some nomad painting with? With paint. The big sign on the back that says retired spending my children’s inheritance. That is funny. About ten years ago. But again, goes into our workshop. We’ve got to take all that off because you’d be surprised how just looking at that from another customer’s point of view thinks, oh, that’s a silly thing. We don’t want that on our van. Anybody that’s personalised their van too much. We try and get it back to to standard. On the flip side of saying that if it’s your van, do whatever you want to it, personalise it. And that’s what I was saying about some of the accessories that might not be, you know, good for one person is the ultimate accessory for another person. When people go into their vans and they buy a little plastic shelf and screw it in the bedroom area for their cup of tea, perfect. That’s just what you want as a dealer. We remove all those things we want. We don’t want to let the next owner think someone’s been in there with different screws and drills and everything like that. So I would never say there’s an accessory that is a complete waste of time because it’s all different. But I would suggest, especially if you’re a first time buyer, go for the basic accessories a wind-out awning, reversing camera, that type of thing. But anything else. Use the van for six months, 12 months before you go and invest in thousands of pounds worth of other accessories.
[00:08:09] Matt Sims: Top tip thank you Tom. Peter, what’s your view on accessories?
[00:08:12] Peter Vaughan: I’d like to keep things simple.
[00:08:14] Matt Sims: You travel pretty uncluttered.
[00:08:15] Peter Vaughan: Yeah. I don’t like lots of accessories. We’ve got a wind-out awning that my wife loves. I can never be bothered with it. We also had a freestanding awning, which was great when my daughter came with us. An extra bedroom, more space if she doesn’t come, which she’s 18 now, so she doesn’t often come with us. So that now sits in the understairs cupboard. So yeah. Times change, times change.
[00:08:38] Matt Sims: And as an industry, we’ve changed. And I want to unpack some of this today. One of the things there’s a big conversation around is van versus coach built. So this is Panel van conversion with a sliding side door versus one that’s a body built on a chassis. Tom, you’re seeing, as I say, loads of motorhomes coming into you, you’re buying them every day. You’re selling them every day. You did really well yesterday. Well done here. Thank you. What would you say is a vans as popular as people say they are. Are they the new must have.
[00:09:07] Tom Lower: I think I started doing motorhomes 1992 and it was very, very few van conversions around then. And as years and years have gone on, we’re now in a stage really where, for me, van conversions is our favourite part of the market. There seems to be far more demand for us with van conversions. People buy a van conversion. First of all, they often then will go to a coach built. But we often see people then coming back a year or two later saying, that was lovely. We miss the manoeuvrability of the van conversion. We miss going out, maybe just for the day or just for a weekend, whereas the big one is a bit bigger, a bit more hassle to take out. But again, a bit like the accessories, you know what suits one person doesn’t suit others. We certainly have seen a drop off in our business anyway, in the tag axle market that was really popular 2008, 2009, 2010 when.
[00:09:51] Peter Vaughan: Some of those really big vans have become very out of fashion now.
[00:09:54] Tom Lower: And you’d be amazed the amount of people that come in and say, oh, I don’t think you’re allowed those on campsites anymore, which of course you are, but, you know, they seem to be a little bit negative towards the tag axles. Would you agree that with the campsites.
[00:10:05] Peter Vaughan: Yeah. And I think it’s a size thing isn’t it. Some pitches just aren’t suitable for them. Yeah. I was on a site Warwick Racecourse and the pitch is just about fitted a 7.3m van. Anything but you know tag axle just wouldn’t have gone on.
[00:10:19] Tom Lower: Well I have seen an increase in, I mean a 5.46m van conversion is lovely as a dealership, really sellable. Really, really great stuff. Great stock. We’ve seen a move to the bigger ones. We’re starting to see a move to people being a bit more confident and going for 6.4, 6.5m. I saw maybe four years ago this move towards the VW Crafter and the Mercedes Sprinter high top, long wheelbase Van conversion. And I have to say at the time I thought that’s that’s a blip in the market. You know that’s not going to take off. But actually more and more customers we speak to now are saying, have you got anything Crafter size? You know, they want the narrowness, if you like, of a van conversion, but they just want a bit more than the VW T5 gives you or a Fiat Ducato gives you. So yeah, Van conversion for us is a massive part of our market.
[00:11:05] Peter Vaughan: Is that people, though trading from a VW and want to stay with a sort of more premium German base vehicle. And then if you go for a six metre crafter or a six metre sprinter, they are quite compromised in size, whereas the Fiat just has that bit more of internal space. Definitely there is no sort of 6.4m sprinter, which would be lovely.
[00:11:26] Tom Lower: Yeah, yeah, no you’re right. And I got actually a friend of mine as well that’s got a VW T6 at the moment. And they went to Hillside Leisure because they wanted a change to a crafter and they came away and said, actually, we don’t think there’s much more room in that than there is in our T6. Well, there is, but the Crafter’s just got more stuff. Furniture and things in it. But we’re certainly seeing a move towards the larger van conversions. But having said that, you know the six metre van conversion is still very popular.
[00:11:52] Matt Sims: Would you say then second hand a van is more attractive and easier to sell? A panel van than a coach built motorhome?
[00:11:59] Tom Lower: No, I wouldn’t say it was easier to sell. I think that there’s a big market for van conversions, and there’s also the continued market for the coach builds. But we are seeing people preferring to be six metre even on the van conversions or the coach builds, maybe six and a half. But you know, these big coach builds, we’re not seeing a massive market for that at the moment.
[00:12:18] Matt Sims: Okay, interesting. So if you’re thinking of buying a van, maybe it’s going to be slightly more popular after the fact. Certainly shorter. And is that lifestyle over practicality or is it what’s driving that do you think.
