We packed our bags last night pre flight..... (1 Viewer)

Alistair33

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followed by train, plane and auotomobile, we are leaving on a jet plane, destination Freiburg Germany to collect our new Hymer Exsis I 598 tomorrow morning.

Thanks to you all for the encouragement, hopefully we can put the answers you have given to our sometimes simple questions to good use

PS .... Sorry for the song and movie referencs, I put it down to being excited !
 

Anthea M

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Loving the music touch!
Good luck and safe travels post pictures when you can !!
Enjoy!!(y)
 
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funflair

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Wow everyone is off picking up new vans, enjoy the experience and hope all goes to plan.

Martin

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lorger

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Good luck hope all goes well and dont forget the photos

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obanvanman

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followed by train, plane and auotomobile, we are leaving on a jet plane, destination Freiburg Germany to collect our new Hymer Exsis I 598 tomorrow morning.

Thanks to you all for the encouragement, hopefully we can put the answers you have given to our sometimes simple questions to good use

PS .... Sorry for the song and movie referencs, I put it down to being excited !

I put it down to your age!:rofl:
 
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Alistair33

Alistair33

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Thank you for all our kind thoughts and your interest, since we left, I think there has been a post asking how we got on, thanks for that, I can't appear to find it but thanks.

Well we're back and in one piece!

It was an interesting experience and siting here the day after returning, a worth while one (although that may change ! )

The journey out was good, however I must say I'm not going to miss airports at at ALL !

The dealer collected us at the train station and handover took four hours with a great English speaking couple who work for the dealer, the main man was a mechanic/ fitter so lots of technical input and knowledge.

While we didn't get a food hamper nor champagne like to couple from here who picked up a Frankia recently, we did get in the region of 18% discount access the board on the base vehicle, factory fitted and after market extras.

Our first stop was at a Frtiz Berger outlet a mere 15 minutes from the dealer to get essentials, table, chairs, crockery etc etc, followed by an hour drive to our first stop at Obernari . Unpacking our suitcases and purchases did cause some intrigued looks form the others campers ! Obernari looked like an interesting town and we will certainly be back to have a good look around. The camp site was well located, clean and well looked after.

Heading north with no particular destination in mind, we set the sat nav to avoid motorways and toll roads and typed in a destination of Charville Merzieres to keep us in the right direction. I should have realised when the calculated route came back at eight and a half hours to cover the some 200 odd miles that the roads selected were not gong to be the best ! Two hours in and by now well versed in the vans dimensions, we changed the route options to include motorways and evenly stopped off in Luxembourg where we quite happily paid €1.02 for diesel ( by comparison two days latter the same diesel cost us £1.37 at Wetherby services on the A1 !) The site was about a 15 minute drive off the motorway and a €2 bus ride to the city. Fantastically clean with heated shower block & an on site cafe, four restaurants, a bar and a bakers less than three minutes walk , Camping bon Accueil defiantly gets our recommendation.

Gravelines get a mention in the post Calais concerns, it was fine and our last night was in the UK at Rutland Water.

As I've said above, from a financial point of view, it a no brainer. The journey home was a great introduction to motor homing and driving a large vehicle, it alowed time to get to know the van in detail. At 1000 miles it was a little on the long side but we have no regrets.

There are draw backs, all the manuals are in German, settings for the likes of the TV & satellite system sat nav etc were in German too but I got tho know them well in the time it took me to figure out how to set the language to English. While I sort out English manuals, I'll probably learn a lot more by playing around than I would by reading the manuals ,which lets face it as a man I'm never likely to do any way !

In hind site it would have been better to source the techno items in the UK but the price saving made that an unattractive option.

The main question buying abroad we had was what would happen if there is a problem with the build of the van ?

Well we are about to find out. The picture of our new van are not the usual ones posted, ours show the van lifted up on the self levellers (brilliant purchase ! ) to let the water that appears to be leaking form either the water tank or a fitting connected to it, to drain. We noticed this when we were emptying everting out at home.




IMG_1754.JPG

This was full, the water shown above is after it
had been drained and left for a further hour


Next step is to try and locate that leak.

The water system is drained and hopefully all the leaked water is now gone, I'm driving it to a garage this morning to get the conversions done for the VCA certificate, I'll check again on arrival and then when I collect it, I'll fill the water tank for the drive home.

