Anyone tried sleeping lengthways in a Nuevo?

Hi all,

As we have a big lump of a greyhound that seems to think the bed is her private lounging area and we should be pushed to the edges during the night I've tried to think of ways of getting someway of us fitting in better - we start off with her down the bottom but she's a sly mutt and I often wake up pushed to the edge of the bed with her snoozing away, even with her head on the pillow - cute but quite annoying.

I noticed that if we slept lengthways, inline with the van (instead of across the vehicle as normal) we'd have a much wider bed for us all to fit on and can push her into a better position.

The bed is too short of course, so I had the bright idea of sliding the driver/passenger seats to more or less meet the bed to get the extra size and with a mattress topper running over it all could be a way of making the bed into a big old kingsize area.

Just out of interest wondered if anyone had tried anything similar or come up with any other ways to make more out of the bed :)

Cheers,
Rob.

PS - I know we could train her to sleep on the floor but we actually quite like having her on the bed with us, just need to work on the arrangement :)

The Nuevo can be set up as two singles using the front seats reversed (we always sleep in that arrangement). Could you not set up your double as normal but with the front seats reversed as well making a lengthways double with extensions each side, the dog could then sleep between you. Hope that makes sense.

Paulmold wrote:The Nuevo can be set up as two singles using the front seats reversed (we always sleep in that arrangement). Could you not set up your double as normal but with the front seats reversed as well making a lengthways double with extensions each side, the dog could then sleep between you. Hope that makes sense.

Yeah makes sense, that was sort of what I was aiming at, so good to know it's actually designed with that in mind.

The trouble was my driver seat didn't rotate when I got it so it hadn't occurred to me previously, but I've since put a rotating base on it now so should be fine.

What Paul said, but it's a pain to rotate our driver's seat all the way round, and yours may be the same. That shouldn't be a problem though, assuming Mrs Noggin is not a six footer. There will be room for her feet on the partially rotated seat.

You will need to sleep with your feet on the seats, and you may find it uncomfortable as they are a bit lower than the side bench cushions. Not a big problem as we just put scatter cushions on the seats to bring them up to a level. Alternatively you can pull the lever under the side of the seats and the rear will shoot up and forwards, bringing them up to virtually the same level as the side benches. (Difficult to explain, but sit on a seat and fiddle with the levers. There are only two and you'll know you've got the right one when it catapults you into the air!! )

All this assumes your van is the same as ours of course, but Messrs A/S are well known for changing bits and pieces of the vans for no apparent reason!

It's a faff to rotate the driver's seat on mine as well but until I can find an affordable deal on a Warwick Duo, I have to put up with it. Oddly the driver's seat is pretty well level with the bench but the passenger seat is about an inch higher but the seat does not have the height adjustment that the driver's does and Carol always moans about it.

If yours is an EK it'll be the same as mine. I also have both front seats rotating. Further to Dave's comment, when you set up the bed as two singles the bases can be locked on the second notch on the steel rails, this leaves just enough space to unclip and slide the backrests down into the gap. This has the effect of lining up the bases with the front seats. We only use this arrangement on the first night of a trip, as we usually arrive at an aire after midnight and it's handy to have the beds set up beforehand, only needing to swivel the seats. Although comfortable, we far prefer the double bed.
Al.

Paulmold wrote:It's a faff to rotate the driver's seat on mine as well but until I can find an affordable deal on a Warwick Duo, I have to put up with it. Oddly the driver's seat is pretty well level with the bench but the passenger seat is about an inch higher but the seat does not have the height adjustment that the driver's does and Carol always moans about it.

One of the main reasons we exchanged to a Sigma, Paul ( couldn't afford a Broadway ) was having to rotate the front seats 180 degrees to make up a single bed, my wife kept catching her ankles on the wooden bulkhead , thus having a disturbed nights kip.i was fine sleeping up in the Luton.
Boaby

Thanks all, some good points.

I may just try experimenting with setups then as it sounds like it would definitely give us the space we need.

I did wonder about cutting a piece of MDF so it acts as a bridge between the bed base and driving seats and then the mattress topper would cover it all as one complete bed, but then there's the issue of storing the board when not in use, or even if that idea would work at all.

Good food for thought though, got till April for our next trip away now so time to work on it.

Thanks,
Rob.

Noggin wrote:I did wonder about cutting a piece of MDF so it acts as a bridge between the bed base and driving seats and then the mattress topper would cover it all as one complete bed, but then there's the issue of storing the board when not in use, or even if that idea would work at all.

I think it would work, but do you need it when you have only your feet to accommodate on each side of the bed? There will be plenty of room for the dozy mutt to get comfy! If you took that option you might be able to set magnets into the board so you could store it flat against the wall of one of the bed bases, or just tuck it behind the legs to hold it in place?

Not wanting to complicate things too much, I didn't mention in detail what we do to support Mrs Gromit's feet. We drop the small table onto the driver's seat so that its boss sits in the well and holds it in place. (The boss is offset on ours, which positions it better than if it was central.) A piece of one inch foam cut to size is secured on top with a couple of loops of knicker elastic, and she says it's perfectly comfortable. It bridges the gap between the partially rotated seat and the side bench, brings the levels together, and with both the foam and the bottom layer of the duvet for padding, it works well.

