New buy gremlins

Following on from a thread asking if standards are dropping I gave the following list of defects on the new Winchcombe to Marquis today. Not sure if this is normal but fortunately all fairly minor.

Onboard gas tank level gauge totally inaccurate 
Onboard fresh water tank level gauge totally inaccurate
Fresh water tank level sensors leaking.
Mood light dimming inop
Oven door comes open in flight
Occasional bad smell of burning plastic from warm air heating.
Gas regulator crud guard on '’back' of regulator ?. They said they were all like it.  
Sink drain pipe has absolutely no "drop' it is perfectly horizontal so water take an age to drain.
Rear view camera lens directly over high level brake light so at night useless with brake on (is an auto box so brake light on quite a bit) have fixed it with some black tape on the top of the light.
Has a 'cold pack' fitted but tank drains not lagged and they 'will' freeze. Know from experience ha ha. They said they are all like it  Will have to do that myself.
Aerial signal 'useless ' compared with another unit on same site at same time.
Top aerial socket inop. Took off as no continuity and they haven't wired it up  

Nothing too serious but annoying for all that money. 

Oh, and I must have missed the return call I was going to get today hmmm.

Otherwise it is flipping brilliant 

Hi

Can't wait to get my new Topaz in March, that teach me to buy new. 

Hi Jaytee,  you are more easily satisfied than me!
 
i would expect the pdi or handover checks to find many of these faults.
you will now have to take it back for rectification.
I hope nothing else is wrong,but you may not know until you go on holiday.
Yes the non returned promise call. That still  happens too often.
regards

mike

Hi Mike, no not easily satisfied, pretty  off really but trying to stay calm  

Nearest service centre to me is 100 miles away and I have already suggested they pay my fuel but didn't get a positive response to that one ha ha.

Have spent about six nights aboard now so hopefully nothing else will cause me annoyance. At least non are stopping me getting out and about as long as the heater doesn't catch fire that is.

have my fingers crossed for you.
regards

mike

I had a few niggles in June with our new Broadway FB, mainly screws coming loose, poorly joined cabinetwork with visible screws and a few unlubricated / sticking door catches. The most troublesome niggle was the waste tank sensor. It has been back to the dealer to sort this out ( did everything else myself with a screwdriver) They cleaned the tank out, but a week later it still shows full when empty. Its a design fault really, crud accumulates on the in tank sensors and gives a false reading. I have unplugged it.
But, I would be worried about a burning smell coming off the heater, unless you have barely used it, then you would get some fumes off it till they are burnt away.

But, I don't really think that Autosleepers fully deserve their good reputation when they release vans with faults like this. Their quality control could be better.

Our van now is perfect ( apart from the waste tank) , all it took was a little attention to detail. After all, these are supposed to be hand built vans. You wouldn't expect a hand built luxury car to have loose screws, sticking door locks and a burning smell coming from the heater!

Allan

I agree +1.
The customer is the quality control.!@

regardsMike

Have had a long chat with the factory service centre who couldn't have been more helpful and am going back with it in Jan. Bit of a nuisance as it is 200+ miles away but hey ho. Feel fairly relaxed about it all now as these things happen. The rest of the van and it's construction is faultless so could be a lot worse ha ha.
Off again this weekend with the motor caravan section of the Camping and caravan club to Wakefield. Not met any of them before so should be a good weekend 

What quality control?

Seriously, what sort of heater is it?  Truma Combi 4e or upgrade to 6e?

The 4e may operate with only 3 vents but NONE may be closed.  If it is fitted with 4 vents, then one may be closed.  See the improvements to the Warwick Duo posted by Nimbus...
The 6e must have 4 vents which are ALWAYS open.

If the vents are closed then the heater may get hot and smelly and increase the fan speed to blow itself down.

Some people have reported that the burning smells are associated with water only heating on electric.  If you select heating and hot water together then the heating fan starts and the unit seems to cool down.  That is our experience in the Warwick Duo.

I fitted a fourth vent on the Warwick Duo which comes with one vent blanked off ( see post by Nimbus ).  I thought that that the burning smells might be in the blanked off vent so this improvement would allow the unit to run cooler .  No good.  We still get burning smells on heating water only so I have now use heating and hot water together and rely on the room thermostat to control the heating.

Hope this makes sense...
Pete

pjkxpjkx wrote:What quality control?

Seriously, what sort of heater is it?  Truma Combi 4e or upgrade to 6e?