[00:12:31] Tom Lower: I think it’s practicality. I think we’re dealing with people that maybe children reach the age where they don’t want to go away with with them any more? Or didn’t want to go in the first place. And then And they’re happy with a six metre van conversion that, you know, they might have had a larger coach built, but they just realised actually we can go further places, we can do more things and we can use it more of just a weekend van rather than packing up a big 7.5m coach built to go away for three weeks.
[00:12:58] Matt Sims: Okay, let’s talk about the big one pricing. So screen prices have gone up. We’ve debated this in the past many times on the podcast. It’s a a regular topic of conversation. Peter, do you think motorhomes now are just too expensive?
[00:13:11] Peter Vaughan: Yeah, it’s a question I get asked a lot about prices, but I think the industry is trying to address that. And we’ve got more and more sort of entry level products coming onto the market. We’ve got ace, which is Swift’s attempt to to bring a more entry level product and bring the prices down, starting with a six rather than a seven or an eight, even just under 60 with some of their panel vans. So I think the industry is addressing it. The problem is that people want automatic gearboxes. They want diesel heating, they want all the toys. So they don’t want a sort of back to basics 50 grand van. They want the luxuries but they don’t want to pay what that costs.
[00:13:52] Matt Sims: Now the kind of victims of our own desire, I call it spec creep, where the spec is creeping up and we want solar, we want lithium, we want levelling, we want all these things. They cost money.
[00:14:04] Peter Vaughan: And it’s also been forced by the car industry and the legislation with increased emissions standards and all the safety kit that they have to fit things like lane keeping. And we’ve got this driver facing camera system coming in for next year that will push prices of the base vehicles up even further.
[00:14:21] Tom Lower: I think I’ve seen 2 or 3 years ago, and I can name manufacturers because I don’t deal in new, so I can’t upset anybody. But Auto-Trail brought out a van conversion, Expedition, I think, as a base, as a to get it a more entry level price for the customer. Well, we don’t sell new, but we were offered a six month old one and we thought, oh, that looks lovely. Yeah, they’re good value. We’ll have one of those in. So we bought it off this lady and gentleman, and when we sold it we suddenly realised it had no stereo in it, no electric socket. So they got the price down, but they just stripped the van of all the what I would see as essential stuff. So we suddenly said, well, we can’t let a £50,000 vehicle go out without a stereo, without a main socket, so you end up upgrading that vehicle for the customer anyway. So I think it’s okay trying to get the price down, but if you’re just going to take away all the essential stuff and then it just goes back up again. The other thing as well, from a manufacturer’s point of view, they can build that vehicle quicker with less spec in. It goes out the factory, and then it’s up to the dealer, then to having to spend all the money to upgrade that base vehicle to something with a decent specification.
[00:15:23] Peter Vaughan: It’s interesting with Auto-Trail, I don’t want to pick on any particular manufacturers. The campervans they’re selling are either the base spec expeditions or the top V-Line Sport. The ones in the middle are not selling because they’re neither cheap enough nor luxurious enough.
[00:15:38] Tom Lower: Yeah, they’re not worth ten grand more than that one and that. But you might as well put five grand and get the better one. Yeah yeah yeah.
[00:15:44] Matt Sims: So, Tom, as you say, you don’t sell new so we can talk used informally. It’s interesting. There are 50 vans here under 50 grand on display. They’re all 20 years old. No they’re not. But there is a wide choice. And my fear is that for newbies, this is another mortgage to get into. Certainly a brand new van. But second hand prices, are they stabilising? Are you still seeing that they are inflated?
[00:16:10] Tom Lower: No, I think they’re certainly stabilising. Obviously, when Covid happened, you know, there was no stock about new prices went through the roof. They have come back down but they’ve certainly stabilised. But no matter what happens, the effect on the used price is always going to be determined by the new price. So if we get offered a 12 month old vehicle and the brand new one is £80,000. We can then determine what we think is the used price off that. If all of a sudden you go to October NEC and that new vehicle has gone up by 7%, you know, we don’t go back to our showroom and put all the used ones up. But when it comes in again, seriously, look at the price and think actually, well, the new ones have gone up that much. So you know, they don’t go up, but they’ll hold the used vehicles certainly hold their price as well.
[00:16:51] Matt Sims: But the challenge we’ve got at the moment is three years ago you could have bought a brand new van for 80 K. The new one now is 70. So if you if your van is three years old, that’s a difficult position to be in, isn’t it? In terms of pricing, how are you dealing with that as a used dealer.
[00:17:07] Tom Lower: When you say that you could buy a new one three years ago for 80 and the brand new one is 70? I would suspect that I don’t know which vehicle you’re talking about, but has that got a reduced spec on it as well going down to 70.
[00:17:17] Peter Vaughan: There’s, there’s very few that have actually reduced prices. There’s a few. And the classic where they replace the range with the Bürstner B66 put more spec in and reduce the price. And there is like ten grand difference between the two. But that’s an unusual situation.
[00:17:36] Matt Sims: But cast your mind back. Just a couple of weeks ago we were in Harrogate together and Carthagos for 20% off.
[00:17:42] Peter Vaughan: Oh yeah. And that. But that is a discount rather than a list price change.
[00:17:46] Matt Sims: But that’s my point.
[00:17:47] Tom Lower: But this is like 40 grand.
[00:17:49] Matt Sims: Yeah, yeah. They were 40. They were 20, 30, 40 grand off the brand new screen prices. Now they were they were a year old.
[00:17:57] Tom Lower: But I would suspect, as you were saying, that that’s probably a dealer discount or is it from the manufacturer?
