Caravan quality
We have just seen yet another caravan manufacturer going into administration, (Lunar). It remains to be seen whether they will survive.
I have written before about the prospects for the British caravan industry's survival and whether it will eventually go the same way as the British car industry, Like the motor industry which for years was able to get away with selling a poor quality, unreliable product it seems to be suffering from the same sense of complacency.
I know from my own experience with a new top of the range caravan that quality control seems to be almost non-existent. Should a caravan with a distortion of a chassis member resulting in one corner steady being almost impossible to operate fully, even have left the factory let alone the dealership?
Should it be necessary to have to put a shoulder against a shower compartment door to open it? Should the work surface edging strip be coming adrift after only a few weeks' use? Just a few examples of things that should have been dealt with at some stage.
In every case I speak from personal experience. Having bought a new car a year ago, a much more complex piece of machinery, there has not been one single fault or cause for complaint! Surely there are lessons to be learned here.
Perhaps there is already someone in Korea or maybe Taiwan looking at the British product and thinking that they can produce a superior quality caravan, ship it half way round the world, and still sell it at a profit, just like they do with cars.
Time will tell!
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there are certainly caravan/MH manufacturers from mainland Europe who think they can....and they do
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Considering the complexity of a car, (almost any car) and their relative robustness you get far more bang for your buck than you do with a caravan. And servicing costs are not that much higher than for a caravan. With a relatively limited choice of caravan manufacturers there is little competition in the market place compared with cars so if we want a caravan we don't have much choice other than model.
The problem is we keep buying the rubbish that is produced, many of us knowing that we will find, and to a degree accepting, faults, sometimes major, and also knowing that the dealerships will not be much help. I wonder how many can put their hand on their heart and say that they do a full and thorough PDI on every caravan that they sell? My guess is not many.
In fairness, it is not always the fault of the actual manufacturer other than they demand lower and lower prices for the components that make up a caravan. This results in parts which should last for years packing up in, very often, just a few days use because they are produced to a price not a quality.
In my own 2015 caravan, (a Lunar), I've had a faulty microwave (from new), faulty Omnivent, faulty door window blind, faulty thermocouple on the cooker, faulty toilet, faulty water pump, faulty alarm (three times), faulty motor mover. All of these made by companies other than the actual caravan manufacturer.
There are other issues though which can be laid at the caravan manufacturers door such as badly fitting cupboard doors, seat/bed supports not strong enough and requiring reinforcing and centre lights only working intermittently. The list is endless.
Perhaps it would be a good thing if Lunar and any others that fall by the wayside were taken over by an Asian company. We would probably get a far better product. Just as an illustration, my nephew works for Jaguar Land Rover and spent three years at their Chinese production plant. His comment is that they produce far better quality vehicles that they do in the UK. Ironically though, the Chinese only want to buy UK produced vehicles! Its a funny old world.
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and this is why I am still using my 2008 Coachman, i would love to upgrade to a nice shiny new van, but after reading all the horror stories i am reluctant to upgrade and continue to roll out the tried and tested, although i have invested in a new motor mover, and at great expense gave the old girl new carpets throughout, but guess what we now cover the whole floor with old towels so that Rufs does not put muddy paws all over them, should have ripped out old carpets and kept to wooded floors, she has lovely wooden floors.
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100% agree with this.
We have a 2016 Coachman Pastiche 575.
We have looked at various holiday options, including changing the caravan, different layout same size, to looking at small two berths.
My god, the Coachman mid bathroom Pastiche, cheap, just looked that way. The same van as ours cupboards gone, bare walls in place.
The small two berths by various makers, HOW MUCH?
And have you seen those basic boxes on wheels at around £18k for an empty shell and cupboards made of fabric! And if you want a wash, your out of luck.
After extensive research we have decided to stick with what we have for a very long time indeed, even if it means sticking it in storage next year and not using it.
Everything works, apart from the alarm, never has, we like the decor, so I'm thinking once it falls apart I'm buying a tent! Seriously.
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I think a lot of problems with UK built vans are caused by the weakness of the chassis. The Alko Lightweight Chassis used on most British vans has no cross members so lacks the rigidity that cross members would provide. It’s only the floor of the van that stops the chassis from distorting when in use and this also puts unnecessary strain on the van's body construction.
A ladder construction chassis as used on Australian made vans is far more robust and will distort very little during use, thus putting much less strain on the body of the van. This was the chassis type used on older British vans which frequently lasted years with few problems. The drawback, of course, is weight.
The link is to a YouTube video taken from the Alko Australian website and shows the chassis construction for Australian made vans - the Australian Light Roadgoing Chassis as opposed to their Off-road Chassis.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tHJcmsaB8UQ
The pictures below show, firstly, the Lightweight Chassis as used in the UK and then the D-type used in Continental vans. The D-type seems to fall mid way between the Lightweight and the Australian versions.
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Lunar USED to have an Alloy chassis with cross members, its how they first got their 'Lighter Caravan' accolade many years ago, unfortunately they also leaked badly.....hence 'Leaky Lunar'.
The problem has always been lack of quality control. The quality control inspectors SHOULD have the authority to stop the production line if shoddy work is spotted. Yes, that can be expensive in the short term, but long term it can save a company from going bust.
