2024 OFF-ROAD CARAVAN - The gear on this thing is EPIC😎

all right guys welcome back to 2024 and the first vid is going to be of our new Beast here behind us so this year Beck and I are working with lotus and this is a new 2024 it's the 20th anniversary Lotus Trooper it's a 22-footer it's an off the-shelf build with a couple of little tweaks from us so I'm going to give you a quick walk around show you what's involved and then uh we'll jump inside and have a quick chat and Beck can show the inside as well but as with all walk arounds what I do I start from the front and I'll just work my way around if I forget anything I'll come back to it and if you got any questions pop them down in the comments below happy to get back to here but here we go this is the new look so from what you can see here it's a bit of a beast isn't it it's a full off-road Lotus trooper with a big off- grid battery system inside uh Cruise Master suspension as usual let's get into it so starting up the front uh Cruise Master do 45 hitches are standard on the new Lotus van so this means it can take up to a 4 and 1/2 ton Caravan behind it on the hitch I'll give you a bit of a recap on the cruise Master is they are a full off-road articulating hitch so the knuckle spins or the whole hitch spins and it also goes this way as well so they're super smooth for towing and they're very safe so if you ever do roll your van your hitch is going to roll it's not going to pull your car over with it uh the handbrake is integral it's part of the hitch uh and they bolt directly to this extended chassis now the chassis on the Lotus is a gns chassis and it is fully galvanized all right so that means it's going to be very rust proofed and um protected for doing off-road and Beach work and things like that uh swing back here you have got the option to go from a standard jockey wheel to a boss jockey wheel which means you can put a special fitting in here and just bang it up with a drill uh you're not stand here winding like this cuz especially on these big heavy like off-road Vans they can have a lot of ball weight so having this boss hitch just goes up and down no dramas I'll show you now look I can't condone this you're not supposed to use impact guns but I don't have a drill that's working at the moment so I've got my hitch in here and watch how fast it goes down so that's like I said that's not condoned by um anyone to use impact guns on those things but anyway that's probably why cuz you get the thing stuck in there hang on there we go don't do that at home stone guard up the front I'll show you a couple of things that we use too um some of our own products as well throughout this walk around vid so on the stone guard we've got our Stone buddies so these are some extra storage they're made from a waterproof PVC now with buckles on the back of them and you can put them on the front or the back of your stone guard depending on where you've got the storage room I like them on the back and then inside they're just extra storage for things like I've got a shovel got my hitch body couple of spare covers and the other one over here I'll quickly show you I keep my like electrical lead and my impact socket in there and also a heap of hex pegs in that so they just live on there so it's good just for extra storage for things that you use all the time or dirty stuff or you can use them for bins as well so you can run uh recycle and put your empty stubbies and stuff in them uh this one here is our floor mat so we got a big Navigator floor buddy in there and it's also got its own bag that is put it in and I just sit it in there it never goes anywhere never did on the last rig either and then you can just whip it off run your awning mat out twin n kilo gas bottles in front of the big toolbox here so I'll start on this side uh it comes with a generator slide in one side and I've on the other side I've opted to put uh the barbecue slide in this one so pull him out the Weber comes out here and there is a gas bayonet attachment up under the front there plenty of storage in there huge box um you also got a top shelf for like longer items that goes all the way through we put our chairs on both sides so you can whip them out give the kids a job when you're there uh let's keep going down this side he we'll do the back side first at the top you'll probably notice um there's a part of the 20th anniversary is it's got a couple of extra treats uh in for Aesthetics and for like the looks of the van the first one up the front here is an INT integral sort of housing for your a solar panel I'll show you a Top Shot I Got 5 200 W solar panels up there from red ark and then it also houses that big light bar or work light on the front so that's good for setting up camp and for security as well so you can always light it up if you hear anything outside of a nighttime uh you can't really see it but on top also is the dedic dust reduction like this is all comes as standard on the Troopers uh come there this one here like I said they can have a generator slide in them I just use it for storage box storage for extra gear