[00:18:02] Matt Sims: Manufacturer.
[00:18:03] Peter Vaughan: It’s a manufacturer giving the dealer a bonus to get rid of those.
[00:18:07] Tom Lower: Right?
[00:18:07] Matt Sims: That 2025 stock.
[00:18:09] Peter Vaughan: 2020.
[00:18:10] Matt Sims: In the network.
[00:18:10] Tom Lower: Well, that that does happen a lot in our industry. If if the manufacturers are starting to look at how much dealer stock they’ve got out there, they know whatever amount of vehicles they build, the dealers aren’t going to take them until they got rid of that stock. So the incentive is given to the dealer to move their 25 stock before the 26th stop comes in. So so that’s not unusual. And that’s a matter of us as a dealer having to be very aware of what manufacturers are doing this and what dealers are doing that. Wherever you are in the country. It could vary because where we are in Somerset, we’ve got 2 or 3 dealers around us that sell a lot of new. Now one of them is a big Chausson dealer. Now, if they’re absolutely overloaded with Chausson stock and they start deciding to do a special offer, 10% off all their Chaussons, we then have to look at our two year old chassis to make sure we’ve price aligned it. If a dealer in Scotland is doing 10% off his Chausson vehicles, he’s got too many. That’s not going to affect us in Somerset. So. So you will see if when you do an internet search, you will see price variations around the country. And that just depends on what dealers are near, dealers that are discounting and what dealers are, you know, are trying to move stock on.
[00:19:16] Matt Sims: And Peter, are you seeing little peachy gems coming back used? I mean, we saw La Strada didn’t we, at the Harrogate show. And it was a beautiful. An old van. 20 odd years old, and I can’t remember how much it was on for £20,000, £25,000, £24,000. So there’s a few, but are you seeing more of them when you’re doing reviews?
[00:19:35] Peter Vaughan: And most of what I review is new. It’s the latest stuff. But when I’m on dealer forecourts, I think the thing is, a lot of dealers seem reticent to to go much below the sort of 40 grand mark, would you agree?
[00:19:49] Tom Lower: Yeah, definitely. We as a dealer always try and have, you know, we keep about 80 vehicles in stock, but we always try and have something for everyone. And someone comes in to spend £20,000 with us, gets exactly the same treatment than someone that comes in and spends £80,000. The trouble is, when you’re selling a £20,000 vehicle, you really have to educate that customer to let them know that it’s £20,000 for a reason. It’s 20 years old and the van’s 20 years old. The engine’s 20 years old. So is the cooker. So is the settee. So is the fridge, you know. So for a dealer, it’s very difficult to then put a 12 month warranty on something that’s 20 years old. When it was brand new, it didn’t have a you know, it probably only had a two year warranty. So that’s why a lot of dealers are quite reticent in selling that type of stuff. We don’t mind doing it, but we do have a way of just sitting with the customer and saying, we’ll warranty, we’ll look after you. If anything goes wrong, we’ll do all that. But the cushion might feel like when you sit on it, you’re going to hit the wooden bench because it’s 20 years old. You know, if they want to upgrade the cushions when they get it, then, then so be it. But it does seem a strange world that we live in, that someone comes in to spend £20,000 and they get in at the bottom of the rung type vehicle was when I started doing motorhomes. They were £20,000 brand new.
[00:20:57] Matt Sims: Yeah.
[00:20:58] Peter Vaughan: I was talking to a lady downstairs just before we started. She said she got 17 grand car to part exchange, hadn’t got a lot to put with it and wanted to buy a nice Volkswagen camper. And well, you did quite a bit of money on top of that 17 grand, I think.
[00:21:13] Tom Lower: Did she have an electric car, a Volkswagen electric car?
[00:21:15] Peter Vaughan: No, it was a.
[00:21:16] Tom Lower: We had someone yesterday with that and they were paying £300 a month on their VW electric car. Lovely. You know. But then to go and buy a five year old VW camper van, it was doubling their monthly payments. So but then sometimes having done this for so long, I look at the prices and I think, wow, you know, it doesn’t, doesn’t the prices keep going up and up? But you then got to go to any car showroom and realise that the Land Rover Discovery that was £40,000 five years ago is £90,000. So everything’s gone up. And when you ask the question just now is the is the motorhomes getting too expensive. Everything is. But I think that’s the age that we’re at. A lot of us, everything’s too expensive. But when a 30 year old comes in to look at motorhomes now, the car they bought last month was £80,000. So, you know, that’s what the price of things are. Sometimes too much knowledge is a dangerous thing, isn’t it?
[00:22:04] Matt Sims: Well, I’m getting old.
[00:22:05] Tom Lower: Yeah.
[00:22:06] Matt Sims: So I want to talk to supply versus demand. We’ve been on a real rollercoaster, aren’t we, with supply. And you may be familiar with this, where new vehicles just were not available to buy. I know people that have waited over two years for their new van supply seems to have eased up a bit for new. The effect on the dealership for you, Tom and Peter. You’ll see this when you travel around. Are you finding that you’re overstocked? Are dealers holding on to more stock these days?
[00:22:32] Tom Lower: Again, I can only speak as us as a dealership, although I know of nearly all the dealers in the country, and we’ve all got good friends and bad friends within the industry. I think the dealers, after Covid got so excited the way things were selling during Covid, that when the manufacturer came to them and said, you know, how many do you want next year? Oh, give us 100 of those and 60 of those and 30 of them. And then they all started arriving and they were completely overstocked. And I think they’re all trying to realign their stock position. Now. It takes six months, I believe, 6 to 12 months for a dealer to get themselves in a situation where they’ve just got too much stock. It can take 3 to 4 years to deal out of that stock to get it back under control. And I think a lot of dealers that did have too much stock are now getting it back under control and are being a little bit more cautious with what they order from the manufacturers for 26. In a minute they’ll be ordering 27. And with that, and that’s brilliant for the industry, you know, to have a to work in an industry that’s overstocked is terrible for everybody. You know.
