Advice re. Alde heating fluid on a used caravan
I'm considering a used 2011 Lunar Clubman, but have a couple of concerns. One is that there is no service history, so I have no way of knowing when/if the anti-freeze mix for the heating system was last changed. It's currently blue, rather than pink, so I'm wondering whether it's ever been changed. If so, is that a problem? Also, although the 'van is in very good shape, there's a discolouration of the rear (bathroom) wall (see photo). As the reason we're having to change caravans is because of damp in the bathroom, I'm a bit worried that we could go round the same loop with this one. Opinions very welcome,
Thanks, Dave.
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If in doubt, do nowt!
I would give the caravan a miss.
The Alde fluid on a 2011 year van would have to have been changed from new, I presume this is your thought, because the noise from the boiler when heating the water alone would make a person do this
The noise is called "Kettling" as it sounds just as a boiling kettle.
My suspicion is perhaps the owner has replaced the ALDE fluid with standard car antifreeze!
Plenty of caravans out there, pick another one.
Darren.
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My suspicion is perhaps the owner has replaced the ALDE fluid with standard car antifreeze!
The car antifreeze is fine as long as the correct spec is chosen - same stuff. As far as I am aware the blue stuff has a 2 year life as far as corrosion inhibition and is generally used by caravan manufacturers. After two years normally replaced with pink stuff and 5 year life. The Alde recommended Pink stuff can be used to top up original blue if needed in first two years. How do I know? When a previous caravan was about 9 months old I had a problem with kettling one Winter. If I used 1KW of electric it was OK - 2KW and it kettled. Dealer drained and refilled and phoned to say it still kettled. They wanted to speak to Alde who were on a works shut down. I agreed to take caravan to Alde to refill in return for site fee on stopover and free service next year. Alde explained to dealer, whilst I was there, why they had failed to get right strength as problem was due to low strength fluid.
Good info on this video.
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Thanks for your comments. We've decided to pass on this one. As an aside, is it normal/common for an eight year old caravan to have no service history? Or am I thinking too much along car lines?
Dave.
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We sold our previous van at 10 years old, full service history, all instruction books etc, our current van is 11, serviced regularly and we have all the paperwork, but you do often see new caravanners coming on here who have bought vans with no handbooks, so it seems fairly common that paperwork is not kept.
Not keeping paperwork to me suggests a careless owner, or one that may have something to hide.
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I bought new out of the box in 2016 a Coachman Pastiche.
Not being serviced this year, no point, all warranties have expired apart from water ingress. (I can nip round with a grease gun myself for the moving parts.)
It doesnt leak now after 3 years, so unless I abuse it, not covered, I doubt very much it will.
It's the hassle of taking it to the dealer too, a friends dealer insists the caravan comes empty!
As an aside, we looked at a Px deal last week, toying with options, dealer asked if it had been serviced by a man in a van, stating they dont recognise these as adequate and value accordingly.
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