Whale IC Water Delivery Issue
I’ve read a lot about the IC Water systems in the latest Elddis caravans and wondered about club members experience with Whale reliability.
At present my 2016 Elddis Supreme 482 (Dealer Edition on the Avante) is in the workshop for a replacement water heater circuit board or PCB (also in for a major damp repair which is getting bigger with every day that passes, but that’s another story). I was on site a few weeks ago and couldn’t get the pump to run (running OK up to then). According to Whale Customer Service it was due to a problem with the PCB in the water heater which I am informed is related to the WI-Fi signal from the Control Panel. My dealer told me that they have had a few issues with the water heater PCB Wi-Fi but all these have been related to water heating not issues with the pump.
I know there are a few posts on here covering faulty Whale heaters but just wondered if any members have experienced pump faults. I've also been told that these PCBs are only covered by a TWO year warranty and cost over £100+VAT to replace.
The lady from Whale Customer Service was very helpful and called me back when she said she would but it’s a shame about the apparent quality of Whale components. Our van is only about 20 months old and really has hardly been used.
All the best,
Chris
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Interesting Chris . We ve recently bought a 2016 Elddis avante 550 privately🙁and we are now into the 2nd week of a second holiday . Whilst here , we have had frequent issues with the Whale water and space heater . The water heater keeps showing fault 4 as a problem and we have to keep resetting the water heater . It does heat the water and works fine for a while and then for no apparent reason goes onto lock out again . The same applies to the space heater but again it can be switched back on again . In the last few days, the pump has started playing up and keeps stopping pumping the water . If we press the pump button , it will draw water and comes thro the taps ok . There are no water leaks that we can see and the aqua roll is full . The water flow seems to have reduced and sometimes the flush doesn’t work until we reset the pump control again . Things work for a while and then stop - it’s so frustrating . We can’t get the van checked until July because we are away in it in June and July . Whale advised us to take it to a service centre so we are going to be sometime with this problem . We are so disappointed and frustrated As you can imagine. We have drained the system down and reprimed in case of an airlock but don’t think that is the water pump issue . We are suspicious of the control panel being the problem .Sorry for the ramble but at a loss to know what else to do . Btw, we had the van dealer serviced a3 weeks ago and everything was observed to be good.
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Eurolandy
Our experience with a 2016 built dealer special Elddis 550 fitted with Whale IC is one of persistent faults and dampness. Whale customer service is quite good. Re the warranty on Whale components I was advised by them that they carry 5 years albeit Elddis components warranty is a lowly 1 yr . We've had a new touch screen controller, new PCB, new water inlet. The failures have been whilst away rendering the system unusable. It makes me think that we as customers are road testing the IC products for Whale. Cheap research and design costs. As for dampness we have a heavy damp reading on the rear floor which is to be rectified this summer. Very frustrating but no different to our last van from the Swift group.
HT11
We had a similarish experience which turned out to be the touch screen controller. We had no pump or no heat or both or the system would just switch itself off. By the same token we also had lock outs which turned out to be the PCB.
Whale have been consistent with their quality of customer service but it has been required a little too regularly.
It would be good to hear how your issue gets resolved in case any of us suffer similar.
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HT11
Just a thought. Have you checked the inlet I/C is calibrated. Should have a green led flashing every 5 seconds. I had issues with the pump either running when taps were closed or not running long enough. It took re-calibration of the inlet I/C to cure it.
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We considered re-calibrating but the instructions said to do it with a new pump and ours is 2 years old- so we decided not to complicate things. Interestingly, as the holiday progressed, we had increasing problems with the water not pumping through the system and we left site, we discovered a water leak coming from the vicinity of the underslung water heater. We are ringing the local Elddis caravan dealer tomorrow to plead for some attention to the water leak at the very least because its clear we can't continue to use any of the services (water or heat) whilst the problems persist. These events have all happened since its service 2 weeks ago (which may be co-incidental) and the situation is worsening. As I said previously, we are away (abroad with the van) for all of June and half of July and its frustrating to know we can't use the van as intended. As we purchased the van privately, the local dealer has no obligation to accelerate resolving the issue for us. I've heard a lot about the good Whale customer service and wondered if we can insist they send an engineer to us to check their components.
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I have always phoned Whale in the first instance. My supplying dealer was not the most consistent in after sales care.
Bear in mind that Elddis do not warrant any other manufacturers components past 12 months. You've bought private so Elddis only have the 10yr body warranty to honour ( if transfer of ownership/ body warranty has been registered with them and all servicing complied with)
When the touch screen was replaced Whale sent an engineer out to me.
When the PCB was changed it was insisted upon that it went back to the aforementioned dealer after I had liaised with Whale. That was a fraught experience.
When the Inlet I/C failed the parts were sent direct to me. I got my servicing dealership to fit the parts as I trust them.
You will need to speak with Whale and confirm whether the original warranty transfers from owner to owner. They are however very helpful people.
The product is in essence a good system. Our friends had it in their last Bailey and they did not suffer one problem in three years.
In reply to your previous message, as I understand it you can re-calibrate any time. You've nothing to lose and Whale may ask you to do this when working out what faults exist.
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"You've bought private so Elddis only have the 10yr body warranty to honour ( if transfer of ownership/ body warranty has been registered with them and all servicing complied with)"
Unless this has changed with newer models Elddis reduce the 10 year water ingress warranty to 6 years for the second and subsequent owners
This is subject to being transferred within a given timescale and cost about £75 admin fee
Pretty unfair really in my book...........
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You are partially correct re the warranty transfer ( which I have completed) . The warranty does reduce to 6 years but it starts from the original date of purchase, which actually only provides us with 4 years warranty cover on the body. I really don’t understand how the Caravan industry is allowed to get away with this when the Caravan has been serviced by an approved dealer. Why on earth CAMC and CCC and other Caravan organisations don’t apply pressure to the Caravan manufacturers to honour the full length of warranties on owner transfer, I really don’t know. This is clearly a discussion point for another thread.
Returning to the issues on our Caravan, our local dealer has ‘squeezed’ us in for an inspection at the end of May but I m doubtful we’ll be taking the van abroad with full services all working as they are likely to need to order replacement parts (in my opinion). We ‘ve also been told by Whale not to worry about a small amount if water under the van - apparently it’s released under pressure and is normal for this Whale water system.
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Hi All,
I an Elddis Affinity 550 2018 model with wet heating system.
This Feb 2019, picked the van up after it had been in for a number of warranty issues, not what I expected from Elddis as I had to fight with them all the way.
back to the Wet heating system picked up the van drove for two hours to the site, parked and set up only to find an 'Overheat red Fail' Elddis would not do anything about it saying no you must have done something wrong, explaining i have just picked my van up from a warranty repair one issue was the heating system being very noisy.
I resolved the issue by going on Youtube and found someone who had the same issue and the same response from Elddis.
the fix was to remove the mains cables from the heating control panel and wait 10 mins then fasten them back up reconnect mains the heating panel had reset itself.
going to the manufacture on the return and explained this to them, nothing but helpful all the way, and to keep an eye on the issue or if not happy to bring the van to them and they will sort it under warranty.
cheers
Mark
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