[00:23:30] Peter Vaughan: I think the blame also lies with the manufacturers because I went through a number of the summer motorhome launches. What would it be, 2023, 2024? And you’d hear over and over again, oh, we’re building a new factory. We’re extending the production lines. We’ll be able to build 50% more next year. Where are all those customers coming from? 50% more across the whole of Europe. That is tens of thousands of motorhome buyers.
[00:23:57] Tom Lower: And two years later, they’re on three day weeks then, aren’t they? Yeah. You know, that’s how quickly things can change.
[00:24:02] Peter Vaughan: We had some of the German manufacturers shutting production for three months.
[00:24:06] Tom Lower: I’m not a great lover of manufacturers because they are. They cause all the problems in our industry. The dealers are great. It’s the manufacturers. But you’d be surprised If you’re a dealer for a, B, C manufacturer and they go to you and say, right, we want you to take. We think your area that you cover is can sell 60 brand new vehicles this year of our of our manufacturer of our product. If you said, no, I only want 20 we had a terrible year last year. I only want 2025. You know, they’ll say that’s fine, but there’s a dealer ten miles down the road that will take this product if you don’t take it. So, you know, there’s a lot of arm twisting and there’s a lot of stuff goes on where a dealer then says, oh, well, we don’t want to lose the franchise and okay, we’ll have 50. And you know, then you’re in a spiral of trouble. Yeah, yeah. And when I used to work for a large dealer, so I learned all that, if you like, when I was working for someone. So when I set up on my own, people said, oh, you know, you must have learned a lot of how to do things when you set up on your own. I did, but the biggest things I learned of how not to do things, we were in a moment then in the industry where every dealer was collecting flagpoles. You know, everybody wanted to be a Swift and Elddis and Auto-Trail, a Bürstner, Adria dealer. That’s why I’ll only do use now. So you’re in control of your own destiny, then?
[00:25:20] Matt Sims: Peter. Do you. How do you see demand? Is it. Is it softening? Is it growing?
[00:25:24] Peter Vaughan: I think demand is still strong. And surprisingly, when when you look at what’s going out in the world at large, you’ve just got to see the attendance at our shows seem to be up. Every show seems to be up year on year. The attendance of the NEC was up in February. People seem to be doing good business there. So there’s there’s loads of interest in buying new campervans and motorhomes. I think people perhaps are taking a bit longer to decide to spend the money. And there’s, there’s plenty of stock out there. I’m going to dealers that a few years ago you’d gone post-COVID, you’d go on their forecourt and you say, oh, you’re closing down, you’ve got nothing out there.
[00:26:00] Tom Lower: Be a car park.
[00:26:02] Peter Vaughan: And now they’re back to at least pre-COVID levels. And some of them, you think, wow, you’ve got some stock here of some. Some brands seem to be much worse afflicted than others. Some of the high end stuff. There seems to be a lot of stock. You know, you’ve only got to go online and see dealers websites that some of the some of the brands, there’s hefty discounts, which we talked about. You know, Carthagos at 40 grand off and you know, there are there are those sort of vehicles out there.
[00:26:28] Matt Sims: I read an interesting stat from the marketing team that run these shows that, believe it or not, of the day visitors that come to these shows, 85% of them are at a show for the first time, which I think is fantastic. I think that’s really encouraging. That’s great news, isn’t it, for you?
[00:26:43] Tom Lower: Yeah, I think when you when you ask about what the market’s doing, just to give you an example, when our industry goes into what we call Christmas, beginning of December, in the old days, a caravan or motorhome dealer would shut down for three weeks. Now none of them shut down because the industry, it does carry on. It doesn’t just come to nothing. But when we start up again in January, you know, it’s like, come on everybody, let’s get back to work. Let’s find some customers. Let’s do this, do that.
[00:27:08] Matt Sims: Stop raining, stop raining.
[00:27:09] Tom Lower: This January, February, March was probably the wettest January, February, March we’ve ever had with Russia at war with Ukraine? The Iran crisis was about to start, and yet we had our best first quarter of the year ever. But I don’t think that when I talk to other dealers all going like everything’s against us, the petrol prices, there’s a war going on, cost of living. And yet we’re still selling vans. And I think a lot of that is that people are thinking, okay, well, going further afield is maybe not the right idea at the moment holiday wise. I also am a believer in that a lot of people that we deal with have done Tenerife. They’ve done all those Spanish holiday resorts, they’ve done a few cruises, they might have done a long haul trip. So really it’s like, what do we do now? I know, let’s have an adventure. And that’s why I think the industry carries on and it’s getting busier and busier. And I think that the people that we’re dealing with now, you know, 55, 60 year old people, they’re more adventurous, if you like, than my parents were when they were 60 years old.
[00:28:04] Peter Vaughan: I think that’s another thing with the campervans against Coachbuilt motorhomes, some of the people that are coming into the market new. And I think that there are a lot of new people still coming into the market at 55 to 60, and they’ve probably got a younger, more adventurous demographic than the 55, 60 year olds of 20 years ago. So they want to go further afield. They want to do the North Coast 500. They might go to Morocco rather than just go to France. Yeah. And so the smaller van is more suitable for those for the adventure.