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Bailey sponsored research into a light weight caravan chassis resulting in a paper by J . Lewis . Amongst other experiments this explored the flexing of the chassis under load and the ensuing deformation of the floor indicating a lack of stiffness in the floor construction.Weak points being the cut outs for the wheel boxes. So far as I know the floor design has remained since 2013. Just the suspension tweak to give the vans a softer ride and less stress and we all are aware of where that lead regarding collapsed axles.
I guess Alko do not specify a minimum floor stiffness
Ignore the research and find the cheapest way out of the problem, sounds familiar.
If I remember correctly the conclusion was a stiffer floor or a complete composite chassis/floor. But it had to cost around a £1000 to be competitive with the Alko product! I have heard rumours that Bailey are only now working on a new floor with stiffening ridges to alleviate the flexing without undue weight gain.
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We look at it from a different point of view. It’s a caravan, for posh camping holidays. Trying to replicate a small apartment, with fixed beds, a luxury bathroom and a kitchen stuffed full of all mod cons is never going to be light. What’s even more puzzling is that many bathrooms don’t get used, and folks carry lots of alternative outdoor cooking equipment, so the kitchen becomes defunct! Not knocking choices, but just commenting on how a fair percentage of vans are used. All adds weight, hence the box around it has to get lighter, and that’s where a lot of the problems occur.
British van manufacturers are giving British buyers what they crave, but it’s a lottery as to whether or not you get a trouble free example. I just wonder at when we became so complacent as a nation in terms of acceptance of such shoddy workmanship and quality. Nothing would induce me to part with £20k plus on a new caravan.😕
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Like Rufs, we have a much loved and cared for 2007 Abbey GTS 418 and will continue to use it. Yes we'd love to upgrade to a shiny new van but have read and heard of so many horrendous tales of 'new' vans, we'll stick with what we have for the foreseeable future !
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We will not be changing our Bailey anytime soon as it has so far stood up well to uk roads with about 170 nights each year away for the last three years, without anything major rearing its head ,so has done a lot more "work" than the majority of LVs
199 nights this year if all bookings used
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we must agree having a two year old lunar writing off because of a rotten floor and now with a new bailey unicorn the build quilty is shocking it looks fantastic but it cheaply built trying to save weight with everything so sad all we want is a well built caravan thst will last and not with evrery service crossing your fingers they dont find damp and speaking to other caravaners all manufactors are same the only one that seams ok is a buccerner
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We have had 7 caravans, 6 of them brand new, since we started 'vanning back in the mid 1980's and, regretfully, each one has been of worse quality than the previous one. We keep asking ourselves "why do we bother changing?". There is usually some feature of the new caravan that we prefer. Our latest has a very good size shower cubicle which was probably the main attraction. Yes, we do use our shower! The 'deal' meant that the 'van came with 'free' motor mover, Avtex TV and ATC unit amongst other 'bits' which lured us in. Unfortunately this is probably at the expense of a well built caravan. When looking at and buying new caravans I'm sure we all go around with rose tinted glasses on and whilst we all do this we will all be guilty of allowing manufacturers to produce and sell cr*p. The moral in our case at least is "Don't go to the caravan shows".
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Johnm20 couldnt agree more about more dont go to nec ..wife for years has tried me to change caravan ..1994 swift . resealed it all over once use a caravan cover ..layout superb for both of us { 5 berth } the amount of holidays weve had abroad and extenting bungalow , paid for by keeping old van
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You’ll possibly need a proper tow car for this, but if condition is as good as it looks, this could be a real bargain!
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You can not compare a caravan to a car in terms of quality. Cars are made by giant monolithic companies or indeed groups of companies. I am involved in development of vehicles and can comfortably say that the quality department of a single mainstream road car is bigger than the total caravan industry in europe. They have extensive R&D, materials science, validation, durability and inspection. It costs about half a billion pounds to engineer a mainstream vehicle. This is possible because they will sell tens or hundreds of thousands of that model.
applying the same level of product development you could have a perfect caravan, purchase price £200,000 pound.
Most of the UK caravan industry is comparable to very low volume auto manufacture and has a similar quality profile.
The continental vans do not generally have better build quality, they have different construction techniques that generally offer more ridged chassis and body but at the cost of additional weight and increased sale price. This is not increased quality it a basic result of using better chassis and panel materials.
Innovation in the caravan industry is slow, anybody have carbon fibre chassis members on a caravan? this is now mainstream in many industries.
I have my own list of issues which I think are unforgivable:
Electrical connections not sealed.
Integrated Hub-locks not available.
Very poor corrosion resistance on external fixings.
No safe way to jack a caravan.
Poor textures and unmatched finishes on exterior plastics.
The fact is that we keep buying them, and lets face it if Bailey (for example) brought out a heavier van with a rigid box chassis and body for twice the price would we buy it, no.
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whilst price has to make a difference, so does forethought, planning etc.
have a look at a Morelo video showing how much effort goes into making the cab more usable....floors being changed, bespoke driving seats moved to make more room, their own dashboard, left and right hand drive models travelling the same production line...
all adds cost and improves the overall customer experience but I guess we get what we pay for....
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