got chairs tables um awning side screens all that you can never have enough storage tunnel boot that goes all the way through you look in here there's a couple of Lights in there swing it all the way through we got out um starlink this is a pretty cool thing I'll show you there's more to do with starlink on this vanan too but this is our starlink bag from Navigator so it houses all your components in there for all your starlink and while I'm talking about that quickly come down here and have a look at this you ever seen one of these before all these vans come standard um starlink ready so hang on let me unscrew this look at that that means you can plug your starlink satellite straight into that and then on the inside under the seat there's a um a GPU or a power socket you can plug your modem in there and that way you're not running the cable for your satellite through a window or door and jamming it up that sort of thing so that's pretty handy and pretty cool I can't wait to use that uh tv antenna if you pulled up somewhere with an external antenna can wire that in and something we've never had before is instant hot water this one I'll show you on the inside but it's an instantaneous gas hot water which means there's no holding tank so as soon as you hit the g the hot tap inside it fires up and hot water comes out we did do a test the other day cuz people have told us uh it takes a little while for the water to come through so we tested it and it took a liter of water before the hot come through but also got told you can put a diverter valve in which um I'm going to do and I'll show you that in another vid but that recycles the cold until it gets hot so you don't waste any water uh there's lights on both sides um nice bright LEDs they're color changing as well on the Lotus you have got a sail track up the top so if you're going to pull up somewhere uh for a long time in hot weather you can run a extra shade screen in that sail track off your uh non- awning side to give you more shade and stuff um come keep coming down we've got um our landro Windows another light big fridge inside um domatic 220 L compressor fridge is inside same fridges we've had in the last few Vans they're a killer fridge really good on power uh and they only run on 12vt and 240 volt but I'll show you that on the inside external shower and then you've got your AC Mains input and your brakers there so they plug in this one we've retained just the um standard cassette toilet it's a domatic version this one we usually run a fford one but this new um dedic one has a bigger canister and a ceramic Bowl on the inside so we've got um we've optioned the sog to have on it cuz we reckon that's really good that's just a filter that when you open the flap a fan pumps all the air out of your Dy out through this charcoal filter so you don't get as much smell on the inside really good thing we've used them before so um yeah we' got it again and if you're wondering what this is that's your fridge drain so any condensation that comes out of the fridge drips out of here let's have a look at wheels and tires uh these are standard Lotus have their own high performance Alo rims they do come with good tires normally I think they run Coopers but we have used the Toyo Open countries for the last few years I think from my experience they are the quietest best mileage tire that we've run as an allterrain so I'm sticking with those I've got them on the car the boat uh in the Caravan I reckon they're mint uh there's a 12vt socket here too either side of the van there's one here I'll show the other one you can run um an air compressor to pump tires up or which I've got this cool little water filtration set up I'm going to show you in another vid I can power that up from there as well right let's keep going around the back I'll show you quickly under here there is four heavy duty stop drop down stabilizer legs on every corner uh and you just Jam your socket on them and wind them up and down these are another little cool product from Navigator they're just a leg buddy protects them from Stone chips and dust and all that sort of thing I tell you what though we hardly ever put our legs down e I don't know I think it's cuz the airbag suspension we normally just dump the bags on the stops and it doesn't really rock around too much so unless we're set up for a while uh we hardly ever drop the legs while we're here let's have a look at the the water manifold so probably noticed down the side there's no water filler caps now they all run through this manifold here with a couple of TAPS so you've got on our 22t Trooper we have two 95 L water tanks and a 50 L freshwater drinking um tank so there's two pumps inside and you can also isolate uh the two water tanks the two 95 L tanks front and back and then you've got one uh connection here is for Main's water so if you're on a caran you can plug your hose straight in it also has a gray water tank at the back so you can just shut the valve and dive all your gray water into that right let's come around the back on the back you got a big galvanized rear bar with