Bailey Unicorn Series 3 Roof Leaking

Well said Boff.

I still remember finding my Valencia leaking onto the floor which is still made of wood, it took three attempts to stop the leak, Bailey failed, dealer failed first time but second time of trying succeeded, that was the third repair.

On the final repair the dealer knew what their needed to do, in his words they had done 100's.

Its not a nice feeling having paid a lot of money to have it leaking, its worse for the OP IMO as his leak is in the roof.

Take a look on the Caravantalk forum.  There seems to be a number of Bailey owners with problems.  It would appear to be major current problem for Bailey

...If you look on caravan talk forum there is a "major" problem in some peoples mind about all makes

But the original poster was enquiring about Bailey and unfotunately he has experienced a 100% failure rate.  Other comments would indicate he is not alone.  However you interpret anyone criticising Bailey as a personal attack and needs to be shouted down
 its all getting tedious. 

Have you ever considered that you expectations are too low perhaps based  upon your own  bitter experience?

for the op have a look at this thread  
Bailey leak

For JVB66 perhaps you would like to comment on the skilled craftsmanship demonstrated in post 36.

 

...What site is that?

Doh!

just hit the link, all will be revealed.

bit of a clue in the name of the forum being mentioned twice in the post you replied to.

ive highlighted the text (twice) above to help you

so, has this proved my point that you dont actually read what youre replying to?

Can anyone come up with real statistics,about "problems" with any Uk LVs rather than the few who use forums   

Yes the Caravan Club apparently they carried out a reliabilty survey last year. For some reason they have chosen not break the results down by maker.  I wonder why?

It's a known issue but is easy to fix. Yes it shouldn't happen but it does on some (not most) vans.

And to all those "experts" on here (some of who don't even have a caravan let alone a Bailey) who think that all German stuff is faultless, one word....... Dieselgate ! 

Our Bailey Vigo 2015 had exactly the same problem in August this year with water coming in via the rear roof strap. For us it was the last straw, after numerous problems from the beginning we decided to just give up and after talks with our local agent decided to change it in for the new 2018 Cabrera. But this is  not as easy as you would expect as we were the agents first sale, but after waiting for it to be built it still has not arrived as Bailey have not the interior fittings to finnish it off. So still waiting and just about to go for a Swift.

 l had a 2012 unicorn Madrid on second service found to have 60% damp at the front and down the nearside at lower level all perpetrating from the front of the van (Soon all caravans will be built this way) so Bailey told us on the launch of the Alutech system, pie in the sky l am fraid

If you have a joint in the roof it will leak eventually, stupid idea,why they do not put the joint onto the trailer side and leave the roof joint free probably cost, if the roof was designed like the lid on a shoe box a lot of the problems would disappear.

 I have just started my first season with a second hand Bailey Unicorn 111 Seville assuming that Alu-Tech construction, combined with walls made from composite materials, meant that damp would be a thing of the past for me. However in common with a number of members the two panel roof construction of my van led to a leak at one side, which allowed water to drip in from the ceiling, down the wall adjacent to the entry door and all the way along the base of the wall to the middle of the room leaving a black trail of mould in it's wake. With a ladder I saw the mastic was missing from the triangular capping piece which covers the join between the bar across the roof joint and it's meeting point with the awning rail and was able to remove clean and replace it with fresh Sikoflex 512 caravan sealant/adhesive. 

However although the water ingress is now stopped the service 3 weeks later provided damp readings of 55% in the floor beneath this leak. Even worse the NCC caravan centre has picked up readings as high as 70% from the floor immediately adjacent to the point at which the rear wall meets the floor behind the decorative mouldings housing the number plate and rear light assemblies and tells me this is a known design fault as the water is almost bound to collect in these areas. The only answer I am told is to have the joint at this point resealed and hope the floor has not been irreparably damaged and will dry out. 

I have written to Baileys expressing my concern at what is a fairy obvious water trap in the making and will keep a close eye on all mastic joins in the roof from now on In can tell you.

So who would buy a new Alutech caravan these days.?

I certainly wouldn't and would probably look for a wooden coach built job that will last me out.

I'm obviously not up to scratch.Can you tell me what "OP"   or "LV" are please 

BAILEY UNICORN ROOF LEAKING ? JOIN THE CLUB!

I have already written once on this subject, but have a much better understanding of the design fault and the non existent customer service I am to be provided by Baileys now so thought I might share my findings with similarly affected club members. 

I am new to caravanning and have purchased a 2015 Bailey Unicorn Seville which was maintained by a boatyard owner who had staff trained in Al-Co trailer maintenance, gas, water, heating and electrical safety servicing and therefore did not see the need to pay for an annual Bailey service, beyond allowing his own staff to upkeep his caravan. However after purchase I had the van serviced by a nearby NCC approved caravan supplier who also sells Swift caravans, since my nearest Bailey dealership is 43 miles from my home town of Saltash and would involve a full day towing the vehicle both ways and waiting while it was serviced. This dealership found all well except for a high 70% damp reading in the rear toilet compartment, despite the rest of the van showing just 12-14%. During the next heavy rain I thoroughly investigated the source of the water ingress causing this and located water ingress from a leaking roof strap, which I have since found to be extremely common in Bailey vans with roofs made up in two parts. I contacted Bailey and never managed to discover even the name or contact number of any member of staff prepared to discuss my problem with me! I was referred every time by a disinterested member of customer "service" staff to the fact that because the van had not been serviced on an annual basis it was not under guarantee and was not their problem, despite my starting each conversation by offering this information and letting it be known, I simply wanted to discuss the purchase of a repair kit I had found out about from the multitude of blogs from similarly affected owners on this site and the caravan and motorhome club and caravan and camping club forums, all of which have similar threads of complaint. 

