Warranty Claims.

I wonder how many A/S owners having M/Hs in warranty have had troubles ? I will in breif list mine so far after 12 months. 2 Thetford Refrigerators, Replacment 12mm water pipe joints (faulty manf:), Draught from Fridge vents into ajacent bedbox + fumes, Replaced (last week) Thetford hob gas tap to grill. I'm not angry , more miffed that in this day and age after years of manufacturing experience firms still get basic problems, costs them money/time and we folk expense in travel and days waiting around. I have also sorted failures myself, " bird-song" above the first cupboard /ceiling, cables stretched tight over wood, eased the clips !!, Truama Heater rattled like crazey,nasty tin cover--sorted, Removed wire staples from bed "slats" plastic supports, as several (8) collapsed refixed with 1/2" copper pins, no reason to use copper I had hundreds of them anyway. Who knows what delightful "little job " will appear on our next outing. All good fun when spending £45,000 . Brian K.

Think 52 problems on receipt (new) beats you Brian

Oh no. Your tales fill me with concern. After 8 years of barely a problem with a 19 year old vehicle, we shell out over K20 to buy a "tidy" van we now have discovered a number of things that we hope our warranty will cover. Our Heki roof is leaking in several places, water leaks through the shower room into the toilet cassette compartment, the locking device on the fridge doesnt lock. The water pump keeps "priming up" from time to time, after the initial "prime up". Not sure if it should do this or not. Someone suggested we may have a leak somewhere. Is this correct?? Going to take it to Autosleeper Broadway this week so we can be confident but not sure if the warranty will cover these - we have a 12 months silver MB warranty.
PS Is it acceptable to contact previous owners to ask about things - obviously it is no longer their problem once bought from dealer.

Sorry rambling PPS I find the advice from you guys on the forum really helpful - keep it up!

Hi happyhelen,
my brand new Suffolk had the same water pump fault as you describe, around every 20/30 minutes it would start up for a few seconds, when the dealer investigated they found 3 (yes 3) connectors that were leaking, these were situated behind the truma heater where the water heater is situated beneath the wardrobe, this was in a brand new vehicle. I would have this investigated if I were you asap before the leak causes any damage
Don

Hi campers, I'm glad I started this, although I'm not winning in fault totals Roli on 52 well well. Why not contact a previous owner, certainly ! he/she will be gutted to know what you paid I bet, your sure to learn a lot about your little baby ! ! "wheres you bin" and all that. re water leaking pump priming etc:, read my post again. A/s did;nt do a recall--surprise surprise, but my 12mm push fit plumbing joints were replaced due as I said-- to a "faulty batch of fittings. I was at A/S for another reason ---fumes in bed box . as said. The water found in shower trays may well be from travelling with the Thetford C type loo res: full, You mus;nt do this with a C type, gosh you say heavens what do we do for a loo en-route, Thetford say travel with minimum 2 teaspoon or 6 ?? . Th latest LOO's now evidently have a "sealed Res: lid---lucky you if you;ve just purchased new ! !. SO why not a recall or parts posted out so we can all enjoy a FLUSH en route even 3. I really do feel we are all being treated like Id....s Are we stupid---Dont all reply at once the site will collapse. Ha ! forgotten priming noise, Adjusting the . "flow valve" as our friend said--its behinde the Traumatic heater take the silly drawer OUT by removing rails !!! you may be lucky to access through the wardrobe floor panel lifts out. its a delicate amount to get it not to "click" like a machine gun, what a place to put this silly gadget. 12mm stuff. this may leak too. Good thing Peugot / Fiat build a reliable chassis and power unit---fingers crossed mines on 5000 th: miles and NO SICKNESS. Brian K.

Hi Roli, just been rambleing on as you will see, Sunday too but after church tho. 52 faults !! can you find time to tell us all what and where you found them---where they all on the M. H. or are you including the house too ?. Will be nice to hear from you. :smile! Brian K.

We are on holiday at the moment, on batteries!! we should be on leccy tomorrow. If you have access to MH Facts do a search for a post 41/2 years ago "What do you expect from a new van" Going from memory there were piccys too.
I have no problem if someone copies and pastes it onto here. Just I cant at this time.
In all fairness it was when AS was under a previous ownership (foreign) and the current owners have worked hard to turn quality around since those dark days.

happyhelen wrote:Oh no. Your tales fill me with concern. After 8 years of barely a problem with a 19 year old vehicle, we shell out over K20 to buy a "tidy" van we now have discovered a number of things that we hope our warranty will cover. Our Heki roof is leaking in several places, water leaks through the shower room into the toilet cassette compartment, the locking device on the fridge doesnt lock. The water pump keeps "priming up" from time to time, after the initial "prime up". Not sure if it should do this or not. Someone suggested we may have a leak somewhere. Is this correct?? Going to take it to Autosleeper Broadway this week so we can be confident but not sure if the warranty will cover these - we have a 12 months silver MB warranty.
PS Is it acceptable to contact previous owners to ask about things - obviously it is no longer their problem once bought from dealer.