The 4e may operate with only 3 vents but NONE may be closed.  If it is fitted with 4 vents, then one may be closed.  See the improvements to the Warwick Duo posted by Nimbus...
The 6e must have 4 vents which are ALWAYS open.

If the vents are closed then the heater may get hot and smelly and increase the fan speed to blow itself down.

Some people have reported that the burning smells are associated with water only heating on electric.  If you select heating and hot water together then the heating fan starts and the unit seems to cool down.  That is our experience in the Warwick Duo.

I fitted a fourth vent on the Warwick Duo which comes with one vent blanked off ( see post by Nimbus ).  I thought that that the burning smells might be in the blanked off vent so this improvement would allow the unit to run cooler .  No good.  We still get burning smells on heating water only so I have now use heating and hot water together and rely on the room thermostat to control the heating.

Hope this makes sense...
Pete

Strange! Our Lancashire has just 2 vents on a 4e and we get no smells, though it has only been used on ehu so far, apart from a quick test on gas.

Hi Ron
My email was probably but not very clear because I just got back from the pub but the point of it was that the burning smells seem to be more likely associated with operation of hot water only on electric.

I was trying to say that the blanked off fourth duct probably does not cause the smell, anyway here is the link to the newest Truma instructions:
http://www.truma.com/downloadcenter/combi_e_cp_plus_ready_installation_de_gb_fr_it_nl_dk_se.pdf

According to that, you should have three ducts which are always open...

Pete

All useful info, thanks. We are away again today and not on EHU so will try again. Fairly sure I had all four ducts open but will make sure they are now. 

I had burning smells when the unit was new - it smelt like an old dusty electric bar heater that hadn't been used for a while. Went away but it will still give off a slight smell when used for the first time after a period of inactivity. Dust.......

This is like an electrical cable melting. Hoping it has settled, away at mo, no EHU so see how it goes 

Jaytee wrote:This is like an electrical cable melting. Hoping it has settled, away at mo, no EHU so see how it goes 

Sounds as though there is a wire touching the casing of the heater near the heat.
BTW - I was wrong - I have 3 vents but they are all closeable - also I have mostly used the unit for hot water only with just occasional space heating.

Funny how things happen, we were way a couple of weeks ago in France and it was very cold. Overnight and early morning temps down to -5˚C. Heating and hot water were on powered by gas and we noticed a burning smell coming from one of the vents. The thermostat had cut in and there was no, or very little output from any of the 3 open vents ( Truma 4e) The smell was very like a struck match, a bit sulphurous. It didn't last long and as soon as the blower started working again, the smell went, we haven't noticed it since!
No idea what that was, but the heater ( not hot water) has been on for over a week and no smells. Everything works fine.
Allan

Touch wood ours has been OK for the last few trips out so I am wondering if one of the vents was closed. We weren't advised not to close any and what we do with our caravan is close off the main vents so the bathroom one actually gets hot  
The bathroom on the Winchcombe never really gets much heat so I am wondering if that is what I had done. Am old so can't remember   

RE new buy gremlins. I had somewhere in the region of 40 faults on my Amethyst when I bought it six years ago. It went back to AS 3 times before we accepted it.
Perhaps we should expect this when we only spend upwards of £50,000. The answer is not to accept anything and be persistant until it is put right. My Amethyst is now fabulous with no problems execpt a fault on the water heater that I sorted out myself.
Chris

I must say that my Broadway had a few problems but all of them except for a minor trim issue were not really under control of A/S. Two were idiot Fiat faults that could not be foreseen and one was the electric step which had to be replaced it is entirety as the whole unit was under its own warranty. Not perfect but pretty happy with it all.

Hi Chris, agree with what you say and the response  I had from the factory was very encouraging. Fortunately the faults are fairly simple and I am otherwise delighted with the build quality and I am a fussy old git  

Let's see how they step up to the plate at the factory in two weeks   

How did you get on?
We had another gremlin appear a couple of weeks ago, at about 1030pm whilst on a remote aire in France on the second day of a 14 night stay.
When emptying the kitchen sink, the water appeared on the floor, ran under all the cupboards, into the front offside seat base ( where all the electrics and batteries are, and out to behind the drivers seat.
Cause?
A joint in the drain pipe as it runs down and behind the cooker had come apart. This should be glued with pvc glue, it hadn't been. Luckily, I had a roll of gaffer tape so was able to fix it back together and we dried out all the carpets and seat base .
I took it all apart when we we got home and glued it together properly.

Everything else seems ok at the moment.

Allan