I chose Kiwi Motorhomes based on their stellar reviews, but ended up very disappointed with my choice as we had so many issues with their service and van during our 3-week holiday.

Day 1 - When we picked up the van, 3 items that had been agreed to via our contract (GPS system, bottle of wine and extension cord) were not provided. When I reserved the campervan, I was told we could get an extension cord for my husband’s CPAP – a medical device. When we picked up the van we were told that an extension cord is not allowed. If I had known this when I reserved, I would have chosen another campervan. We ended up buying an extension cord. Hayley did find a bottle of wine for us. Evidently, they don’t offer wine anymore, but it was on my quote and on the signed contract. The final issue at pick-up was that the freedom camping certificate had expired. We had to wait 3 hours for the inspector to recertify the campervan.

Day 2-4, we had transmission problems. The automatic van seemed to not want to downshift, and slowed us to a stop on the highway. We eventually figured out how to manually coax it into a lower gear.

Day 3 – the WiFi hotspot stopped due to a broken soldered joint on the 12V connector. My husband was able to fix the broken connection.

Day 13 – Check engine light came on. KMH helped to call auto repair shops to read the error code. Unfortunately, none of the shops had availability for at least 3 weeks, so we made a joint decision that the risk was probably low and we would continue on.

Day 14 – CO detector batteries started chirping in the night. We bought new batteries and were back up and running.

Day 17 – The check brake pad light came on as we were winding our way up and down Arthur’s Pass. Very nerve wracking.

Also, the DVD player in the bedroom didn’t work and the windshield wiper on the driver side was shredded.

At this point, I am hesitant to ever rent another campervan, let alone recommend Kiwi Motorhomes to anyone else.

Reviewed 12 months ago