Hi
Does anyone have tips on touring with a motorhome with the prospect of house buying ,  Buying a diesel motorhome of around 24 feet in Spain should be simple .. but is it?  We are semi retired and plan on making Spain our Home soon.

We have spent some hours looking on the web for places around Granada as we would like to go skiing in the winter and thought the temperatures in the high areas should be moderate?  Our very basic Spanish is an issue although all our family speak it fluently, so some help there,,  It would be nice to find an area with a few ex pats to help get settled in,

Hi;
With regard to M/H purchase and use in Spain?

You should consider purchasing such a vehicle in Spain rather than the UK.
There are at least two retailers of quality M/H?s in the Granada Area.

If you must purchase the vehicle in the UK, make sure its LHD as you will find it impossible to re-register a RHD version once in Spain.

Do not purchase an American M/H; there is absolutely no support for these vehicles over here.

Make sure that you can get insurance and recovery for the vehicle, bearing in mind that if the vehicle is over 15 years old roadside recovery insurance is just about impossible and recovery for a vehicle over about 17 feet is going to involve HGV and low-loader recovery (Think converted tank transporter? seriously!).

Make sure that the GVW of the vehicle comes in at under 7.5 tons if you have a pre-1997 UK Licence or 3.5 tons for a post 1997 licence. Anything over these limits requires an HGV licence. You should also note that the big Yank Jobs that resemble coaches generally fall outside the 7.5 ton limit and even if it looks like a bus and drives like a bus so far as DVLA are concerned its an HGV and cannot be driven on a PCV/PSV licence. Anywhere in Europe (including the UK) you can be pulled for a weighbridge check and if the weight isn?t covered by your licence you are stuck big time?

We broke down with a 20 year old LHD American M/H in France with just a broken fan belt and the recovery to a truck garage cost 400 euros and a further 150 euros for the repair at the garage. The repair job lasted just 250kms and then the new belt snapped and took out the belts for the power steering and brake assist and for the aircon. No repair was possible this time and recovery / transportation from San Sebastian to Granada (another converted tank transporter) cost over 4000 euros?!

As for Granada itself there are several campsites in the area including a couple which are probably perfect for the Sierra Nevada?s and ski-ing but I don?t know if they are open between end October and March? a lot of campsites close during the winter. I can give you the address of one which is open year round. We stayed there for six months. It can be a little spartan however?

Year round temperatures in Granada range from very hot to very cold and you shouldn?t lose track of the fact that in this area you will never be at less than 2000 feet above sea level. At the moment the temp is 35C/96F it has reached as high as 42C/106F; we expect the temps to remain high until late October. Jan / Feb temps can drop to -15C although -5C is the norm. There was still snow on the Sierras well into May/ June this year and the ski-season was extended to mid-May, their best year ever.

Someone once described Spain as a cold country with a hot sun; this is particularly true for Andalucia?

Hope some of this helps?

pm me if I can be of any further help…

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Excellent information , Thanks for taking the time.

We are long time RVers in the states and did consider an export but after looking at all the problems we kept our searches to Germany/Spain and the UK.

Germany seems to have the best choice but we took a car from there to Spain in 2003 and found it very difficult and expensive to register it (mallorca).  sold it on the German plates eventually!

Hopefully we will pick up a private sale in Spain then tour the area and see if it is where we want to be.. 

I did some gliding inland from Alicante and remember the heat!  good thermals though!!  We thought the altitude might of been a little cooler but sounds like it’s not.

We’ll keep looking in on the site as it’s been helpful so far.

Ian

I’m not an expert on RVs but I have friends in Granada province who own one.  They bought it in Glasgow, oddly enough, although it’s a LHD Hymer from Germany.  They found it on eBay and said prices were much lower in the UK.  As most British owners buy them for international travel, they are often LHD even when kept in a RHD country like ours.  As for ski-ing in Granada, be aware that a lot of the mountain roads are difficult for big vehicles at any time of year, and when we get lots of snow, road closures and compulsory use of chains are common.

Thanks martin points noted.  we won’t use the RV for skiing just to help find a house in that area
Ian