[00:28:35] Tom Lower: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:28:36] Matt Sims: Now you mentioned the elephant in the room, fuel prices and the world stage and events happening there. There’s lots of statistics. I love data, and after every recession or post global event, tourism booms. And I think personally, what’s going on at the moment on the world stage is fantastic for British tourism, because I think people will find travelling abroad is going to be too expensive. There’s also the fear of not getting home. I’ve got friends in Dubai who have run away to Oman and they’ve been struggling to get home. They’re now going to stay put. But because they live there, not because they’re on holiday, an extended holiday. But all these things are great and we feel the pinch. When you feel robbed at the fuel station, there’s lots of memes about it. I was robbed yesterday. It was pump number five. But what impact do you are you seeing this having on our industry right now? And what do you predict is going to happen? Am I right? Do you think there will be a boom?
[00:29:33] Tom Lower: Yeah, my prediction is that people will be feel very safe going to Europe. I think we have this thing about it’s only over the water. We can get the the tunnel back or a ferry back going further afield than Europe probably is. People are starting to question that a little bit, going even down, down to Greece and Cyprus and places like that. So they feel safe in Europe. But I also think there’s a lot of people that get to the age and think, actually, let’s just stay in this country. Let’s go do the NC 500, let’s do Scotland, let’s do you know, there’s so many people, and I’m probably one of them that never really has had a good look around Wales. And yet it’s beautiful over on the West Coast. So I think there’s a lot of that where people are exploring this country. But having the motorhome then to go two weeks down into Spain or Portugal in the summer, if they want to go and get some proper sunshine as well. Yeah.
[00:30:15] Peter Vaughan: I think back to when my father was in the motor trade and he’d come home and say somebody was traded in their nice three litre car for some little economy thing, spent thousands to do so to save a few pennies on fuel. And actually the cost of diesel, if it’s £2 a litre or £2.10 a litre, it doesn’t make that much difference in the overall cost of a motorhome. The depreciation, the insurance, the road tax, all those things are going to cost you a lot more than a few pence a litre on on your day.
[00:30:44] Matt Sims: In reality, it probably is £30, £40 a tank isn’t it? I would have thought.
[00:30:48] Tom Lower: Yeah, but I think if you’re, if you’re spending 50, £60,000 on a motorhome and your budget is so tight that you can’t really use it because it’s gone up £30 a tank, then maybe you should have looked at your choice in the first place, whether you should have spent that money on a motorhome. So that’s a bit blasé. I don’t mean that, but I think the people that buy these vehicles that 25, £30 is not doesn’t make any difference to them really.
[00:31:07] Matt Sims: Okay. Moving on very quickly. So let’s talk about off grid. This is another blue eyed boy accessory of our world lithium batteries and solar. Do you think the capability to go off grid in a motorhome is now? It feels like a must have. Is that something you’re being asked for a lot?
[00:31:23] Tom Lower: I wish that the manufacturers would put lithium batteries in their vehicles. To be honest, as standard. Because so much. Again, from a dealer’s point of view, so much of after sales problems can normally normally is down to the power power either electric problem, battery problem. You know, the fridge isn’t working well, the fridge is. It’s the power getting to the fridge that’s the problem. We love upgrading to lithium batteries because you’ve got a good reliable energy source. And if you’ve got a good, reliable energy source, that stops a lot of the problems happening in the van.
[00:31:51] Matt Sims: And are you seeing manufacturers starting to introduce lithium?
[00:31:53] Peter Vaughan: Yeah. Lithium is becoming more common. Solar panels are becoming more common as standard fitting, more compressor fridges rather than three way fridges, more diesel heating, so manufacturers are slowly addressing. It varies from brand to brand and even from range to range, sometimes within within manufacturers offerings. But I think you’ve also got almost two different types of customer. You’ve got the the more adventurous ones that are probably going to go off grid and those that still go to a caravan club site and hook up and they’re not so worried about those issues. And, and perhaps they’re paying for a solar panel that they don’t need.
[00:32:29] Matt Sims: Yeah, that happens a lot, I’m sure.
[00:32:30] Tom Lower: Yeah. We had a customer a couple of weeks ago, rang up quite cross because he’d only had the vehicle six weeks and he’d gone out. And the leisure battery was flat, but we looked on the spec of his vehicle and we said, okay, well, is your solar panel working? Yep. Okay. Well, there must be a problem with the solar panel if that’s gone flat. No. So one of the, one of our after sales ladies asked him to. Could you just FaceTime? We use that a lot with after sales issues. Facetime us where the vehicle is so we can have a look at it. It was parked in a barn.
[00:32:58] Matt Sims: It’s under a cover.
[00:32:59] Tom Lower: Yeah.
[00:33:01] Matt Sims: So another debate is this 4×4 swampy look, I call it the knobbly tyres, the raised suspension. I’m sure you’ve seen more and more of these motorhomes. And it’s a look that’s become allegedly cool and I’m guilty of it. I’ve got funky wheels and knobbly tyres on my van, but doing so many shows on wet grass, it’s a Fiat Ducato, it’s rubbish, so it gets stuck too easily. But do you think it’s a style over substance or is it a fad, a trend? Is it here to stay?
[00:33:28] Tom Lower: I think it’s a little bit like the wife taking the kids to school in a Range Rover that can go absolutely anywhere in the world, but it doesn’t even go over a kerb. Well, I.
[00:33:38] Matt Sims: Call them Chelsea campers.
[00:33:39] Tom Lower: Yeah, exactly. I mean, I love the look of these swampy campers. I have to say, when they first came out, didn’t. But they’ve grown on me. And is it Swift that do the Trekker? Yeah, I think that’s a brilliant, lovely looking van. But half of the people that buy these swampy looking vans with the big wheels and big tyres and all the gear on it and winches and that sort of thing looks great. But I bet hardly any of them ever get used for what they’re designed to do.