an integral or you got two Jerry can holders in it I use it for storing me Wastewater hose and on the other side for um storing me drinking water hose but there's also a big firewood carrying basketing there big mesh basket you can op for double spares if you want but we've never had had like one flat ever in so long on the road so we just run the one spare all our um wheels are same um stud pattern offset as the cruiser so they're interchangeable this one on the back is a navigator bin bag uh I'll show you handy little tip you grab a a Bunnings bin Chu it in there keeps it nice and full and it makes it easy to get all your your tins and rubbish out we use that so much he on the road cuz like you go through so much rubbish as a family that like in between campsites that's chalkers and the next time you feel up the fuel Chuck it all in uh another feature of the 20th anniversary is this cool wing on the back now I know you are all going to ask me what function does it perform I don't think it's going to help with um downward stabilization at high speeds I think it's just um George the owner of lotus is right into his drag cars and performance cars I think it sort of stems from a bit of that background and to make it just look a bit cool and it also um well at the back it houses your clearance lights and your rear work lot as well so I call that rear spoiler just a a little bit of uh fancy stuff to make your van look pretty cool and then H reverse camera there uh it's a wireless one which comes with a kit I've never used a reverse camera on a caravan but I will um might give this one a go cuz you can you don't have to wire anything extra into your trailer plug all right me um water hose goes in this side uh in the other Jerry can holder you can obviously take these off and opt for whatever you want on there and then swing around the front side so this the one the layout's been a bit flipped um compared to what we normally had with the kids have always been on the other side but this vanan the uh the bunks are down this side they run lengthways like this and they've got their window in there I'll show you on the inside they're running a new uh brand awning that I haven't used before but we've done a Shakedown trip in this van we've pulled it out and tested it and stuff and I think it's on par with the quality of the dtic ones we've always had so this is a global brand uh everything seems really good quality so I'm a bit of a fan of this one um this thing if you've watched my vids before I've been chasing a drop down table that isn't keyed for ages so I'm pretty happy with that look no keys needed cuz you can never find the damn key so anyway that that's pretty cool and then you've got a an outlet there for run and induction cooker outside or air fryer or whatever 240 volt Appliance you want to do here's that other 12volt socket for powering up um pumps and whatever else to do your tires Fusion stereo system you got an outdoor speaker you got indoor speakers and you got head unit and also an entertainment system here to run your TV your Fusion controls uh Power there and you've also got USB C and USB power sockets and this one it's pretty cool you can run if you've got a TV that can do it you can run your audio signal from your TV through these cables and it links through to your Fusion system so you can have like surround sound on your Telly cuz I know before we've used our Telly outside try and watch sporting events and if it's a bit loud or if it's raining or something you can't hear the damn TV but if if you're going to run it through the speakers it'll be sick you'd be able to Pump It Up uh this little hatch here is your airbag control hatch so this has I'll show you underneath in a second it's Cruise Master ATX uh disc brake level four so they have different levels of um how it's controlled now this one is uh it's got Auto ride height leveling okay so I'll show you what this means I've got it dumped on the bags at the moment so if you step back a bit and show this here babe when I hit Auto it'll automatically take me to ride height so up she goes the compressor will probably kick in once it runs out of um air in the tank and this will take you straight up to your traveling height and then once it reaches that you flick it back to manual and you're good to go there you go so that stops that's it um its travel height set up for you now you go back to manual you can turn the compressor off and Away you go now if you do want to adjust it to level yourself out at sights and that you flick these switches up to manual then you've got left and right you got up and down so all you have to do you can bag down on either side or you can bag up and that'll level your van for you happy days there's also a line out here so you can run an air compressor and pump your ties up if you want so we've had uh crit the ATX on our last couple of Vans and it is it's it's a game changer if you want to use that word like once you've had it it's like so easy for set up and towing and off-roading it's it's a pretty cool product all right um aluminium pullout step