NEW MDC CAMPER TRAILER

Recently I bought a new camper trailer, as I wanted to upgrade the old one for something – hopefully a little better, simpler setup and something different. I have had my old trailer for nearly 14 years and it has been great. Good Aussie made canvas, strong Aussie made trailer and I have decked it out to suit me- sort of custom made. That trailer has been great- all over Australia, the islands, great to tow and some great memories, cheap to own and easy to tow. Now you may ask, why bloody sell it??.... Well to this day I am still wondering if I did the right thing and I think its only because this new one hasn’t got many miles on it and has had a few little niggly things go wrong. 

So I was looking around and found a company that do a Forward Folding trailer. How does that work you may ask- well instead of folding to the rear on the ground, these new designs actually fold to the front towards the drawbar and when you flip it forward the front part sits on the front box and is where your bed is. 

There are a few different companies that actually make this new type, but I decided to go with a brand called MDC. 

http://www.marketdirectcampertrailers.com.au/en/crusader-ff/

This company is only fairly new the market, and seems to be doing ok. The way I came across my trailer (mine is actually a V1, which was the first batch, and I believe they are up to the V4 now, so lots of improvements), was that I sent them an email asking about any of these trailers that were ex demo ones and no accessories. I was contacted and was told no, but they had one down there that had a damaged kitchen (the kitchen slid out when getting loaded onto a truck and therefore damaged the kitchen and some of the outside panel). A price was negotiated and it was delivered to me early one morning. 
Like anything new there is always anticipation in using it and to me I needed to get my head around it, as it is honestly a big step. After a few days I finally set it up and started the process. First step was to season it (or water proof the canvas). The way you do this it=s to hose the canvas off, let it dry- then repeat, the more times the better. 

Then I set about making a list, checking every nut and bolt and basically getting my head around the whole thing. So after I fixed the kitchen and tidied up the whole thing (the camper was ok, just needed small things tidied up so I would be more comfy with it)
It has been a few months now since I have had it and I have done a couple of weekend trips away. I did have a couple of initial problems- the biggest one being the suspension chains that stop the coils from coming out were extremely taught and there was no downward travel on the suspension. It was worked out that this trailer had a 2’’ suspension lift- meaning taller coils, and therefore the chains were not long enough. Easy fix- new longer chains. Before it used to ride rough over the road but now it just soaks up the bumps.

Well after a few days away I have decided to ’tweak’ my MDC FF V3 camper. Most people are generally happy with the way things are set up for a while, but I have found that things could be improved in and around the trailer, like the electrical items are scattered throughout the camper, more lighting etc, just the way I like it. This is no way reflecting on anything towards MDC- just my tweaking. To me this will become more user friendly to where it want to go and what I do. It may seem like a waste pulling out the side seating inside, but honestly I have found they can be a little in the way, and the small amount of storage under the seat was either here or there (and you had to be careful as this is where the inverter and the 240 charger is) so by just having the rear one which sits over the kitchen, there is still room to sit if the weather gets nasty and plenty of room now to stand to get changed. With just two of us that use the camper- it is just an option that hope fully will work.

I have now sold this camper and it has been a relief as it had a host of problems and i couldnt be more happy as every time i went away with the camper there was always a problem. Customer service at MDC is shit.