[00:34:00] Peter Vaughan: It’s it’s the ones that go the full hog with a full four wheel drive. Mercedes Sprinter. We were on the site in south of France last year, and this 4×4 Hymer pulls up, plugs into the hook-up and you think should be going down some rough track and parking where nobody can see you or find you not park on a campsite.
[00:34:17] Matt Sims: If it attracts newbies to our pastime because they think it’s cool and they’ve got a Range Rover. Yeah, yeah, yeah, or they’ve got something that you know is a bit cool. Maybe then it has to be a good thing.
[00:34:28] Peter Vaughan: Yeah, I did ask one dealer, he said, every time we have 4×4 Hymer on the forecourt, they’re gone just like that. As soon as we get another one in, it’s gone. I said, well, who buys these things? Are they really using them? He said, no, they’re bought by the same people that buy Lamborghinis. They parked them outside the house. Go look what I’ve got.
[00:34:47] Tom Lower: Yeah.
[00:34:48] Matt Sims: All show and no go. Yeah. So first time buyers. Can I have a tip from a tip each for a first time buyer? What’s the biggest mistake they make.
[00:34:57] Tom Lower: I would say to any first time buyer, if you if you want to spend £60,000, £70,000, spend 40. If you get the vehicle right, the layout right, which is unusual as many experienced motorhomes will tell you, your first van is very often not the one you fall in love with. You’ll buy it. You’ll use it. It might not be the right layout, at least then you’ve got a nice vehicle of a good price range to go and part exchange, because the next one you’ll go, right. This is what we definitely want. We want single beds, not an island bed. We don’t use the drop down bed in the front so we don’t need that. So I would suggest not to spend the full blown budget on the first van, because you will probably end up trading it in in 12 months time.
[00:35:36] Peter Vaughan: I would say hire first if you’re not sure of the layout. And so many people don’t seem to even have an idea of what size of van they want. I talked to somebody downstairs and said they came thinking they wanted a VW camper van. Now they know they don’t want that, but they don’t really know what they do want now because they’ve looked at all these big vans and they want something bigger than a VW, but it could be any one of hundreds out there. So hiring first, something with the right sort of layout and the right sort of size that you’re thinking of buying, I think gives you a good idea whether you’re on the right track.
[00:36:09] Matt Sims: Very good. I’m of course going to say listen to the Motorhome Matt podcast, which I actually do think would be useful, but it’s all about for me, it’s all about layout. And as you say, finding out which layout works best for you. And my advice would be do this, come to loads of shows, open the doors on all of them, go and ignore the screen price. Go in and sit on the toilet. Don’t use it, but take your shoes off. Lie on the beds. Actually try and mimic. You wouldn’t mind, would you, if people were respectful and lie on the beds and actually genuinely try it out? Maybe you’re thinking an overcab bed would be ideal. Climb the ladder and lie on it together. Can you sleep in what is like a coffin? I hate sleeping up there. I’ve had several, so I’ve made loads of buying mistakes in my time. And it’s all generally because we’ve got the layout wrong, I thought. A rear lounge was lovely. It just became a motorhome with a very uncomfortable bed and no storage. So we got rid of it. So we bought one with bunk beds and an overcab bed. Hated the overcab bed. Kids loved the bunk beds. Eventually we did get it right. So coming to shows where you can see hundreds, you know, three, 400 very often in one walk around is a brilliant place to come, isn’t it? And you can see loads of dealers without travelling miles and miles and miles. So I think they are a top tip. And I am biased because here we are stood at a show.
[00:37:24] Tom Lower: Can I just give one one more tip from a dealer point of view? I’d love you to buy a van off us. But you know, people live all around the country and we won’t be your local dealer as much as doing the research on the motorhome itself. Do your research on the dealer. That’s all I’ll say. Do your research on the dealer, and you’ve got things like Trustpilot out there that will do all that. And look at all the reviews because, you know, there’s different elements of dealerships. There’s good and there’s bad, and the information is out there for you to find before you buy.
[00:37:51] Matt Sims: And it’s very, very easy to find.
[00:37:53] Tom Lower: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
[00:37:54] Matt Sims: Because people are very quick to take to the keyboard when they’ve got a complaint. So we have only a few minutes left. Has that been interesting and useful? I enjoyed it, I thought it was great. Thank you both ever so much. Thank you. A big round of applause for these two. Hang around one minute. Okay. Has anybody got a burning question they would like to ask Tom or Peter? We’ve got time for probably 1 or 2 quick questions. We’ll bring you a microphone. Then we can all hear and then we are going to have to wrap up. But you guys are hanging around for a bit afterwards. Yeah. Brilliant. Thank you.
[00:38:22] Audience Member: Thank you. Are there any Chinese motorhomes coming to the market? Because if you’re looking at YouTube, they’re just flooding for yes, very, very cheap prices.
[00:38:30] Matt Sims: Basically any Chinese motorhomes coming into the market?
[00:38:34] Peter Vaughan: Not as yet as far as I know. There may be some Chinese based vehicles in due course and it’s, it’s this very slow move to electric. The last two days I’ve done talks on buying campervan or motorhome, and I have a slide that shows the new Kia van, which looks quite suitable for campervan conversion. And I say, is anybody here thinking that they might buy an electric campervan? And I’ve never had so much silence. You could hear a pin drop.
