Dean is a wonderful host. Right from my first inquiry he was responsive to questions and helpful and he also picked me up and dropped me off at the train station. ‘Doris’ is easy to drive and a comfy home for the week I hired her. I did have a few issues during the hire, I think some were personal, some circumstantial and others van specific, which I’ve spoken to Dean about and said he’ll attend to. Firstly, I did find the roof difficult to push up and pull down, I don’t have a lot of upper body strength and it did get easier as the week went on, so just a consideration if this maybe relates to you. Also, it began raining heavily whilst we were doing check in so Dean put back the bed whilst I was completing check in and therefore didn’t see how it was done and there was no video, so my first morning was abit of a struggle. Though I did work out to pull the strap from the back of the van (which is actually quite easy), which is differently than he does it anyway 🙃.. I recommend this to any one else perhaps who doesn’t have height & strength to do it from the front. The major issue when I hired the van was that the visibility when driving was impaired at times. There was extreme weather, rain and snow, during that week. The windscreen would fog up, especially in the mornings with all the moisture built up overnight and the windshield fan was only effective when blasted on full. This was only comfortable to do this intermittently as it was cool air, the front cabin heater was not working. This was an issue in that there was no heating when driving in the cold and also when you did need to use it it made the cabin colder. The van has a deisel heater which works really well, and uses little fuel. So I did learn to use this to heat the van whilst driving in cold weather, otherwise it was too cold in the cab. Though having to blast the fan to clear the windscreen would counter that. The back windscreen wipers also weren’t working which impaired visibility especially in heavy rain. Dean had not been aware of some of these issues as he had not driven in that weather, so assured me he would get them fixed, which I’m sure he will. So as long as the fan in front cab and back windscreen wipers have been fixed I would not hesitate recommending Doris. Once again I endorse Dean and think he’s a good person to hire from. November 2025