this helps this Fan's pretty high so we do carry an extra little step as well just to make it easier to get in and out uh and then you've got an entry-level um handle here and a new style door so this one is an Aussie travel door now I'm still trying to learn how to use it hang on a second there we go so it does separate and you've got a midi screen and a security mesh on this and it's also triple lock so you got one two three and a a blind to pull down on the inside for extra um privacy and make it nice and dark in the morning but what it does I'll show you I like the style of it you shut the door and then if you pull your latch one way you watch the seal so the triple locks all pull in like on a compression so it puts compression on the seal and then it's all sort of tightened in I like it it seems like a real sturdy um dust proof door and then open him up that way so anyway that's a new new style door I've never had tunnel boot outlet for your gas um heater inside we got a truma gas heater they do the trick we um doing some winter trips this year out west so that'll come in very handy and then we got barbecue light and Awning lights they're all um diable and color changing to Amber let's talk about up top this van has got like a full Suite of red ARC Power gear in it some of it I can't really go into too much info yet cuz it hasn't been released it's like a Next Generation charging setup that will be coming out to the public in a few months but it's pretty damn awesome what I can tell you is it's got 1,000 wats of solar on the top it's got the red Vision management system uh and it's got 600 amps of lithium inside so 3 200 amp batteries all um in parallel and then it's got a wicked 3,000 W inverter and a big ass charger but I'll do a full off- grid power setup video for you later on I'll grab this now and give you a quick look underneath at the suspension so it's pretty neat under here all the water tanks are got um galvanized covers on them for stone protection and and then my ATX is actually colorcoded black so normally it's been that tan color and now you'll see that the trailing arms are all um color coded black we swing in here got big disc brakes on it got airbags here and big remote resi shocks there's your air tank there which supplies the air for your airbags all right one thing I'll do I'll come over here so what I mean when I talk about Auto leveling is it has this device here you've got this Auto leveling switch that's mounted to your chassis and a rod that comes down to your trailing arm and now this tells it what position it's in and what it needs to be for your travel so when you hit that auto it sets it for you it's one of them and there's one of them on that side as well right it's neat a god it's nice gear and here's the back side of the airbags here so you got your big rolling sleeve airbag big single shocky with remote resi I love it otx is the go all right before I hand over to Becky to do the inside I'll just the biggest question I've had from a lot of people um on social media since we've got this asking if uh Lotus make all aluminium frame Vans now so this one the 2024 uh they come out with an all aluminium frame so I can tell you that and confirm that for you all right I'll hand you over to back show the inside right CH let's go hi guys hope you remember me I'm back I feel like I haven't done for ages but come on in so this is the um it's essentially sort of like the same layouts that we've had in previous Vans before because we feel it works for us and it's kind of like what we're used to but all right we're going to get straight on to the we've got a queen siiz bed here overheads for our clothes we've also got shelving and storage in here as well one of my favorite features is this mobile phone charger so you just pop your phone on there and it charges which I think is pretty nifty um we just got a couple of Pockets here the fusion so I can basically you know I can start a Doof Doof party at 2: a.m. right from my bedside table while I'm here I'm going to quickly talk about my vanchester we bought out queen size a couple of months ago thank you already to the um people who have supported it um but basically we've got a queen siiz Juna and then the Rand of corners and a twoin one sheet set so comes in three colors charcoal sage and R Justin will probably drop a link there if you want to have a squeeze so up in the corner here we have the fusion speakers and your like I mentioned before your control panel here scko fans absolutely essential when you're traveling we got two of those and they can face either way which is really handy um over in the corner here we have our truma hot water system gas oh there you go truma gas heater so we can control that from here got our Smart TV here Netflix YouTube you name it um super handy when you're traveling especially if you got styling can just play a Netflix episode which I'm psyed about okay so this is our red Vision system Justin will talk a little bit about that later come over to our Lounge area so we got all our this is like our bits and Bobs sort of cupboard