Full time job

Owned our AS Warwick Duo for a couple of years now and I seem to spend more time fixing it than using it.
Everytime I return from a trip I have a list of things to sort out.
Just refitted toilet roll holder and tommorow I will resealing around the toilet (3rd time) and investigating a water leak from beneath the boiler.
Anyone else have niggling issues or have I bought a Friday one.

SallyB wrote:Owned our AS Warwick Duo for a couple of years now and I seem to spend more time fixing it than using it.
Everytime I return from a trip I have a list of things to sort out.
Just refitted toilet roll holder and tommorow I will resealing around the toilet (3rd time) and investigating a water leak from beneath the boiler.
Anyone else have niggling issues or have I bought a Friday one.

There's always something. I've resealed around toilet and I've had a leak around the boiler (thankfully it wasn't the boiler but a pinhole in a pipe).

Yup, that's par for the course. Invariably, I return home with a list of things to do. To be fair, not all are repairs: some are routine maintenance; some are improvements / projects. But more often than not there are some things which need to be investigated and / or fixed.

All part of the motorhome experience.

Cymro

I spend more time fixing things in the house than in the van but enjoy both.

Just come back from Sons house, its about 3 years old and was very expensive, my daughter in law could keep me going full time for six weeks snagging it.

I’m touching a very very large piece of wood while I write this but my Symbol has been a joy to own since I bought it. 
There was a fairly big issue with the bathroom door alignment but to their credit A/S sorted this 100% soon after purchase (mainly thanks to the now departed Mark). 

Sadly, there do seem to be many quality control issues in recent vans which is a terrible shame as personally I think their designs generally offer something a bit different.

Sally I think they are all Friday vans but stick with it , after about 5-6 years old you will have rebuilt most of it and it will be fine from then on !

Same here. Poor plumbing connections resulting in a leak, seal around the toilet, taps either too loose or too stiff, drawer fronts falling off… 

They can’t all have been made on a Friday, can they?

Due to the age of our Rienza some running repairs are part of owning the motor home that suites our needs and we enjoy.
What bugs me is finding faults after the extended warranty package ran out like the damp. The minor problems I enjoy sorting even though some problems are a bit of a challenge. 
I am a bit put off by the tales of woe from people with newer motorhomes having problems that take a lot of sorting by dealers or repairers.

The commonly recurring problem of the seal around the toilet is a problem for us too. We bought our Warwick Duo secondhand from a dealer. The seal was split we we received the van and it was on their snagging list. They did it again but it split immediately. As things evolved it has just been left but only because we never use the van shower. I have looked at the sealant used by the dealer. They have used a very hard sealant probably the polyurethane type like webseal PU50 and it has completely failed to adhere to the moulding of the toilet body.  Not all sealants and silicones are the same. Low modulus silicones are used where there is movement and some silicones stick to plastics well and some do not. Perhaps Thetford could recommend a sealant that will stick to their material. Alternatively, would some kind of adhesive strip be a better solution.

As to the OP, I agree, the list grows as quickly as I can tick off the items. Hob today, new LED internal light later this week when it get to me having paid AS their extortionate price.

As I said earlier I have had to reseal around the toilet. I made the dealer do it before we took delivery but it only lasted about 6 months. I didn't want to buy the usual size of sealant tube as once opened it goes off even though you've only used a little, so I bought a small tube of sealant/adhesive from Home Bargains, cost 99p and so far after 18 months there is no sign of it failing.

Well the water loss was down to a not to tight jubille clip on the drain pipe that had allowed the pipe to almost work its way off the spigot. With a sense of triumph at sorting that the rubber trim above the drivers door fell onto my head again. 4th time despite Evo Stick-ing. 
The toilet leak is down to penny pinching by AS.
Giving Thetford a ring and asking a generic sales question I was told " you need to fit the silicone seal around the edge as sealant will keep  letting go" and there it is! in the exploded view "Silicone gasket".
The aerial is a bit strange. The cable comes into the amplifier and out from there to a three way splitter, one for incoming,one for tv and the third disappears back into the headlining. Anyone know what yhis is for or where it terminates.
The reason for its poor performance was due to the excess length being forced back into the conduit and kinking it in two places.
I have now moved the cigar lighter and aerial sockets inside the cupboard and it makes for a much neater finish. Now that the cables are shortened to the correct length and so kinks removed the reception even on this very windy foreshore is now as it should be.
Must be at yhe rnd now surely

Installation of coax cable is not one of AS's strong points, as several threads on here bear witness to. Many of us have had to continuity-check cable runs with a multi-meter to work out how our TV systems have been connected. There are invariably two types of problem: weird or inconsistent logic in how the various sockets are connected up, and careless termination of cables with shorts between screen and signal connections.   

As for your mysterious 3rd cable, bear in mind that your Warwick may have more than one set of sockets inside the van.  Our van has a second set inside a top locker, connected in parallel to the first set at the TV location.  I guess this is to allow peripherals to be connected, such as a satellite receiver or a DVD player.  Furthermore, your van will have an external cable connector on the outside which has two inputs, a UHF coax socket and a F-type satellite socket. You might want to continuity-check these as well to work out how it's all been connected.

