Caravan build quality and after sales service....
Seven years ago, we were fortunate enough to achieve our dream of buying a brand new caravan. It was advertised nationally as 'For those who like the finer things in life' and certainly fitted our bill - perfect layout, new technology, our palace on wheels. Unfortunately, that is where the dream ended and the nightmare began. It all started at the NEC and maybe a sign of things to come was the salesman saying how warm the bathroom was with the heated towel rail in addition to the Alde central heating...it was only when we used it for the first time that we discovered that there was no radiator in the bathroom. Within the first three years we'd had it back for warranty jobs on irritating things like the cupboard push button catches going through the brown plastic housings, cracked laminate, delaminating mirror, cracked blinds and the like.
So, after all this, we thought right, all done, let's enjoy ourselves. By and large, we did - as I said, it was a lovely looking and comfortable, practical caravan, ideal for us...we still loved it! We had it serviced at 'Preferred Service Dealers' until October 2017 when I used a highly recommended mobile service engineer who came to my house to do the job at my convenience. Wonderful....until he broke the news that I would need a large part of my floor replacing due to it being damp! He told me that it was so wet that it must have been like that for two to three years (confirmed by repairers) - so much for the 'Preferred Dealers'. Six months later after MUCH being passed from pillar to post, the one place that would tackle the job was 30 miles away in Accrington (C&S Caravan Repairers - excellent by the way).
After a wonderful summer and a wet September trip, October came around this year and my mobile service chap came to do the business. The floor was dry!! Phew, sighs of relief...except that unfortunately, one of my wheel bearings had collapsed!! This 'van has done approximately 15,000 miles from new and a bearing has collapsed? I contacted Al-Ko who were totally disinterested in the fact that a 'German quality product' had failed after such a small mileage but instead chose to hide behind the old 'sorry, you are out of warranty' clause.
Is it just me or is that Caravan industry 'fur coat and no knickers'?! Some of the stories I've heard from bona fide sources about the problems encountered by owners of 'vans much younger than mine are appalling. Lovely soft furnishings and LED mood lighting but when fully loaded your wheels catch the inside of the wheel arches....water ingress after 18 months...horror stories that simply should not be.
To add insult to injury, trying to get your pride and joy fixed can take months with much stress and inconvenience; if you buy a caravan at a show from a dealer hundreds of miles away, in many cases you have to take it back there for warranty work....and that is - as in my case - if you can find anyone to undertake it!
The Caravan clubs need to take the lead here to protect their members, use their 'muscle' to get it across to manufacturers that this state of affairs is not acceptable, they need to up their game in terms of build quality and especially back up.
Anyone else out there feel the same?
Comments
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That’s hard luck, Seasider, and sadly there are many such tales on this forum.
I fear you’re on a hiding to nothing in asking the club to tackle the problem. Think of advertising revenue and sponsorship and you’ll see why.
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I`ve felt the "same" for the last twenty years of buying caravans and motorhomes, unfortunately it is still exactly the same as it has always been. As long as people keep buying vans nothing changes and when they stop buying the manufacturers go out of business which is probably a sign of how tight the margins actually are. Two major shows at the NEC alone each year (not even the car industry has that) must be a financial burden but then we all like to go and see twinkling lights, vans gleaming under the spotlights etc.
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Whilst I agree the build standard of our vans is indefensible I don't see a wheel bearing failing in seven years and 15,000 miles with quite the same level of concern. It is thankfully readily addressable.
Here IMO the issue is that the wheel drum along with the bearing is pulled off the stub axle every year, exposing it to the "skills" or lack of them of the servicing individual. Yours probably was at that risk 5 or 6 times by now.
Slightly tongue in cheek I would say you were lucky it is just one bearing. The same individual generally uses their particular "technique" on both sides, so many owners find down the line, surprise surprise both fail. Certainly the bearings should not fail prematurely but some service individuals seem to be well practised at achieving it.
In part the poor hub design that requires pulling things apart during brake mechanism service that exposes the bearing cartridge to distress, is to blame. They also for their modest scantlings carry typically about twice the loading of car wheel bearings.
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They are "sealed for life" but during the drum removal and refitting they whilst remaining within the drum are drawn off and pushed back onto the stub axle. They no longer are constructed with roller cones but balls running in opposing deep grooves, in my experience a considerably more "sensitive" arrangement to fitting issues in several ways.
Of those I have inspected i can't recall a corrosion issue, but as is almost inevitably the case, brinelling is involved by the time they are known to have failed. Why remains the question, but was much rarer with earlier and today with the heavier duty ones using rolling cones even though these are often separated and exposed during removal.
All these rolling element bearing of any type are best left undisturbed. Pity the brake service does not accommodate that.
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There is no doubt that using a van is much better for it than sitting around in storage or wherever. My Valencia MK1 of 2011 vintage has, I have to say, been superb with very few problems and if I have had one it’s been tiny! We have been lucky in that we have enjoyed 7 years of virtually trouble free caravanning. I really feel for folk like seasider who encounter these problems of damp and bad service. The industry can’t be doing itself any favours as some customers must be being put off before they even start! I was at the show -(as I always am) - and made enquiries about the Knaus Starclass caravans on display. The build quality seemed excellent but of course what it looks like and what it’s actually like are two different things. I was told that they didn’t have damp issues. Perhaps they don’t but as a Brit who is used to hearing horror stories about damp and de lamination, I find it very hard to believe. Buying a caravan should not be a lottery- and it is!
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We tow around two thousand miles a year (it will. be over this year)in the UK, and our last three C/vans since coming back to tugging have been used all year,the Elddis was a case of whats fell off this time,whereas the two Baileys,have been virtually fault free and both watertight (apart from the modified roof strap that was done as soon as the "problem" was recognised
The only time I have had rear wheel bearings break down was on a VW Golf after it was "serviced?" by a main dealer
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My wife and I have been caravanners and members of the CAMC for 10 years. During this time we have bought 3 new caravans from the same British Manufacturer. The first was a 2 Berth with no problems at all. Our second was a 4 berth and in the first year developed a leak in the shower area. This did not come to light until the first service where 80% damp was recorded in the rear end. It took 3 returns to the supplier but was never fixed, even though on each visit I was assured it had been sorted.
At the end of 3 years we decided to trade it in for a newer model hoping that there would not be a reoccurrence of the same problem. We went to a different distributor, who told us that there was 80% damp in the rear end, but as it was still under warranty it would not effect the trade in value.
Our 3rd caravan arrived, the table which was stored under the bed kept falling out of its storage place because the holding clips were placed too far apart. Part of the bed frame was broken, the near side front seat collapsed due to poor workmanship, 3 of the overhead locker doors came off due to wrong screws being used. In all there were 10 listed faults that should never have occurred in the first place, on a brand new caravan costing well over £20,000. Whilst we have had no problems with the structure, we have a problem with the Manufacturers quality control and what is even more sad when we wrote to the MD he didn’t even have the courtesy to reply.
There are a great deal of positives about our British caravan industry but the worst and most harmful part appears to be lack of customer care, which is very low down the list of priorities when things go wrong. It appears that this particular manufacturer relies too heavily on quality control being effected by distributors on PDI, and if that is the case, they in turn won’t be able to pick up on the sort of problems we have so far encountered until they come to light. That then involves us returning to the distributor at our expense, the caravan out of use, and there is no provision in the warranty for reimbursement of costs.
It appears that many people who have bought new and second caravans have a range of problems due to poor quality control. Which only creates a bad customer experience. Will the British Manufacturers and their Distributors take note? Well if their MD’s don’t appear to be bothered, what else can we expect!!
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