Delamination........

Hi All!

My ‘from-new’ ‘van has just had its 2nd hab. check, and everything is fine.....apart from the floor delaminating in front of the oven......Marquis assure me that it is not due to water ingress but more likely to be caused by foot traffic on the affected area!
I hasten to add that it is an El***s Marquis Majestic and NOT an Auto Sleeper, but I was hoping that the wealth of experience on this forum could advise me about possible courses of action?
Marquis have requested authorisation from El***s to carry-out a warranty repair, but my fear is that the rest of the floor could be liable to delaminates in the future...
Bearing in mind that the ‘van is only 2 years old, is this something that is likely to happen, or have I been ‘sold a pup’?

Thanks in advance.

Andy.........

AndyPK wrote:Marquis assure me that it is not due to water ingress but more likely to be caused by foot traffic on the affected area

To be quite honest, that does not seem likely at all. After all, the flooring on the upper floors of most modern houses is made of a very similar chipboard-like material, and you don't get your floorboards delaminating after a few years of walking about on them!

If they insist on sticking with that excuse, I would seriously consider getting a professional opinion on whether what they are saying is likely. I would expect that you would have to pay for that advice, but if your claim is justified then (under UK consumer law) they would have to end up paying your costs for that professional advice.

If it's not deterioration due to water ingress, the next likely cause is that they failed to support the floor adequately to prevent it flexing unduly due to foot traffic - and that's not an excuse that will get them off the hook from paying to have it fixed either!

Having had several coachbuilts and worked on them I can see where they are coming from. Im sure that those vans have a full sealed moulded  plastic liner on the underside to seal the floor from road / wheel water splash. Not the cheap blackboard paint coating that other manufacturers deem suff icient for waterproofing .  The floors consisted of 2 sheets of 5mm plywood sandwiching about an inch of polystyrene foam. Weight concentrated over small areas regularly could I suppose compress the foam and lead to the bonding between ply and foam to break down. Perhaps it was a faulty sheet at manufacture with poor adhesion between the laminated board.
     Annoying as it is and I know exactly how you must feel  but I have seen a perfectly good repair made by drilling just through the ply and injecting resin to rebond the floor section. My workmate then used the van a further 5 years with kids jumping up and down on it ' testing'  the repair and he had no further trouble. From experience , the one thing I will say is length of warranty on Elddis far outlasted A/s equivalent and any repairs were completed promptly and without fuss as long as you have a good workshop.

When we had our 20 year old Winnebago, it had a spongy floor in front of the cooker/sink, and between the bathroom and shower. The floor was similar to what most vans use now, two sheets of plywood sandwiching an insulating core. No evidence of damp, just caused by 
standing and walking. I used the drill fill and plug method, result.... solid floor again.

Some years ago our then m/hme displayed the same fault. As stated previously, I drilled holes in the floor and injected the appropriate chemical. This made the floor rock hard, but there was still a crunching noise when the floor was walked on. On examination of the underside a could see what looked like a faint crack beneath the black coating. I then realised that this was where two sections of the floor met, not in anyway joined, and rubbing together. I went to a local metal workshop and had a box section cut to the exact measurements of the distance between the longditudnal sections of the chassis. After fitting this 'bit' of metal with self tapping screws, I banged in a bit of old fence post between the floor and the 'bit' of metal, to fill the gap. Then a good sposhing with whatever that well known undersealant is called.......problem solved. We had that m/hme for nine years after this bodge/operation and there was no more bother.
A dealer/repairer quoted me several hundred pounds to sort this out. I should sa this 'operation' was 22 years ago when the body was much more up to that lark.

Best wishes.   Eddie

Good old BIY!