Tim

Do check that you have passive splitters and not just 'T' connectors.

Dbvwt wrote:I’m touching a very very large piece of wood while I write this but my Symbol has been a joy to own since I bought it. 
 

I'll hold on to the same piece of wood if I may :)

Ours has been pretty bang on too.  Most of the work I've done has been self-inflicted mods, the only 'issue' I guess is the poor solar 'smart' charging that I've modified to charge both batteries with the system completely shut down, but most of us know about that one.

I'll keep an eye on the toilet seal though, sounds like it could be a common problem.

You can be lucky and have a van where plumbing leaks don't occur, but in my experience, even well tightened jubilee clips can 'ease' due to the movement and flexing of the van and the differential heat from well below freezing to baking hot. I've a couple of pipe joints that leaked shortly after the boiler was fitted. I tightened them 'til the leaks stopped but have a folded piece of kitchen roll under each one and I regularly check whether it's at all damp.

Dbvwt wrote:I’m touching a very very large piece of wood while I write this but my Symbol has been a joy to own since I bought it. 

Likewise, and it's good to remind ourselves of the many positives these vans offer.  I am thankful though to have a simple (ish) EC500 power system, non-integrated solar and a loo that isn't under the shower, thus avoiding the sealant challenge.

At this point it's hard to see how we'd improve on the 6m Kemerton.  It does everything we want - reliably and in style.

Tim

Peter Brown wrote:Do check that you have passive splitters and not just 'T' connectors.

Not sure what a passive splitter is but this is a tee piece. I think the additional cable must be for an optional aerial outlet somewhere it seems to run across the headlining to the offside. It wasnt the cause of the poor signal though that was the folded lead. 
Todays job is the Garmin reverse camera the iris of which seems to be stuck.
Did have a run out planned for the weekend but as the weather looks rough I may give the van a bit of TLC instead.

The following explanation is about as none- technical as I can get to give an explanation so is by no means complete or perfect - but what happens is described correctly.

Types of Co-axial cables each have their own Impedance, that is resistance to AC current, in this case 75 ohms. If these cable are joined, split or terminated without the impedance of 75 ohm being maintained there is a great loss of level in the TV signal - this happens when you 'T' join cables together.

A passive splitter is a device that contains passive (none powered) components to ensure that each of the three (or more) cables sees 75 ohm, losses still occur at the joint but they are much less than they would be without impedance matching.

You can also get active splitters in which as well as matching impedance the device includes powered circuitry that amplifies the TV signal to reverse the losses caused by the joint. Most TV amplifiers used in our vans are active splitters in that they have one input from the aerial and two outputs to TV devices.

If the splitter is to be used for a satellite TV signal then it must also pass DC current as the satellite receiver passes power and control to the LNB on the dish.

Good information Peter, thanks.
What I finished up doing was directly connecting the output from the amplifier to the aerial cable to the set. The sat cable appears to come straight from the dish. In any case not electrically connected to the TV aerial so far as I can see.
Any ideas on opening up a garmin rear view camera. 

Sally just picked up our new to us van and picture from the Avtex rear view camera bc30? seems very ropey so you are not alone . It is on my to do list!  A/s are very bad at making off coax connectors and as you say but enormous knots and kinks in the cable to kill what signal gets through. Watch out for any external sockets being crossed ie tv in from external  socket goes to sat connector inside  and sat input goes to tv out in van . Took me ages to trace all cables and remake all connections and reported it all to A/s who said they were aware but when asked why nothing had been done to stop it happening in future had no answer...

SallyB wrote:
Any ideas on opening up a garmin rear view camera. 

I'm not quite sure what you mean by open up. As I recall the Garmin is a wireless system so there will be an electronics box as well as the camera?

Its the actual camera.
The iris seems stuck so will not focus. I have it off now and there four securing anti tamper screws so I think I have it now. 

Good luck - I'm fortunate for that sort of thing in having small fingers.

Avtex / Garmin BC30 camera is connected to a small box which apparently transmits via bluetooth to the sat nav unit...

SallyB wrote:Owned our AS Warwick Duo for a couple of years now and I seem to spend more time fixing it than using it.
Just refitted toilet roll holder and tommorow I will resealing around the toilet (3rd time) and investigating a water leak from beneath the boiler.

I noticed when we collected our new Kemerton XL last July that the toilet roll holder wasn't firmly attached. Because the bulkhead panel is thin and the screws small they can easily cut out. After unscrewing the toilet roll holder I strengthened the screw holes with some Araldite epoxy, 24hour slow setting type (Blue and White tubes). I used a cocktail stick to coat the inside of the screw holes to beef them up. You've then got something firmer to screw into.

We're off to the dealer at the end of the months to get out EC700 panel replaced yet again, a loose bathroom taps sorted for the second time and the camera hopefully replaced as the IR illumination at night has stopped.

I agree with others about the normal repairs you have, with anything, motorhome, house, car, garden and your own body, they don't make them like they used to.