Our Kings 12V Travel Oven Review
The Kings 12V Travel Oven is easily one of the most-used pieces of cooking gear in our 4WD setups.
We actually own two of them now. Our first one is permanently installed in the pantry setup in our GQ Patrol. When we started setting the Y62 up for touring, we could have pulled that one out and moved it between vehicles, but we use it enough that dismantling the setup every time would've been a pain.
So we bought another one specifically for the Y62.
That probably says more about what we think of them than anything else.
Cooking Lunch While We Drive
This is where the 12V oven really earns its spot in the Y62.
On travel days, we'll put lunch in the oven and let it cook while we're driving. Instead of pulling up somewhere and getting cooking gear out, we can stop when we're ready and already have a hot lunch waiting for us.
When you're spending hours on the road at a time, it's such an easy way to make use of that driving time.
Load it up, turn it on and keep travelling.
Dinner While We're Out Exploring
We also use it regularly when we've left the caravan behind and we're heading out exploring for the day.
If we know we're going to be out until later in the afternoon or evening, we can take dinner with us and have it cooking in the Patrol.
It means we don't have to cut a day of exploring short just because we need to get back to the caravan and start dinner.
We've found ourselves using it for this more and more while travelling. It's simple, but it gives us a lot more flexibility with our days.
More Than a Pie Warmer
12V ovens sometimes get treated as nothing more than somewhere to heat up a pie, but you can do a lot more with them.
The Kings oven has two removable trays, an adjustable thermostat up to 180°C and a timer of up to two hours. We use ours for proper lunches and dinners as well as reheating food.
It's obviously not going to cook as quickly as the 240V oven in the caravan, but that's not what we bought it for.
The whole advantage is being able to cook slowly while we're already driving or out doing something else.
You Need to Give It Time
If you're expecting a 12V oven to heat up and cook like your oven at home, you'll probably be disappointed.
They take time.
For us, that doesn't really matter. If we're going to be driving for a couple of hours anyway, the oven has plenty of time to do its thing.
Once you start planning meals around the slower cooking time, that's when a 12V oven becomes really useful.
Rather than waiting for the oven, the oven is waiting for us.
Our GQ Setup
Our original Kings 12V oven lives permanently in the pantry setup in our GQ Patrol.
It's always there when we take the GQ away, and having it permanently installed means we don't need to think about packing it every time we head off.
It worked well enough in that setup that when we needed an oven for the Y62, there wasn't much reason for us to look elsewhere.
Our Y62 Setup
Instead of constantly removing the oven from the GQ pantry and swapping it between vehicles, we bought a second Kings 12V oven specifically for the Y62.
This one now travels Australia with us and gets used regularly.
It's particularly useful because the Y62 is both our tow vehicle and the vehicle we use for day trips once the caravan is set up. Whether we're moving to the next camp or leaving the van behind and exploring for the day, we've got the oven with us.
How Have They Held Up?
Both have been great units.
They're not something we bought, used twice and then forgot about. The ovens genuinely get used, particularly the one in the Y62 while we're travelling.
For the price, we've never felt the need to replace them with a considerably more expensive 12V oven.
And considering we bought a second one rather than moving our original between vehicles, we're obviously pretty happy with them.
Would We Recommend One?
Absolutely.
For occasional camping, you could probably live without a 12V oven. But if you spend a lot of time touring, doing long driving days or heading away from camp for a full day of exploring, they're incredibly handy.
We use ours for hot lunches while travelling, dinners while exploring and reheating meals on the road.
They're simple, affordable and genuinely useful.
The fact that we now have one permanently set up in each of our touring 4WDs is probably the best review we can give them.