and then all of our food goes up here so down the bottom here we have our big long tan couch actually fits four of us here which is really great and then we just bring in a store to sort of eat on the other side here for the five of us you got this table as well that sort of moves around so it's really handy when we're in here um now for the fridge this is a dedic 220 L compressor fridge 220 L I just think it's ample we lived as a family of five full time with one of these so they're excellent can't fult it microwave all the drawers down here got all our Cutlery all our van dining um under sink cabbage more cabbage up the top here this is another sort of control panel for the Caravan um another new addition we have is the induction cook top so normally we are gas lovers but this is the like the 2024 layout so we're super excited to see how that works with the Battery Systems and things and we'll give us a bit of a rundown on that throughout the year uh this time we've got an oven so we haven't had an oven for years so we're pretty excited to have that the kids have been doing heaps of baking lately and not being fulltime anymore we just didn't need the extra storage but I just have this little bottom one here as well down here B if you're building a caravan absolutely get a bom built in you don't want to bags fly around the floor that it's just essential we have a couple of cup tea more Pantry food I put on my cans and tuna and condiments and stuff in there so that's really handy and down to the beds so I stuck with the triple bunks on the one side here we absolutely love it while I'm here I'm going to touch on my vanchester you can see it here again thank you for the Fantastic response on these you guys are loving it so thank you we've got three srao fans all in each of the bunks and they've just got like a little pocket down the end there to put any bits and bods in we have some really big cupboards down the back here too so you can see we've got a lot of space for the kids to pop their clothes and things in and we normally just take games and pop my pegs and things up there so it's a good little storage cupboard this is our shower we've got the beautiful brass and the fusion lock Tower rail so that just houses our floor mat nice big full length window full length mirror here which is great got this cupboard as well which I love that it's behind the mirror more storage down here we got our toilet it's a dtic toilet it's a new one it's got the ceramic Bowl so we'll see how that goes I think I'm going to like a ceramic Bowl so we've mounted our kamak to 2 and 1/2 Kil washing machine here this was an option that we changed in the 2024 layout they normally have one down here but we wanted this for space now we got our concertina door she's nice and sturdy this one and I think that's it I hope you like it we went with like when I was chatting to Lotus um we talking about colors and things and I sort of said like surprised me and um I just told them I'm sort of keen on like Tim bar whites and T and I think they did a really good job so and I'm loving the brass the brass or gold I'd call it gold oh actually is it gold it looks gold to me I don't know anyway all right I'll running through a few things that Beck missed eh that's mainly just the techy stuff that Beck isn't all the around so um up above her right here is the Dominic all right that is our airon that is a new freshjet model so it's running at the moment it's running all off our battery system so it's uh they're really good they're an inverter style air on there's only probably two or three models on the market that get able to run off and off grid battery system with like a low enough current drawing that but anyway that's good we've had those before here's your main Fusion panel so there's a couple of head units around the van to activate and to uh control everything one there one beside back area in bed and the other one outside now you also got a remote for your air con and then you got more speakers up here so you can sort of run surround sound in your van you can put different zones on outside inside plug the Telly into it with your audio cables and that sort of thing so that's really good now don't think they pulled the cupboard up I mean the bed up so underneath you got full under bit storage and then you've got your hot water system over there with also you see a little monitor looks like a smoke alarm that is a gas monitor so uh if you got any gas leaks and stuff it goes off and beeps like a smoke alarm heaps of storage under there um and what else we got we also got smoke alarms as well which is one above the bed and we've just got a standard antenna for the TV so a king Jack antenna that is twizzle around and uh search for channels and it works the goods all right so battery system let's get into it you can't see much because there did you know there's new legislation now around um Battery Systems lithium battery systems in living areas and and confined spaces or enclosed spaces have to be sealed and exteriorly vented is that word exteriorly externally I guess uh anyway