Forward Fold Ultimate Limited Edition LX6

Do not buy this camper – I brought one of these camper 6 months ago and during my first big trip in Sep 18 the suspension assembly and wheel broke off whilst I was doing 70km/h on a dirt road. I was lucky to sustain no injuries or damage to other road users. I have photos. The Insurance company have written the camper trailer off and i will be buying an Australian built camper in the future.

Good value for money – I read the review previously and agree with the comments , there are a few things you need to do before you go on the road. The rear winch is positioned badly and you can not wind the top back when packing up. I made a bracket on the tyre support and put the winch on the centre line to get a direct pull and it work fine. There are no instructions and it took us a while to work out how to put the annex up. The whole unit is well though out and we are impressed with all the features.

What you need to know – If you're considering buying one of the Forward Fold Ultimate Limited Edition LX6 6 Berth Campers listed on Gumtree or GraysOnline, this is what you need to know. There is no warranty, so firstly, understand that. The campers are solid construction, assembled in Australia from Chinese made parts. What you get is very good value for money, but there are some caveats. They are not assembled very well so that you will have to do some work before you take it on road. If you are handy, this is not a problem.

This is a list of items that I needed to do on mine:

1. The tyres have a rotating direction. Mine were wrong so needed to be swapped around.

2. The bearings had very little grease, so needed to be serviced. They are Chinese bearings so consider swapping these to Japanese bearings if you will take yours on long trips. Keep the Chinese ones as spares.

3. The electric brakes needed adjustment and the handbrake didn't work. Not a hard job to do. There are video instructables on YouTube to show you how to do this. The brake shoes on mine were binding which caused the hubs to get hot on the way home, so watch this when you collect yours.

4. There are no gas lines so you will need to have a gas fitter do the connections for you so that you can use the shower and the cooker.

5. There were numerous loose or missing nuts and bolts. None of the nuts holding the structure to the chassis were done up so go around the whole thing with your spanners and check them.

6. One of the self tapping screws holding a tent track had pulled out, the three was stripped. Needed a small body and nut to fix.

7. I discovered that the gas holders will hold 9kg cylinders if you remove the rubber compression trims. ++!

8. The nuts holding the spare wheels to the carrier are a different size to the nuts on the road wheels. Buy some more Ford 1/2" wheel nuts or you won't be able to change a wheel!

9. The fridge compartment has no ventilation fan, so you will need to buy a 12 volt computer fan or similar to fit to the vent. Also consider fitting a filtered vent on the opposite side to allow fresh air flow through the compartment. A lawnmower filter will do the job.

10. The suspension was not lubed, so get a grease gun to fix this.

11. The reflectors are not installed, so check the rules in your state and attach them.

12. The batteries are not connected, so wire them up if you know how. The cables are all there but there is a right way and wrong way to do it so get an electrician mate to do this if you don't know how.

13. The stainless steel kitchen unit has some sharp edges, so go over these with some emery paper.

14. The water tank does not have a level sender so consider fitting one.

15. Flush the water tank as mine had metal shavings in it. You should do this anyway.

16. Buy a suitable jack. There are no built in jacking points so a high lift jack is useless.

It's a heavy unit so you need a suitable tow vehicle to haul it. You will need an electric brake controller fitted to your car. Don't buy it if you cannot do the work I've mentioned as there is no warranty. Otherwise, the trailer is solid value at around $13500. At the recent Maitland 4WD Caravan and Camping Show there were identical branded ones going for $27000.

Edit on 24 October 2018:Regarding the position of the winch for packing up mentioned by the poster Shane, I just tied a piece of cord around the locking bolt to put the winch hook through. Works perfectly well.

Since my original post, we have gained a bit of experience with the camper. I fill the water tank before towing. This adds 160kg to the overall weight of the trailer but it takes quite a bit of mass off the tow hook as the tank is aft of the wheels, as in all campers. It tows better too.

Another tip is to replace the jockey wheel with something more heavy duty. I bought an Alko replacement with a ratchet and this helps manoeuvre the thing around.

Make sure when you pack up, that nothing inside is above the height of the seat cushions or you won't be able to close the lid! Also make sure that the super comfy sprung mattress is pushed right up to the towbar end and well strapped down so that it doesn't slip down and bind against the hinge when lowering the lid. That proper mattress is to die for, seriously!

We haven't bothered to mark our tent poles as they are very simple, and that comes from a mug camper! Tip is to start with the poles that have rubber feet (these are the ones that obviously touch the ground). The longest one is the centre pole. After that, they all just fall into place. If it looks like being windy or it will rain, put in as many of the braces (spreaders) as needed. There are plenty of poles, that's for sure! We have used ours in strong 30kt winds and driving rain and the tent is rock solid. Astute placement of the spreader poles will ensure water doesn't pool on the canvas when there is heavy rain. After what we've been through with ours, I can confirm the tent is excellent quality and doesn't leak. As with all canvas tents, it benefits from being properly seasoned. If you do that, it won't leak at the seams.

Finally, get a Talon Treg hitch lock from Australian Lock Company. Not cheap, but worth every penny and you can throw away the hitch pin that comes with the camper. Peace of mind and value for the strength of that heavy duty hitch pin alone. The unpickable BiLock is just a bonus really.