Warranty
General question about the terms of warranty on a new caravan.
If I buy a new car I get a manufacturers warranty for 3 years. I get this, if it breaks they fix it. I take it to any of their dealers and it is sorted.
If I buy a caravan i get a 3,5,10 year warranty. If it breaks they make me tow it to the supplying dealer to get it fixed. If its major it is returned to the manufacturer so a warranty must exist between the manufacturer and the user.
I have bought two new vans, neither being returned for work. This was fortunate as I traveled a long way for my first one to benefit from a worthwhile discount.
The one issue that I did have with my second van was noticed by my mobile tec. I contacted the manufacturer directly and they approved repair by the mobile tec. This implies they accept that there is a warranty between them and me.
The usual advice is return it to your dealer. This restrictive practice as I am not likely to buy a very well priced van 250 miles from my home as if it needs work the cost is prohibitive, i.e a 1000 mile trip to drop and collect.
Is this just poor industry practice or are there genuine reasons for this.
Comments
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My understanding is that under the current law it is the person that sold it to you who is responsible for rectifying any repairs under warranty. If your mobile guy was Workshop Approved he would be able to carry out some warranty work on behalf of a manufacturer. So perhaps that was the reason why it was fast tracked to your advantage? Not all dealers will carry out warranty work on caravans not purchased from them which often leads to the need to travel hundreds of miles to get work done. Their reasons for not doing the work might be a capacity issue, ie only being able to cope with their own customers, or not enough financial return. I suspect that the caravan trade is still a cottage industry compared the cars? I am not defending the situation but just suggesting why it might be so. I also suspect that different manufacturers may well take different attitudes to contact direct from customer. Swift, because of their online forum, seem to positively encourage whilst others will only deal with customer via the dealer.
David
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The legalities are different between a car purchase and that of a caravan.
Whilst the Sales of Goods act comes into play making your first point of call with a complaint to be directed to the dealer, who then claims their costs via the warranty agreement that is held between them and the manufacturer, there is no EU Block Exemption law governing caravans.
What there is, is an informal agreement governed by the industry regulating group the NCC. Members of this group agree to allow qualified warranty work to be completed whilst satisfying the manufacturer that this meets their warranty terms, but its not legally binding. Only that it meets with the NCC terms of membership. This makes it very vague and at the same time, flexible. So a manufacturer can allow a NCC approved engineer to complete a warranty job but its solely at their discretion.
In the case the OP describes, the manufacturer has excercised common sense in allowing the mobile engineer to complete a task which they, the manufacturer, ultimately would have to cover the cost for. The manufacturer could have just as easily said no to the mobile engineers suggestion and forced the OP to return the caravan to the selling dealer. At the end of the day though, the cost if clearly at the door of the manufacturer, would have come back to them eventually. By allowing the mobile engineer to complete a task, the chances are it has cost the manufacturer less, being as labour rates would probably be lower than that agreed with a dealer.
So, legally, the rights protecting the purchaser are governed by the Sales of Goods act... i.e. contact the dealer, but under the terms of membership of the NCC, some flexibility by the manufacturer has worked in the OP’s favour.
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Like, I suspect, many others, I bought my Lunar at the caravan show from a dealer offering a good deal but was over 100 miles away from home. Perhaps naively I didn't expect any warranty problems but this proved not to be the case. When I went to collect the new caravan I found several faults / things missing (obviously no PDI) and when I got home found two more problems that needed fixing under warranty. In fairness, one of these would probably not have been picked up at PDI as it was to do with the working of the microwave.
Because of the total loss of confidence with the supplying dealer to do anything correctly I approached my local Lunar dealer who agreed to do the warranty work which they arranged with Lunar. Everything was put right satisfactorily. However, I now have another problem, this time with the Omnivent. The problem is, my local dealer has now gone out of business and the next nearest caravan dealer has stopped being a Lunar agent.
I contacted Lunar who gave me a couple of dealer names, neither of them anything like local, but couldn't guarantee that they would take on the work. I usually get my caravans serviced by an approved mobile workshop but they have declined the work as Lunar will not pay for the callout / travelling costs, only the actual work done. It looks as though I am now faced with a long journey if I can find someone to do the work. It might be cheaper to cut my losses and do the job myself.
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No idea on parts costs involved but, as lunar have agreed the works is it possible to arrange for mobile guy or original dealer to obtain parts and post? When a neighbour had a problem with caravan charger unit within 12 months of purchase he contacted the charger manufacturer who sent him the parts F.O.C. to fit. Is that a possibility?
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Unless it is work to do with the body of the leisure vehicle i have found most manufacturers of the fitted equipment,are far better at customer service than the vehicle builders if contacted direct,we have also found ,with experience,that a "deal"can normally be very nearly matched by a more local dealer,which would more than cover a long return trip to the original dealers offer
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This issue appears to include local dealers refusing to service caravans not purchased from them, had this with a dealer who I was buying an Magnum awning £1000 + as the van was coming up for its service I popped into service office and asked if they could book it in for service.
first question was did you purchase it from us, no so we can’t service it we have our own customers to look after, you could call nearer the time and if we have time available we may be able to.
not very satisfactory I took my bat and ball home and went elsewhere for the awning.
I now use a registered mobile engineer.
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when we decided to buy a new van 150 miles from home the first question I ask was can we get a local Lunar to carry out any warranty work and the answer was yes, so i telephoned to check with our local dealers and both said absolutely as they were not going to turn away business. If they had declined i would have walked away.
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Unfortunately there are a lot of variables in this manufacturer - dealer - service equation, which is not a helpful situation for the purchaser. We bought our van at the National, from a dealer not exactly near us but near my mother so we thought we could drop it off for servicing while visiting her. We did not take into account that by the time the service came round my husband would be seriously ill and having treatment (and I don't drive) so we actually had the service done by a mobile tech, not a problem as they didn't find anything wrong with it ! However, the following year, we discovered the original dealer was now no longer a Lunar agent so not worth us making the journey, we decided we might as well go with a mobile tech again, convenient after all.
Long story - short, went with a different one this time and he found damp
Now we had a problem, mobile tech said sorry I only do repair work for Swift vans, no can do for Lunar, tried the two Lunar dealers in this neck of the woods, one had closed their workshop as they were overwhelmed with Elddis work (!) and the other did not respond at all to numerous attempts to get through to them, eventually I vented my frustration on Facebook (Lunar Owners Club page) and a lovely lady named Tracy contacted me to say she worked for another local trader who does Lunar work but doesn't say so on their website (!?) Anyway the work is now in hand and guess where we will be going for our services in future 
Alison
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I agree wth [Deleted User User]. When you buy from a dealer you hzve rights under the Consumer protection Act which they cannot escape by referring to any guarantee. The gurantee is additional to your rights against the dealer and is most important if the dealer goes out of business.
If you use a credit card for any part of the purchase or buy on HP but not a bank loan you alxo get similar rights against tbe finance company.
Under the Consumer Protection Act you can claim the cost of travel to take the caravan ba k to the dealer and back after the repair but many will deny this and make you fight for it.
You cannot force local dealers to do warranty work on a caravan they did not sell to you although some might so in those cases the warranty will help.
If buying from a remote dealer do get in wriging how they will deal with warranty problems and remember even a decent discount may not cover the cost of sorting out later problems.
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