Alpha Hydrae

I'm wanting to head through Germany to north-West Poland, which ferry crossing do you recommend. Obviously you'll say from Hull 😅 - which is OK for me as I'm in Manchester. I've looked at ferries to Hamburg as it'll save a lot of driving, but it can be expensive.

Has anyone had any luck getting insurance between 2 vehicles alternating every 6 months? I want to use the Alphard during summer and then SORN it for winter, while I use another car. Hope that makes sense. I've asked a few companies, no-one can do this.

Totally agree Arthur, I'm lucky as mine has the factory fitted camera and I couldn't live without it (amazing that it was an option back in 2002!). Better than parking sensors. Apologies for the dusty stereo/dashboard 😔

Hi all, I actually got my Alphard a month ago but spent the last few weeks dealing with my lovely Volvo V70 that's been written off due to someone crashing into me (their car was in a much worse state so the Volvo had the last laugh). So now getting used to an Alphard as my only vehicle, love it to bits so not missing the V70 too much. It's a 2002 2.4 2WD, runs very smoothly, it's been well cared for. I've upgraded the stereo to the latest Xtrons unit with nice front camera as 'dash-cams' are essential these days. Also installed leisure battery and 240v inverter at the rear (might post something on that in the 'camper' section). Looking forward to chatting here, giving and receiving advice.

Just done a 900 mile camping trip to Scotland from Manchester. 4 passengers, pets, bikes, paddleboards, 1 week's food supplies....rammed full! Counted the miles between filling up tank twice, 30.3mpg average! I'm fairly light footed and tend to stick between 60 and 65mph on motorways.

I'm choosing where to mount a leisure battery and the option of engine bay mounting is very appealing. However, would that not mean the inverter needs to be installed quite close to the engine bay, e.g. under the glove box? Otherwise you'd need quite long cables between the battery and inverter if the inverter was under the passenger seat, or at the back (which is where I want it to be). I'm aware I will need to feed cables from the alternator/SCR to the leisure battery, so I guess either way, I'll have to install some relatively long cables high capacity cables. Curious to know what other people have done.

Presumably you don't yet have a tow bar fitted? I think it would be difficult to reach high enough to mount bikes on a van roof rack. My preference would be a tow bar mounted system. I'm not sure if vertical rear door mounted racks exist for the Alphard (e.g. the VW Transporter type rack). At the moment, I just fold up the rear seats in my Alphard and there's space for 4 bikes between them, and 4 passengers in front, great for days out.