 
Each time the answer was the same, "you need to speak with a dealer and they will be able to help you." I eventually did speak to several dealers all of which were between 40 to 60 miles from me in Saltash and they confirmed this is one of their most common and disliked guarantee repair jobs. The leak is caused in my van and those of this age and before, by the reliance of Bailey on a T shaped aluminium joining strip being stuck to the flat roof panels using a mastic which before drying hard is pulled down onto the roof by internal bolts through clamps which grip from the inside and pull the strip down squeezing out much of the mastic so in places it is impossible to be sure that sufficient was there in the first place and after tightening there will certainly not be the mastic producer's recommended minimum thickness to provide tensile strength against the possibility of hairline cracking along the whole length of the joint. This is a situation, which is so obviously a fault of design and production that the question of having observed the annual service conditions will make no difference to it failing. It will simply save Bailey from having to recall all vans and refit their newly designed strip and only fit it to those which are obviously leaking and stem the residual damage caused by 12 months damp at most.

The repair kit while not advertised for members of the general public on their parts site may be observed listed on their Prima parts site under part number 2130325 (search Bailey UN3 & UN4 Roof Strap Replacement Kit) and consists of: 1 x roof joint rail, 2 x roof rail end caps, 5 x brackets, 3m insulation strip, 1 x joint cover, 5 x washer, 5 x screws, 2 x sealant tubes, 1 x primer, 1 aerosol cleaner, 1 roll of butyl tape at a cost of £220.98 plus postage. This is an eye watering price when one considers that you will already have the two end caps which may be cleaned and reused together with the original stainless steel brackets, washers and bolts. The Butyl strip is available for approximately £12 and Soudal sealant for a further £8.00. It means in short they are asking anybody not under guarantee to pay nearly £170 for 2.5 metres of extruded aluminium strip painted white and £160 to a dealer to fit since I cannot buy, to fit myself, an item to make good a fault in their own design. A state of affairs I consider absolutely outrageous!

 
The only difference I have discovered after talking with the dealerships involved in fitting this "repair" kit is that instead of fixing the strip with a hardened mastic of indeterminate thickness which is bound to crack a number of times, not least because the aluminium sealing strap will expand and shrink at a different rate than the glass fibre to which it is attached, Bailey recognised that a softer seal capable of absorbing expansion and maintaining a steady thickness along the whole length was required and for that reason have replaced their reliance on a mastic seal with a butyl strip which is used extensively for many hatch covers and pockets around the exterior of caravans and motorhomes nowadays. It is incredibly sticky and will not become hard and brittle so does not crack. I have used it myself to change my water pressure inlet valve, on my caravan.

 
The dealerships I spoke with have been trained by Bailey to gently prying away the leaking aluminium straps which are bound to become distorted and then most importantly, thoroughly clean the area surrounding the joint to enable the butyl mastic strip to adhere. The new strap is then laid in place, clamped from the inside as previously and the ends finished with a softer soudal mastic than previously used to include sticking  new end caps back in place. This tedious process will take the dealership on average two workers and 4 hours.  

Since I have not managed to speak with anybody at Bailey yet and found their customer service appalling although their dealerships have all been very helpful and forthcoming, I have for the moment taken off the end caps from my leaking strap, cleaned and resealed them using soudal mastic and carefully cleaned out the dodgy looking mastic all the way along the joint on both sides before re-sealing it with softer soudal mastic. In addition I have removed the internal ceiling cover from the inside of the van to avoid any water leaking through the joint being diverted to the walls either side of the caravan and to alert me if there is any fresh leakage, since at the moment my efforts seem to have temporarily stopped the leaking.  

"A state of affairs I consider absolutely outrageous!"  -  I agree wholeheartedly and this is why I'll never touch another Bailey.  

"Bailey did not properly research the required sealants when they changed from aluminium skin to polyester regarding expansion and cracking as I was told by a service engineer." - Yes, they left that research for their hapless caravan buyers to conduct for them. 

How Bailey has got away with such shoddy practice and not been called to account by the various consumer protection bodies continues to astonish me,.  I didn't have the skills to repair their dreadful offering, and wasn't 100% convinced the dealer could resolve it perfectly either, so elected to trade-in the pile of junk, at considerable financial loss.  

Bailey deserves to go down the pan, foisting such awful design on unsuspecting consumers and then being as unhelpful as possible in offering any redress.  The lack of regular servicing has no bearing on this rainwater ingress, yet they will happily use that excuse to shirk all responsibility.  They should be offering a free recall to the factory to fix this problem.  

Despicable company ethics.  The sooner they go bust the better.