Sorry rambling PPS I find the advice from you guys on the forum really helpful - keep it up!

Hi Helen... seems like us, you've had a few issues that should have been corrected by the dealer (wonder if it's the same dealer?) so make use of the warranty that they included, all the work you mention should be covered and the Auto-Sleeper service centre are the guys to get you fixed up, Mark Burdett is a very helpful and knowledgeable young chap in my experience.

As for contacting the previous owner personally I don't think it's the done thing... they have moved on for whatever reason and I wouldn't really want anyone ringing me up with problems they are experiencing as these problems should be directed towards the dealer who has sold you the van without thoroughly inspecting it, others may disagree...

When buying a used motorhome you have no idea how it's been maintained by the previous owner. Buying from a reputable dealer you would expect them to have been through the vehicle and rectified any apparent problems, but it seems this is not necessarily the case and I can speak from personal experience having purchased our Nuevo in November. We have had numerous problems (all pretty minor but annoying all the same) we have rectified these niggles by taking the vehicle to Auto-Sleepers and paying for them to be corrected ourselves. Most of these problems should have been rectified by the dealer who we purchased the van from, and things we requested were done before we collected the van have since had to all be totally redone by Auto-Sleepers or myself as they were just not done correctly by the dealer which is rather disappointing.


Problems rectified to date on our Nuevo

1. Intermittent problem with Rear Stop Light, which was quickly sorted by AS and was down to towbar electrics, we were aware of this problem when we test drove the vehicle yet both the dealer and a Peugeot dealership (despite being charged) had failed to locate this fault or correct this.

2. Habitation door needed aligning, as it took considerable effort to slam shut, previous owner should have had this rectified under the warranty.

3. Bathroom sink was replaced by dealer (as it had been damaged around the plug hole) but both hot and cold pipes were left leaking out of the base of the shower swing wall which was actually 1/4 full with water, you could hear the water sloshing around as you moved the swing wall! The access panel on the rear of the shower wall had been poorly re-fixed using silicone in places instead of the screws and white plastic caps that AS fit, the hot and cold pipes required new fittings and the panel was correctly fitted back using screws and the screw caps as standard, again rectified by AS at our expense.

4. Dealer told us our motorhome would come with a habitation check but provided no paperwork.
so we had AS carry out a complete check for peace of mind and to get the necessary paperwork stating it had been checked at our expense.

5. Fridge temperature knob had been broken and super glued back together! Previous owner? Dealer? who knows...
AS replaced the knob at a cost of just over £2 why would anyone glue a broken one when they are so cheap?

6. Bed clutch / locking mechanism loose, AS adjusted this to prevent movement and reducing unwanted rattles during travel

7. Leaking fresh water tank around inspection cover, again this should have been picked up by the dealer but rectified by AS at our expense.

8. Shower room floor plug holes not draining away freely, again this should have been picked up by the dealer but rectified by AS at our expense.

9. Fridge had never worked properly since getting the vehicle and it transpired that the cooling element had failed (we thought previously this was the fridge temp knob, see No5) the element was replaced by AS and on this occasion (getting fed up of the expense) we used the warranty provided by the dealer for the 1st time which AS kindly took care of and dealt with them direct on our behalf.

We are just glad to have worked through these issues and just love our Nuevo, we wouldn't even swap it for a brand new one as it's perfect for us... maybe a Stanton in the future which is same as the Nuevo but on a Merc base, otherwise we are happy with what we have.. it's a shame we have had the above niggles but it's been very rewarding getting them sorted, none of the problems are a reflection of build quality of Auto-Sleepers but think they reflect badly on the dealer and the previous owner who obviously didn't cherish the vehicle as we do and will continue to...



CC

Hi CC,

It sounds our experience is all too common. Actually we didnt test drive our vehicle before we drove it away. Thats probably more fool us. I did actually ask the dealers and they said it wasnt normally done. We had been used to buying privately previously with much cheaper vehicles and wouldnt have dreamt of buying without driving then!!