Mine must be a bit different, I've never had to faff turning the drivers seat fully round then sliding it up to meet the bed base. Three things need to be done to swivel easily, the seat back has to be wound a little past upright, the steering wheel has to be in the fully raised position, and the handbrake has to be off.
It only takes a few seconds longer than swivelling the passenger seat.
No infills needed.
Al.

Mines the same except I don't have to release handbrake, I just find it a faff to have to bring the seat back up, and push to and fro until facing other way. I just wish there was the space to simply swivel round.

Ditto.

It's called idleness, and I freely confess I'm all for it on holiday!  

I can't stand having the drivers seat altered - it takes forever the next morning to find that 'just right' position.

I just drop the steering wheel, put the arms halfway down and swivel whilst moving the seat forwards and backwards.
Got it down to a fine art now

Derek
( a seat swivelling emoticon would be handy.........)

There was a thread a few weeks ago how to adjust the base of the handbrake so it will not foul the seat when you swivel it round. Did it to mine and works a treat.

steve00136 wrote:There was a thread a few weeks ago how to adjust the base of the handbrake so it will not foul the seat when you swivel it round. Did it to mine and works a treat.

I'll have to try and find that, there's a few gouges in my handbrake handle where I forgot and spun it straight into it.

Edit - spelt gouges wrong.

Noggin wrote:

steve00136 wrote:There was a thread a few weeks ago how to adjust the base of the handbrake so it will not foul the seat when you swivel it round. Did it to mine and works a treat.

I'll have to try and find that, there's a few gauges in my handbrake handle where I forgot and spun it straight into it.

I think that was my suggestion Steve. Should help Noggin find it - and I'll repeat it later if he can't. It was a very quick and easy fix if his van is the same as ours.

Noggin,
Odd that your handbrake interferes with your swivel seat when mine does not. Yours is a 2004, mine a 2006 so same base vehicle.

Paulmold wrote:Noggin,
Odd that your handbrake interferes with your swivel seat when mine does not. Yours is a 2004, mine a 2006 so same base vehicle.

It is a bit weird, but mine didn't come with a swivel drivers seat as standard, I had to add the swivel base myself so maybe that's the reason the handbrake wasn't adjusted accordingly.

Paulmold wrote:Noggin,
Odd that your handbrake interferes with your swivel seat when mine does not. Yours is a 2004, mine a 2006 so same base vehicle.

Like Gromit's Nuevo (a Spring 2015 version, like mine) mine also suffers from the problem of the swivel seat base nudging the habdbrake when rotating the seat. It's only a little - and I was very glad to read how to cure it by adding a 4mm washer to the top (of 3) bolts securing the handbrake - but I don't like to apply sideways pressure on the lever every time I rotate the seat. I'll be effecting the cure soon.

It begs the question of why A-S allowed this to happen. It should have been picked up as a flaw. I suspect it's to do with the height of the swivel base - I find the height of the driver's seat to be far too high, obscuring much forward vision howsoever I adjust the lateral seating position and the position of the steering wheel. My uncomfortable compromise, to maximise vision, is to sit forward, with kness against the scuttle.

Paulmold wrote:The Nuevo can be set up as two singles using the front seats reversed (we always sleep in that arrangement). Could you not set up your double as normal but with the front seats reversed as well making a lengthways double with extensions each side, the dog could then sleep between you. Hope that makes sense.

Havent tried this yet, keep thinking that the seats will feel a bit odd?

Cymro wrote:It begs the question of why A-S allowed this to happen. It should have been picked up as a flaw. I suspect it's to do with the height of the swivel base - I find the height of the driver's seat to be far too high, obscuring much forward vision

Its a common problem in quite a few vans.

In my old VW T25 the same thing happened and you had to release the handbrake to swivel the seat. Just one of those things I guess.

Also the Boxers are well known for the stupidly high seating position. I almost regretted fitting the swivel base as my eye line is now right at the top of the windscreen but I managed to move the seat around to a position where it's manageable.

Think I found the thread on the handbrake mod. Will be looking into that during the 'closed' season.

Noggin wrote:
.... Also the Boxers are well known for the stupidly high seating position.  

I didn't know that. Thanks for enlightening me! I'll curse both Peugeot and Auto-Sleepers jointly henceforth!

Cymro wrote:

Noggin wrote:
.... Also the Boxers are well known for the stupidly high seating position.  

I didn't know that. Thanks for enlightening me! I'll curse both Peugeot and Auto-Sleepers jointly henceforth!

Standard Boxer vans are ok, it's the swivel that increases the height. I can just cope with the view through the windscreen. Passengers seats are worse because it sits you so high that you look through the unwiped area of the screen.

Yes, same problem with the height of the drivers seat here and the handbrake obstructing free rotation. I've kind of got used to the driving position (being just the two inches shorter than Gromit helps  ) but I can't be bothered with the faff of changing the driver seat position to use the single bed arrangement. My wife, being significantly shorter than me, has no difficulty seeing out the windscreen.

I tried the driving seats on so many vehicles before we bought the Neuvo and, in some, the seat adjustment was insufficient to allow me to drive safely. Ford based Tribute was one.

Askit wrote:(being just the two inches shorter than Gromit helps  )

A.k.a Quasimodo now!