Brownhills - Newark

Brownhills…….
We bought our first two vans from Brownhills, fortunately at the time of the first one I only lived twenty miles away.

It was a Duetto, 5 years old. We had the handover and spent that night (our first ever in motorhome or caravan) on the Club Brownhills area at the back of the site. The pool was closed as was the (always excellent) Bistro and a February night was not inviting a walk into Newark so it was iron rations (first lesson learned – always have a meal in tins as a backup). Everything seemed to work ok but we heard a little ‘whir’ every few minutes.

In the morning I had a shower. That went well. Chris had a go, just got soaped when the shower stopped. No water but outside was a little stream running down the slope of the pitch. When Chris was sorted I went to the workshop and was told the water was leaking because the van was not level and was sold levelling ramps…. I knew no better then but in due course found that the previous owner had frozen the water heater which then leaked.

A week later I found that one of the rear springs was broken so both were replaced.

Some of the bed make up cushions were missing they would be ordered from AS. Long saga with requests for build number then photos but none arrived. Brownhills fabricated one – rubbish and plain grey. Original owners name & telephone number were in the handbook so I called him, he had the originals stored in plastic and forgotten about – he sent me them for the cost of postage.

As I got to know what I was doing we found more and more faults. The previous owner only had the vehicle registered to him for two days, I got contact details via DVLA and wrote to him. He had agreed a deal to buy. They had delayed delivery twice and when he arrived to collect. He waited all day (having travelled from Ipswich) for work to be finished then at 5 demanded his money back and went home. He told me of the faults he had noted and they were all still there.
We went on a fortnights holiday to Florida and left the van with them to be sorted. When we got back nothing had been done. At the time I was working part time mostly from home. For the first year I reckon I spent about 14 days working from the waiting lounge at Brownhills.

The only good thing I can say is that everything was eventually sorted (including replacing the side of the van that had rusted from the inside because of the water leak) and the only cost to me was fuel to and fro.

I’ve always found their accessory shop to have excellent stock and when in club Brownhills the discount was good.

We didn’t intend to buy the next van but in those days Brownhills used to bus ASOC members from their National Rally at Newark showground to the site and give a free cream tea. We saw the Inca and new it would suit the cats – it was only 10 months old and looked immaculate so we decided to go for it. What a battle it was to buy it, the salesman was determined we wouldn’t have it but we won. I can’t imagine what his motive was!

By that time we had moved across country and I had Brownhills pay to transfer the AS warranty to me but I decided to have the first habitation and vehicle service done at Newark. Having been told most firmly that the habitation service was just an inspection and not even minor adjustments would be made even though under warranty, seen the van driven out to collect parts for another vehicle and finding all 4 wheel trims broken when I went back to the vehicle (they did accept the blame and gave me a replacement set) I decided enough was enough so will never buy a van or have work done by them again.

I do use the Bistro when in the area and that then usually moves on to a trip round the accessory shop and a purchase of some sort.

I calculate that you parted with your 3rd motorhome when you were around the age of 25. I wish I'd been as well paid at that age!

I agree.