Coachman "Aftercare"
When buying a caravan with an a long water ingress warranty, be warned that getting your problems resolved my not be as easy as you would expect.
Just prior to the New Year holiday weekend I discovered a serious water leak in the roof of my 2015 Pastiche. The carpets were floating and the contents of the bed lockers were completely saturated. My dealer advised me that the failure was so bad that the caravan would need to be returned to the manufacturer for repair.
After a series of emails trying to obtain some action, the best that Coachman could offer was to take the van back to their premises for repair on 6th March. They have now advised me that this has been put back until 27th March and that they will need 4 to 6 weeks to undertake the work.
Assuming that this doesn't slip any further, this means that it will take around 18 weeks to get the failure of the roof reinstated.
By contrast, when a fault in my car was reported to the dealer, he brought a replacement car out to me within an hour and returned my own car with the fault repaired the following day. That is aftercare. It's a shame that the Japanese have not got into the caravan business!
Comments
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Im afraid it looks very much like all caravan makers are interested in is building caravans and not repairing them as their idiotic repair times seem to indicate.They would rather churn out as many vans as possible than waste time repairing poor workmanship.I know this may sound ridiculous and off the wall but perhaps some sort of quality control in in order.Nah....i cant see it myself
I,m a Coachman owner myself and its probably about the best van i,ve had but i,m under no illusion about how the caravan industry seems to operate.
v9
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I hope Coachman are better at supplying major parts if required than they were when i tried to get hold of the magnetic habitation door retainer. I managed to find the half I needed from a caravan/motorhome general accessories shop but Coachman themselves were hopeless.
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Dear Fozzie,
The leak in the roof appears to be a failure of the mastic seal between the rim of the Heki roof-light and the aluminium roof panel. The roof has a sag in it, making it concave rather than flat and if the van is parked level, a puddle of 5mm or so deep forms against the edge of the roof-light. We had a couple of hard frosts just before I found the problem so I think the accumulated water froze and forced the mastic to separate. At the moment, the van is parked with the nose high to enable the water to run off the back. It's a shame that the design relies solely on a bit of mastic to keep the water out.
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Richard,
Sorry to hear about your troubles with the van, a colleague of mine has just had his 4 week old 2017 Pastiche collected by Coachman with a water leak they are going to investigate the issue which has affected the side wall near the bathroom this unfortunately has already made him lose faith in what he believed was going to be a great van.
Me and the family were thinking of looking at changing our 2012 Bailey Pegasus Milan for something else with a different layout but having read all the horror stories of late about different manufacturers I think we are going to hang on as our van is still water tight and nothing has dropped off, maybe our van is from a time when quality meant more than quantity.
Good luck with the repairs so as the vans back for the up coming season.
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Tell the dealer you hold them responsible under the Sale of Goods Act or Consumer Protection Act and that you will be claiming for inconvenience and loss of use as well as requiring the repair to be done promptly. Your contract is with the dealer and they are responsible for putting things right.
If bought in 2015 either act could apply depending on the date you purchased the caravan.
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Richard thanks for the reply and it looks like my guess was on the right lines.
Incidentally and slightly coming off thread a holiday touring France last year in a heavy downpour at night something (branch?) hit the roof of the van,hence when I returned to uk inspected the roof with a fine tooth comb to see any damage.Could not find anything but pleasantly surprised to see a flat roof with no dips or bulges and no pooling of water on roof.Luckily all hiki roof lights were ok hence my theory with your van.I hope you have a satisfactory outcome.
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