Typical
We became motorhome owners in July. Typical retired folk, we fancied the idea of the open road, like Mr Toad, with our own toilet and tea-room, escaping lockdown, not having to share breathing space with others. We bought our 10-year old Elddis with 25,000 miles on the clock, for £30,000 from a reputable dealership which has branches all round the country, glad of their promise of a pre-delivery check, a full handover explanation of how the thing works, back-up in case of newbies’ problems, and a starter pack which included waterhose, levelling ramps and mysterious bottles containing pungent blue and pink stuff.
So far, so typical. There were some bits missing from the starter pack, but we got them a week after purchase.
Our first outing was a great success, an afternoon out to our local beauty spot where we brewed tea and ate beans on toast. Our second was to a CL for two nights, where we had difficulty getting fresh water into the MH. We didn’t know that we had a Whale system, and the dealer explained that we needed a different sort of waterhose, which they duly swapped for us on our slightly testy return. We had been struggling to fit an ordinary hose onto the Whale input unit. It seems the dealers had taken the Whale fitting off our hose to give to someone else.
Emboldened, we managed to book a week in Scotland at a Club site. On the third day, water poured from behind a panel in the shower room, and despite the best efforts of the charming site staff, could not find anyone to fix it. We came home, and the dealer discovered that a joint in the pipework had come adrift. They fixed it and gave us a free habitation check next July by way of apology. Is this typical for people who buy second hand motorhomes? we wondered.
Wanting to get the most from out exciting new life before the weather got nasty, we booked another CL this time in the Peak District. We cooked a real meal on our first evening, but on the second the gas system failed; the MH had not moved during the day. Cheery fellow members applied their experience to our plight, and we phoned the dealer. It’s the regulator, we were told; it might get better if you do a few miles with the vehicle (to jiggle the ball-bearing in the regulator) or tie up the green button with a cable tie.
Back home I rang the dealer. Is this typical? Do we need a new regulator, or should we chalk this up to experience? Our learning curve was already perilously steep, and Mrs Toad and I are starting to lose our nerve. Don’t worry, we were told, it’s unusual; let us know if it happens again. It did, yesterday. We brewed hot water for coffee in the morning, and had no gas in the afternoon. And yes, I did connect the spare gas bottle, in case we had run out.
Is our experience of buying a second hand motorhome typical? There seems to be something going wrong every time. The log book tells us that the vehicle has had four previous owners. Have we bought a pup, which the last suckers got rid of because they were anticipating technical issues? Or should we just grow up and keep learning?
Comments
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Was reading your story and needed to tell you we are not the only ones who have bad luck with motorhomes, there are many others. One thing I will say your dealership seems much better than ours, we had no starter pack or any apology or compensation for water pouring down the van when we used the water pump for the first time. We picked up,our second hand autotrail and from day one had nothing but trouble, damp, taps leaking, screws loose apholstery seams undone, I too contacted the dealership based in Llanelli and there answer was well it is a second hand van, not what I wanted to hear. This van spent more time in the dealership than on the road, so needless to say we got rid back to the dealership where it came from, mainly because of the major damp problems which the dealership could not rectify no matter how much work they had carried out in it.
So....we decided to buy a brand new autotrail tracker RB, was so excited picking it up, but! Since picking it up last July we have had water pouring in over had door when it’s opened during the rain, a loose pipe inside the van which meant water pouring down the van inside, the cooker hob broke, then the dealership damaged the door on the cupboard fitting the new hob, so the door had to be replaced, on first habitation check damp over cab and the gel coating is cracked in numerous places on the roof which we are still waiting to be fixed under warranty (Covid holding the repair up), the toilet door is sticking which will need altering, and the casing around the roof sky light has cracked, all on a van that cost us 58000 pound. So again this van is spending more time in the workshop than on the road, has it put me off buying a motorhome NO, I love the travelling life, me hubby 2 dogs and occassionally grandkids enjoy getting away in it as much as we can. So please don’t despair it’s the luck of the drawer as always, friends had bought a second hand Bessicarr, from the same dealership as we did and they have had no major problems at all. Keep smiling and use it as much as possible, it’s disheartening when things go wrong but as long as it has no major damp issues, all will be fine in the end, because all that’s wrong should be rectified, so you can get on and enjoy your new travelling life.
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