[00:39:07] Tom Lower: I think just can I just bet on that one as well? I think that the future 1020 years time, I think to try and work out what that’s going to be. Look back ten years and see where we are today. Ten years ago, I would not have dreamed of seeing so many. Jaecoos, BYDs. Every other car on the motorway now seems to be a Chinese vehicle, which is very good, very well built, but more importantly, such good value. And that’s why they’re selling so many. And I think if they, you know, in ten years time, if the Chinese decide to build a motorhome.
[00:39:37] Matt Sims: Yeah. Well they are.
[00:39:38] Tom Lower: Yeah. And, and that comes.
[00:39:40] Matt Sims: In in China. I’m talking to a number of people in China right now who are motorhome mad. And it’s becoming an ever increasing pastime. Never used to be, and they’ve really cottoned on to it. Their design is way off target of where it needs to be for us to like it, but they seem to build a lot on Iveco chassis with slide outs. They are coming to the UK and they are going to take manufacturers by storm. Guys, thank you both.
[00:40:03] Tom Lower: You’re welcome.
[00:40:03] Matt Sims: Thank you. It’s been great. And another round of applause for Tom from Somerset and Peter Vaughan. Thank you.
[00:40:08] Keith Gooden: That’s Peter Vaughan the journalist. And out and about live. And Tom Lower, the managing director of Somerset Motorhome Centre in conversation there with Matt. A lot of ground covered.
[00:40:20] Matt Sims: There certainly was. Yeah, it was a great conversation. So thank you to both Peter and Tom for joining me. I’d love to do more sessions like this with some industry guests. So if you’ve got a topic you’d love me to challenge a motorhome dealer on, maybe a manufacturer. If we can get one brave enough to come on stage, will you let us know? We’d love to hear the topics you want discussed. Head to mhmp.info/askmatt and let me know there.
[00:40:44] Keith Gooden: It’s the Motorhome Matt podcast with me, Keith Gooden.
[00:40:46] Matt Sims: And me Motorhome Matt.
[00:40:47] Keith Gooden: And is brought to you with thatleisureshop.com and sponsored by Ripe.
[00:40:50] Matt Sims: Remember. Get 15% off your insurance premium with Ripe. The discount applies automatically if you click the link in the episode description.
[00:40:59] Keith Gooden: Into our Q&A. The questions and answers where you ask the questions and he answers them. If he doesn’t know the answer, he’ll ask somebody who jolly well does. First of all, this week, Dave Chesterton is in Nottingham.
[00:41:11] Dave: Hi. Motorhome Matt campervan. Maddie and Volvo. Keith. It’s Dave from Nottingham again. Loved your podcast on the dangers of using a power bank connected to your motorhome. As I mentioned in my previous message, using a generator. Is it safe with or without an earth rod? I have another generator which is an inverter generator. Is that safe to use with or without an earth rod.
[00:41:47] Matt Sims: Thanks by DJ Dave is back!
[00:41:50] Keith Gooden: Cheers DJ Dave. I drive a Mazda now. By the way.
[00:41:54] Matt Sims: You wrote your Volvo off easy.
[00:41:56] Keith Gooden: I didn’t write it off. It blew up. He managed to.
[00:41:58] Matt Sims: Blow up a Volvo. That’s very clever.
[00:42:00] Keith Gooden: That’s. That’s enough of that. Don’t want to hear about that. So anyway, look, it’s electricity again.
[00:42:06] Matt Sims: It’s back. This earth rod topic is back. So, Dave, thanks for the question. Loads of people are asking this, and rightly so. There are lots of scenarios here that will impact the decision as to whether you need to fit an earth rod to a external power source to your van. I am going to not answer it today. We are going to get an electrician on someone who’s a specialist in exactly this topic and an expert in it, which I am not, so I’m going to be joined very soon in a few weeks time by an electrician. We’re yet to record the episode, but it’s coming. There’s a lot of further research being done into this so that we can get all the facts together and present them in a way that everyone can understand, because that’s the big issue. We start delving into it and it just becomes gobbledegook and a whole load of capital letters RCD, MCB, RCBO and all the rest of it. So we are not going to try and confuse everyone. We’re going to unpack it very simply, so bear with us. It’s coming. Is that right?
[00:43:03] Keith Gooden: That’s fine. Thanks, Dave, for the question and mentioning Motorhome Matt or oh.
[00:43:09] Matt Sims: Dave, she loved that. When you when you ask a question, mention Maddie. Top tip more likely to get included.
[00:43:16] Keith Gooden: Steve Hardman’s in Preston. Hi, Matt. And Keith doesn’t mention Maddie. Oh, no. Forget that one. No, no. Some time ago, you suggested, for convenience, reducing a 25 metre mains lead to a 15 or maybe a ten. I recently stayed at a caravan and Motorhome club site and noticed a sign saying no joints or splitters allowed. Were they talking about electricity?
[00:43:40] Matt Sims: It’s a normal.
[00:43:41] Keith Gooden: Thing. We only just managed to get connected with the 15. I can understand why, but would have thought a sealed box to put the joint in would be okay. Just wondered what you thought. Thanks for a very entertaining and helpful podcast. Steve and Sue in Preston in Lancashire.
[00:43:56] Matt Sims: Thank you both. Yeah. Oh gosh. This is annoying, isn’t it? I love my 15 metre electrical cable. But you are right. If you stay on a CAMC Caravan and Motorhome Club site, you are not allowed to put a connector on the grass or anywhere between your van and the hook up point. And I think it’s probably more the fact that it’s a trip hazard or a drive over hazard more than anything else. And if someone drove over it, they could cause damage to the cable and cause a short. If you’re on a CAMC site, you’ll need to take a 25 metre cable and a ten. So the two lengths you typically buy in a shop.
