10 yr old motorhome -Spare Parts availability

As a new Member, can anyone advise us please?

Our 10 year old Broadway is still in beautiful condition having only done just over 12,000 miles apart from the fact that the decorative transfers are not looking so good any more with a few missing patches and also some fading.

On contacting Autosleeper they tell me the transfers are no longer available as our van is 10 years old.  Our Peugeot dealer has put us in touch with the person who does the graphics for their Peugeot vans, etc and it looks like it’s going to cost us around £1,000 to have all the transfers re-done in similar colours.

Has anyone else had to replace theirs and if so, were you happy with the result?

Also, we are now a bit concerned that as and when things need upgrading, because it’s 10 years old, Autosleeper will not be able to supply general replacements.  They said today we’d have to go to breakers’ yards.  Yet you see much older MH’s on the road all the time and people completely refurbish very old models, so they must be able to find what they need?  We really don’t want to have to spend a lot of money changing to a newer model!

Any advice or comments would be appreciated.

In vinyl decals you've probably hit upon one of the few things that are relatively unique to each model and even each model year of van. Most of the rest of a motorhome conversion is fairly standard and used in multiple models for a number of model years and therefore more worthwhile being kept in stock by converters like A/S. A lot of fittings, appliances etc are used throughout the leisure vehicle industry (motorhomes, caravans, boats) and can be purchased from mulltiple sources, often at much cheaper prices then supplying dealers will charge. 

Then you have a base vehicle that has been produced for many years in it's millions and used throughout the world so there is  good spares network  behind it.

Worrying about spares availability is a consideration, but once you get to 10 years old the more pressing concern should be the potential for rust and seized up parts due to such low usage.

Hi Everyone
        I agree with Chris spares are a real concern, on the habitation door on our AS Gloucester the plastic window surrounds are in poor condition. AS have no spares! Dometic has discontinued the door! they have no spares and are not interested, customer services will not talk to you and do not answer E-Mails and as for breakers ,on a low production item like a motorhome what chance have you!
Cheers
Alan

I agree that suggesting that breaker's yards are a sensible source for unique parts of motorhomes is daft. With production of some models numbered in tens per year, the chances are very, very remote.

Having said that, that door won't be unique to A/S and may well have been used in thousands of other brand motorhomes and caravans, so it might be around provided you use a wide search.

I placed a national list of breakers and suppliers of new old stock in the factsheet section a few years ago which may be useful. Here's a link...

https://www.autosleeper-ownersforum.com/t24744-dismantlers-and-suppliers-of-new-old-stock

10 years isn't really that old for a motorhome.  As you've already said there are much older ones out there and it's not a problem to maintain them.

Sometimes you just need a little ingenuity in finding or making the items.

In terms of the graphics, I would just leave them be, but if you really want to get them changed I'd first look on ebay to see if any suit (there are people who make generic graphics that may suit) such as:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/b/Motorhome-Graphics/76066/bn_60307187

Or for the exact match then go to a vehicle grpahics site and send them pictures etc and get them to quote you.  I can't believe it would be anywhere near £1000.

https://www.signgrafx.co.uk/page/vehicle-graphics/

Maybe with removal and refitting, labour charges at £60 an hour could soon add up to several hundred pounds. Or it could be Marquis again (see the thread on the price they wanted to replace a window) or that the dealer doesn't want the job and has quoted silly money so they don't get it.

This is a post from a recent thread, 

bikeralw wrote:I took my van to a local graphics company Sam, I'm sure there must be one in your area. Their speciality being usually trucks and vans.
 The motorhome was no problem to them, they kept it overnight, all graphics removed, copied on their laser cutter, and the new ones applied.
The cost was about £250.
To my mind far better than messing about myself.
http://www.highpeaksigns.net/
Al.


As you see , far from £1000

I have to agree - parts availability is always a worry when you've spent so much on a vehicle. But, as others have said - you just need to get a bit more inventive as it gets older. Changing to non-original parts will have a negligible effect on the van's value, as long as the result looks and works Ok. I've owned vans for more than 10 years on two occasions in the past (one for 20 years and the other for around 12) and as long as the mechanical parts are still obtainable and it doesn't rust away, almost everything else can be fixed, somehow.

The great thing about owning a 10 year+ van is that, although maintenance costs increase a bit, the depreciation drops to almost nothing compared to a newer van!

Thank you all so much for your comments and the links.  The original price we got to replace them 18 months ago from Autosleeper, was around £450 for the set of decals plus approx 6 hrs labour at £60/hr.  I sort of wish we’d gone ahead and had it done then when they were still available!  They can be quite difficult to get off, especially the ones on the bonnet where they’ve been truly worn down by weather and road debris so the 6 hrs labour can increase. And now of course the price will have risen but I think we’re going to approach a local graphics company who do vans and see what they can come up with. Thanks again, very interesting and helpful!

Why don`t you remove them yourself?  may take a bit of time but will save a lot of money, labour charges are what pushes up the price of jobs, so the more you can do yourself the better.

I am taking some of mine off, with a hot air dryer and hot soapy water, carefully, a bit at a time. I haven`t much of them to replace, or was thinking of taking them all off and leaving them off. haven`t decided yet.


Good luck, best regards,
Margaret

Why not have them all stripped off and have the van signed as Bloggs Plumbers or Willhire van Rentals - Dutch Impresssionist, Auto Slipper Furry, White Van Man and Robbing, or STEALTH CAMPER in big dayglo green letters.

I have a copy given to me by the AS service centre of the graphics used on 2009 Broadways. When I was thinking of replacing some

of mine and was at the AS service centre Mark gave me an A4 copy. Unfortunately my scanner is not working at the moment but the
 
name on the sheet is CGI Creative Graphics who are based in Bedford. It may be worth checking with them to see if they would 

supply them direct. All the various graphics have reference numbers e.g. the large grey strips on the bonnet are ref. no. 08BED0664

972mm x 279mm. It may be worth trying them with that as an example.

David