let's pull this off this is how long letter him off and then all the battery system lives underneath here I'll just turn that off cuz it's buzzing at me this is the only bit you can see so if we pop this up don't shine too much of that Beck I'll cover that this is next Generation charging stuff from red ark so all I can tell you is that it's like a kickass management charger um multiple inputs outputs 100 amp JY we'll get more into that soon but um pretty excited to give that a test and show you more and then down this end is their um 3,000 W pure sign inverter over this side you'll see it says warning this is all sealed now I did take that off and got some video of it to show you but there is three uh Red AR batteries in there they're 200 amp batteries Linked In Parallel and they live under there with the vent going to the outside sweet so that's it it's pretty simple hey you got all that gear and then you just got these two things that run it so no massive um boards or complicated looking things it's uh it all sort of comes down into a couple of neat little units and then it's all controlled by this jobby so I'll grab this this is the red Vision management system or your control screen all your 12vt 24volt loads can be turned on and off through here your water pumps for your fresh water and your main water and you've got water tank gauges in here as well so 1 2 3 and four which means you're drinking water main water and your gray water tanks you can scroll sideways you can uh set your your outputs you can have a look at how many amps is coming in how many amps you're using how much solar is coming in all this sort of stuff and there's a really cool feature uh with these new red Vision systems is it's called a chargeback so uh what you can do if you run the battery flat on your car you can leave it your car hooked up via your Anderson plug hit the charge back sort of thing once you set it up and it will actually put a charge back into your car battery so you can start your battery again pretty cool feature right lots of cool stuff coming with these but I'll give you a full run down run down in uh a later vid but anyway you can turn all your lights on and off all through here on the touchpad 1 2 3 and then if you want to best thing is just go 12vt boom lights off on and then you turn your fridge on and off go into travel mode storage mode heaps cool stuff I like it it's a great system now one thing here we go that back didn't show you we've got instant hot water which we talked about outside here's what you do you just turn it on here and then go up and down you can only set it at 50 that's the maximum cuz that's bloody hot uh and then you can just control it here then as soon as you pull your your hot tap down here it's it just fires up so the good thing being like if you're on Main's uh water at Caravan Park you've got endless hot water showers for the Miss on that so you can sort of um still conserve water off grid for a while and then when you pull up somewhere at um the Caravan Park to do while you're washing and let the kids jump on the jumping pillow U the Mis can wash your hair for like 4 hours I never do that I'm pretty damn quick I must admit even when we're in the house now like I'm I'm pretty good pretty good but it will be nice having the instant hot water I reckon just for the fact you know when you've been out all day and you get home and you're like everyone's just ready to have a shower and you're like sorry guys got to wait 20 minutes to put the um we'll wait for the hot water to heat up so that's going to be really good yeah to not have to wait it is all right hold that for me I think that might be it I reckon I probably um can tell you a bit more but I'll probably wait for you to send questions through and stuff and we can do a little bit more um in detailed videos and sort of DIYs and Tech vids and that for you along the way but yeah stoked for today little bit shorter than the last van 22t still big enough for the family little bit smaller to tow and storage oh I didn't tell you it is um uh the tear weight is like 3100 kilos and it's got a 4 ton ATM so got 900 kilos of payload which is heaps uh and you think you can take them up to 4.4 ATM if you specify in your Bui sheet Happy Days we're excited we're um heading to stra brck Island in a couple of weeks so we've already done our Shakedown trip but couple of weeks we've got straty and then we've got school holidays we'll be going away and then we head in June to July big red bash June July big red bash so we'll spend the two weeks doing that and that's always sort of got booked for now it does yeah y all right Happy Days comments questions feedback down below um thanks guys hope you've had a cracker start till 2024 yeah kids are back at school it's the best [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: TRIP IN A VAN

Views: 601,217

Keywords: travel, caravanning, off grid, offroad, 4wd, van life, nomad, lotus, trooper, biglap, roadtrip, trip in a van

Id: VSXf6IW5DGU

Length: 29min 20sec (1760 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 10 2024