Anyway Re contacting previous owner I didnt mean to ask about problems but just to ask if there was anything we should look out for etc. Woulkd really love to know how and what they used it for - is 5 years old but only did 3,000 miles (I know that isnt nec a good thing). The rear seats have been sat on quite a bit but many other things dont seem to have been used much.

Just a thought but the grill doesnt seem to be very effective - barely browns toast and couldnt hardly melt cheese. Is this to be expected or may something be blocked on it??

Heres hoping the probs can all be solved when GG (Grumpy Gareth) takes it to AS this week but I am hoping at the expense of the insurers of the warranty!!

HH

Hmm. Not driving it was a mistake, but hopefully not serious. When we bought our Windsor it was 4 years old with 2300 miles, yet the interior definitely looked well used, and the built-in awning was pretty mucky, like it had been left opened under a cherry tree. Apparently the one previous owner -whose address is in one of the more salubrious parts of Liverpool - had traded it in for a new van. I still cant make sense of this combination of circumstances.

As for the grill, I've yet to find any type of bottled gas powered appliance that makes decent toast; they're pretty useless really, the heat seems very difficult to regulate. Others may know different...

Good luck with getting the faults rectified.

Tony

Hi Tony,

Yes you are right was pretty silly not to drive before - but I think it is ok. Actually ours had one previous owner who lived in Liverpool too! Although the awning on ours didnt look as if it had ever been used! Well we will live and learn and not make the same mistakes twice. Was good to hear what you say about the grill.

HH

Hi All,
The grills fitted to motorhomes all seem to be very slow, but you can improve this dramatically by moving the grill rack as close to the burner as possible. I have welded longer legs onto ours, but some people just use something to pack it up closer to the burner. there is a photo of ours somewhere on the forum but I can't find it.




Brian2

Hi All,

I always do put the grill pan as high as poss (place on baking tray) - couldnt be nearer to grill element but still not verygood result. Was wondering if could get blocked etc. May just be the best it can get.

Re Warranty - just had very bad experience and very angry!!! Bought van from dealer only matter of weeks ago.
Discovered:-
1. Several leaks through Heki roof.
2. Leak of water through from shower into toilet cassette.
3. Broken fridge catch
4. Crack in water filter in habitation side (covered with tape but letting in air causing pump to re-prime every so often)

Dealer some distance from home but assurred could get any warranty work done at any reputable garage / establishment. A number of faults have come to light as they do (2 I feel should have been sorted by dealer at source - Frdige catch they said they would sort, they wrongly put in new water pump in habitation (we had asked for one in vehicle) and must have either noticed tape on filter or perhaps even caused it) but anyway went to AS in Willersly for confidence. Contacted warranty peolpe they said would be covered and to get estimate. Arranged to travel (couple of hours away) to AS, got an estimate and faxed it off on headed paper although AS said they would not deal with a third party but would only deal with us. Husband put our mob number on fax and asked them to ring us. They didnt but unknown to us rang AS who as they had said to us would not deal with 3rd party. The work went ahead (AS were great and we were very pleased). However following day when contacting warranty peolpe they said they would not cover as had not authorised and they needed pictures of damage and other details from repairer and perhaps an inspector to go to see it first (none of this had been conveyed to my husband in previous communications). They said they were not concerned with the customer but needed contact with repairer but AS would not do that. Also since discovered other repairers who say they will not deal with MGB warranties as they have had bad expereince in past - things not covered and payment taking too long to come - so what are these warranties worth!!!

Have got back to dealer but they are not interested. I am so glad I didnt fill in customer satisfaction before as I have plenty to say now. I feel we were misled. I foolishly expected all probs to be covered esp only weeks after collection. I had no idea the warranties were so hard to get to work properly but seems like I am not alone. We have always bought privately before and at least you knew where you stood but you paid a lot less up front. Anyway we shall see - there are a number of months left on warranty yet but it doesnt fill me with confidence if an outfit like AS Willersley wont deal with them. How long were we supposed to leave a leak affecting the van!! and what if problems occur abroad?!!

Sorry folks my rant for the day. Any thoughts or suggestions of what we should have done??

HH

Hi Helen,
Sorry to hear of your continuing problems, this cements the very low opinion of your dealer, who I had always believed to be a reputable family firm. All these things should have been sorted on pre delivery inspection. As I have said I will advise people not to deal with them if I meet anyone planning to buy a motorhome.

Brian2

Name and shame the dealer.

Hi Paul,
I agree but as Helen gave it to me in a PM I am not prepared to divulge the Dealer concerned. That is Helens perogative, but go on Helen tell the whole forum.