[00:44:30] Keith Gooden: A 25 metre.
[00:44:31] Matt Sims: Yeah. So what I’ve done is I’ve taken my 25 and I’ve cut it into a ten and a 15, because very often the 15 is enough and I haven’t got ten metres of excess cable strewn under the van.
[00:44:42] Keith Gooden: Or coiled, which.
[00:44:43] Matt Sims: Is not a good idea. That’s what you shouldn’t do. Always uncoil it. And I was going to make this point. If you are using 25m of cable, uncoil it. I run it in a big figure of eight, the width of the back of the van and just run it on the floor.
[00:44:55] Keith Gooden: And why should you not coil it?
[00:44:56] Matt Sims: Because it can get hot. Yeah. So there is a risk of magnetic induction. Yes. So there’s a risk if you’re drawing a lot of power through the cable and it’s in a tight drum on the wheel or the, you know, the wheel, you can wind the cable around, it can get hot and overheat and catch fire. And there’s regularly pictures of melted hook up cables where exactly this has happened. So unwind all of the cable. And the other top tip is always connect the van first and then the hook up point and disconnect the hook up point first and the van last when you’re unplugging it. And that means you’re not walking around with a live cable. The chances of getting something wrong with that is very low.
[00:45:31] Keith Gooden: But a possibility.
[00:45:32] Matt Sims: Don’t take the risk. So yeah, I’m afraid my 15 metre cable is probably not welcome on a caravan and Motorhome Club site where it’s not long enough.
[00:45:39] Keith Gooden: Talking of joints, Adrian’s in Glastonbury. Hi Matt, Keith and Maddie. My question is how do you deter pesky rodents from getting into your motorhomes? Is it worth investing in one of the electronic deterrents, for example, that are wired into your engine battery? Has anyone done any testing to see whether or not they work a shovel? Boing! Bang! Yeah, I’m sure the people that sell the electric things that deter mice have done some testing and the results are valid. I don’t know, I haven’t ever tried one.
[00:46:10] Keith Gooden: What do they.
[00:46:10] Matt Sims: Do? I think they make a high pitched noise.
[00:46:12] Keith Gooden: It’s not like a robot, mouse or rat that chases the robo cat.
[00:46:18] Matt Sims: That’s a good idea. No, I think it makes a high pitched squeal from memory that we can’t hear that mice hate. Is it worth it? Try one. Maybe. The other thing I hear is peppermint mice hate mint. Is that true? I’m assured it is. Elephants don’t like it either. I’ve never found an elephant in my van. I would advise though, don’t leave any fresh food open. Tin food would be fine, but don’t leave anything that’s going to attract mice or worse, squirrels. They’re a nightmare. They’ve got big teeth and they do loads of damage. So make sure your van’s kind of squirrel proofed if you’re going to store it for winter. And in our storage business, all the vans are on stones. We call it type two, which is the base layer of what they make roads from. So the stones are quite big. You wouldn’t want to walk on them bare foot, and that’s why rodents don’t like them either, because they really don’t like it on their little pads, whereas you’re on grass or tarmac. That’s much easier for mice to run around in or on. So yeah, do what you can to keep them away. But peppermint is probably a good thing. We had someone store van with us recently, and they soaked a load of tissue in a peppermint. I don’t know where they got it from. Some sort of minty fluid, soaked all the tissues in it and left them in the van. The van smelt lovely.
[00:47:28] Keith Gooden: Make sure if you use the peppermint, you only do it after eight. Oh, right. Listen, Matt, how do people get in touch?
[00:47:38] Matt Sims: I wouldn’t bother if I were you. We’d love it if you did. mhmp.info/askmatt. You can record a question. Tell us where you are, please and mention Maddie or fill in the form and we’ll read it for you.
[00:47:50] Keith Gooden: If you’re looking for trusted brands and services, then make sure you visit the Motorhome Matt Approved directory. It’s at mhmp.info/approved.
[00:47:59] Matt Sims: And we always ask you to do this. But please, if you’re listening, follow on your favourite podcast app or if you’re watching on YouTube, click subscribe and the little bell.
[00:48:07] Keith Gooden: Matt, tell me, what’s the actual risk of using public Wi-Fi, such as if I’m in a cafe?
[00:48:13] Matt Sims: Honestly, it’s bigger than people think. Public Wi-Fi is a gold mine for hackers. They can snoop on what you’re doing, steal your passwords, or even get into your email or worse, your bank.
[00:48:23] Keith Gooden: Well, even if I’m just checking the weather or booking a campsite.
[00:48:26] Matt Sims: Yeah, all it takes is one dodgy connection. That’s why I use NordVPN on the road and at home right now? It encrypts everything so your data is locked up tight, and their threat Protection pro blocks malware and scammy websites before they even load.
[00:48:43] Keith Gooden: So it’s doing a lot more than just hiding your location.
[00:48:46] Matt Sims: Yeah, exactly. It’s like a digital deadlock for your devices. It runs in the background, no faff and no slowing you down.
[00:48:53] Keith Gooden: Okay. Where do people go to get it?
[00:48:55] Matt Sims: Just head to nordvpn.com/motorhomematt, where you’ll get four extra months free, and there’s a 30 day money back guarantee if it’s not for you.
[00:49:06] Keith Gooden: Not bad for a bit of peace of mind.
[00:49:08] Matt Sims: Exactly. Yeah, it’s a no brainer.
[00:49:13] Keith Gooden: Thanks for listening to the Motorhome Matt podcast. Remember to check back here for more episodes full of hints and tips and helpful advice. We’ll see you soon for another Motorhome Matt podcast brought to you with thatleisureshop.com.
