Good afternoon,
Well, I must admit I am a little bit "harsher" with Volkswagen, because I believe (and expect) they could (and should have done) better.
Well, I never expected (and hopefully did not give the indication) that the camper should have 240V sockets workable while "off the grid". For this we have the charger which starts to work as soon as the camper is on EHU (as well as charger the 1x leisure and 1x camper battery).
I am not so sure about a converter. Of course it is possible to install one, but I believe this should not (or cannot) be done on a "standard" Grand California. If done, the 92 Ah AGM battery will be empty in minutes. That means 1.) different battery (s) have to be installed, 2.) new booster while driving and 3.) increased charger when the camper is on EHU to keep the time short(er) when charging.
If the Camper Unit is working correctly ... that is my point. How often "freezes" those numbers or gone of the scale altogether.
I admit I am not a specialist (far away from it) but the level of the battery should be kind of correct (of course not 100%, but better as it is). It looks to me that it is not possible with the technical specification VW has chosen. With a LiFePO4 battery for example this information is possible to get. What I don't know are there different battery technologies between AGM and LiFePO4. That VW was reluctant to install a LiFePO4 as standard is understandable, but maybe there is something else they could have done to offer a bit more capacity and information. In my mind the standard battery capacity should be about 3 - 4 days. That is the time after the toilet cassette has to be changed anyway. Just saying.
Water levels display on the Camper Unit is actually not that bad - if it works.
So many camper vans / motorhomes are provided with standard propane gas. I have not really thought about this before we got our GC 600. The gas heating is not bad, no issues here. But to keep an eye on the remaining gas level and changing the bottles is a hassle. Well, if somebody uses the camper for 4x weeks in Spain, no problem. 2x 11 kg bottles are more than sufficient. But if you use the camper year round it becomes an extra issue.
Some camper vans from UK come as standard with and underfloor LPG tank, which has a gas level gauge (mainly on the dashboard). I have no idea why this is not done more often.
I have the Mopeka system as well. But I don't like it. The two Mopeka sensors are working, but only on one bottle. The other it constantly comes up with 0 %. I did a lot of troubleshooting but nothing helps. Beginning of March I get an LPG system installed. That come with a gauge on the bottles to see how much is left. At least something.
I got the Votronic Bluetooth Connector B-SC as well. It is so easy and straightforward to install, because it just need one cable which powers the device itself. Now I get some information about the solar panel. But this is my point, to get this I had to spend EUR 100. Why was this service not added from VW to begin with?
The same is the issue with the timer of the heating / warm water. That really annoys me. The service is there, but not on the Camper Unit. So, if they can't combine all services into one unit than don't do it. Now it is possible to get another box from Truma to have access to the truma settings. But that cost another EUR 140 or so, plus installation is a wee bit more complicated because that device needs 12V. And on top of it VW dealers are not willing to install it, because it is not standard.
I know I give out a lot of the Grand California, but I still like the camper (and in my opinion we have no real other alternative in Ireland anyway). I am only a bit disappointed that Volkswagen missed the opportunity to build a great camper van. With a bit of changes it would have become easily one of the best (and maybe the best) camper vans on the European market. But either VW designer, management or VW accountants ensured that this didn't happen.
Happy, but critical, Grand California
Eberhard
OOI how many motorhomes have you owned? It sounds like if you've owned one previously it must have been seriously high spec as lots of the things you raise I've not seen on any other campers.
This is my fourth and you can find faults with every one of them.
"The battery should last 4 days off grid" - That's an anomaly as it depends on what you're using. With no inverter it should last easily that long. 95ah/2 for possible usage = 47.5ah to use without starting the engine.
Whats a convertor? Did you mean invertor? The battery will empty in minutes using one? Again depends on what you're plugging in. A hairdryer at 1kw will use 1000/12 = 83 amps per hour so the battery would last 35 minutes, but it's clearly not intended for this.
I don't know of any standard motorhome builds aside from custom builds that come with a system that has a decent battery array and an invertor that could cope with this.
You state you don't know if the technology is different between LIfepo4 and AGM. I think frankly that says it all and possibly why you can't understand why this van isn't all-singing all-dancing.
The two technologies are vastly different and actually you're incorrect when you say Lifepo4 can accurately give you it's percent readout. It can try, but it still isn't a true ah percentage reading.
Manufacturers will claim the earth about Lifepo4 but the main advantages of it are weight and operation range, i.e. you can drain a Lifepo4 battery a maximum of 90% not 50% like lead/acid.
However they deal with the cold far worse than AGM so you'd need the battery to have an internal heating element as well as the BMS it needs to talk to the van. It's not as straight forward as just replacing lead/acid with lithium. Plus of course a 100ah Lifepo4 battery with BMS and heating is about £1,000
I haven't seen a 6m van with an underslung tank from a manufacturer, only the large motorhomes where there is space or a custom build. Never seen one on a smaller van.
Yes changing gas bottles is a pain, thats why most of us install a Gaslow system or something similar. Far easier and cheaper in the long run.
I'm intrigued why you need to know whats coming from your solar? I have the unit as I love gadgets but don't really think its necessary, all thats necessary is to know how well your battery is charged? Most vans do not come with solar as standard or even have a manufacturer option almost all solar is fitted third party.
Access to the timer, can't you pop the door open under your bench seat to access it? Why do you need to install something separate for it? Yes VW could have added it to the control panel, but it's yet another thing to program that most customers wont use. Theres always a trade off between a working system and tons of separate items that can go wrong.
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