Brian2

I was intially reluctant to do so as in some ways they seemed to be good but we did have a number of issues even before we collected but I gave them the benefit of the doubt. I have now e-mailed one of the directors (as they ask you to do if you are not satisified) - they are looking to uphold a 100% customer satisfaction rating. We had no joy on the phone to one of the salesmen. If I do not get anything to restore my confidence or even explain why these things were not only missed but not dealt with under the warranty as we had been given to expect then I will be naming and warning others so they dont have the same problems. Not heard back yet but watch this space.

Happy Helen is not currently too happy!

Sorry to hear of your experience Helen... looking back charging for the seat base was really a tell tale sign of the kind of dealer you were dealing with as I would have expected this to have been done in the price, and for me personally this would have rang alarm bells! anyway moving on... I hope you get the situation resolved and I would tend to agree with other comments that this dealer really deserves to be named and shamed but having said this I admire your diplomacy in trying to resolve things before broadcasting their name, let us know how you get on and good luck.

CC

It seems to me that nothing changes. AS have a very good name and for the most part this is recognized in the trade. On this assumption we bought a new Transit based Ravenna in 2004. On the way to a campsite for the 1st night after collection my wife (who was following in our car) spotted there were no brake lights, tail lights or number plate lights, but the high level tail lights worked with the brakes along with the high level brake light. Where was the final inspection both in the factory and at the dealership we asked ourselves? After this there were 34 other faults, some of which, 8 years later have never been resolved. I have to add that most of the faults were resolved over the 3 years warranty by AS at Willersey and with the help of Charles Trevelyan who was a real gent.

Disillusioned and disappointed, yes, because when you are spending this sort of money you expect better. I would also like to add that the Ford was not fault free either and not all problems with them were amicably resolved. I am sure we can all remember the way the British motorcycle and car industry went. We are happy with the Ravenna now and do not intend to change, but if I was, I am not sure which manufacturer I would use now, probably be German! ! !

deejay wrote:It seems to me that nothing changes. AS have a very good name and for the most part this is recognized in the trade. On this assumption we bought a new Transit based Ravenna in 2004. On the way to a campsite for the 1st night after collection my wife (who was following in our car) spotted there were no brake lights, tail lights or number plate lights, but the high level tail lights worked with the brakes along with the high level brake light. Where was the final inspection both in the factory and at the dealership we asked ourselves? After this there were 34 other faults, some of which, 8 years later have never been resolved. I have to add that most of the faults were resolved over the 3 years warranty by AS at Willersey and with the help of Charles Trevelyan who was a real gent.

Disillusioned and disappointed, yes, because when you are spending this sort of money you expect better. I would also like to add that the Ford was not fault free either and not all problems with them were amicably resolved. I am sure we can all remember the way the British motorcycle and car industry went. We are happy with the Ravenna now and do not intend to change, but if I was, I am not sure which manufacturer I would use now, probably be German! ! !

Well my neighbour would not agree about a German motorhome. he bought a Hobby and has had loads of problems and got nowhere with his dealer or Hobby. He even got so frustrated he rang Hobby in Germany and they were very unhelpful. It is a load of crXX.
He would have no hesitation of me naming his dealer- Alan Kerr in Paignton-be warned stay well clear.

Well here it is for my 2011 Northants, as it's a new County model you'll know the dealer. Our local branch is slowly getting through the list, but it's been going on for over a year. I really like the MH despite all this and will perservere till the warranty runs out and then sort stuff myself

Not much customer satisfaction here, as this is just down to shoddy build work, cheap fittings and poor quality control, this and a dealer whose branch staff are very helpfull, but this is offeset by their mechanics that say phrases "they all are like that mate" to much for my liking, and not enough of "leave that with us we'll get it sorted for you".

Faults List.

leaking sat dome cable entry

broken bed frame & slats

leaking water tanks (fixed twice)

defective tank guages, told it was "furring up", it was a loose earth.

rattling roof light at certain rpm (no solution offered by Marquis)

loose water pipe joints (fixed by me).

broken wet locker stay.

bathroom door comes open when driving.

tank drain pipes loose resulting in loss of both fresh & waste water contents.

numerous cupboard catches (fixed by me).

2 x star craze patches requiring filling/sparaying.

1 x Roof hole requiring filling spaying.

New gas locker hinge.

unable to open Oven door.

stiff windscreen blind securing catch, causes blind to close when driving.

defective awning (ongoing warranty claim)