If there are no apparent leaks form the tank, then the next step will be to test the shower and sink drains although the floors under these, that we can access, are dry. Then one by one test the taps and shower to try and identify the source of the leak.

I've notified the dealer and once I have more news I'll report back on what happened. Hopefully the Europe wide warranty system of Hymer will work seamlessly !

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Jenben

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Check the inspection cap on the water tank. Sometimes it can leak if not tightened enough. When you fill to the top it's actually below the water level. Also the pump wiring goes through a separate cap and can leak into the cap well which will overflow as you're driving.

Good luck with the pan European warranty. Our "local" Belgian dealer is fantastic:)
 
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Alistair33

Alistair33

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Check the inspection cap on the water tank. Sometimes it can leak if not tightened enough. When you fill to the top it's actually below the water level.
Thanks .... I thought of this at about 3am and you are right, the water cap did have some water on it that would indicate that the water had come form above !
 
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Jenben

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Not sure of the access on your Exsis, but on ours you have easy access to the caps and all the pump piping to see what's happening. The wiring through the pump cap is never 100% watertight but the depth of the well is designed to hold any leaking water (which will eventually drain back into the tank as water is used). It could only ever be a problem if it sloshes about when driving. I think this is another reason Hymer tell you to only travel with 20l of water.

Btw just in case you do need more help I think @Lenny HB has had good luck with his local UK dealer - can't remember the name though.

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obanvanman

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Sounds like a good trip and that is a really nice van, hopefully that's the water leak sorted.

You mentioned going to coll earlier. There is an interesting thread posted recently on Scottish Motorhome Wildcamping about a couples experience there. Kev.
 
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Lenny HB

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Completely missed this thread until Jenban flagged me.
Pleased to see you got back safely and generally pleased with the van, looks like you had a nice trip back.
Our Belgium dealer always requests English Hymer & Fiat manuals we don't even have to ask for them.:)

The water problem, the bit of water around the caps & pump inlet is a standard feature of the Exsis due to the very low profile le tank, in practice it doesn't cause any problems.

The water in the garage is the water getting past the door seals more prone to happen when the van is left standing with a garage door facing the prevailing weather only happened to us in extream weather. Local dealer changed the door seals it was OK for a couple of years until- Just before we got rid of it when emptying it out the well in the garage was a couple of inches deep in water luckily it doesn't do any harm. Normally we do not leave the van sitting around for long periods but we had spent 6 weeks over Christmas visiting our daughter in Thailand and the van was left sitting on the drive which is slightly nose down (relevance of that later) with garage door facing the prevailing weather and total time standing was a good bit longer than the 6 weeks. After getting rid of the water we found that water was running back into the well from the water tank housing. Had to turn the van around so front end was higher and put the front on ramps after a few days it was down to the odd trickle.
On inspection you could see a tide make from the front of the garage door to the well, didn't do anything about it as we were trading it in a few days.
With the floor and the tank housing all being GRP it doesn't cause any problems just a bl**dy nuisance. I suggest once completely drained and dry that you seal the front edge of the well so water can't get into the tank housing and get your local Hymer dealer to look at the door seals, it's a common problem on the Exsis & the ML (Exsis on a Merc).

As you know Hymer has a Pan European warranty so you can take it to any Hymer dealer, but they will tell you the dealers responsible for your warranty are your supplying dealer and the dealer closest to your home address. We are on the south coast so our dealer wouldn't be much good to you.

I've noticed with our Dynamic Line the garage door seal is totally different.
 
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Alistair33

Alistair33

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@obanvanman ... thanks ill lookout out

Lenny ... I'm sure this is not form the door seals, we are talking full after three days and only a short shower in Rutland!

I'm hoping its just a loose cap. Fingers crossed

Currently I'm in the process of sorting out the paperwork. The van has been to the garage and is ready for collection following hate conversions, the VAT should be sorted by the end of the day.

Then a wait for the returned VCA certificate before applying for first registration , I do need to wait for this VCA certificate right ?

How are you getting on with the paperwork ?

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Ridgeway

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Check the inspection cap on the water tank. Sometimes it can leak if not tightened enough. When you fill to the top it's actually below the water level.

Mine does the same.....

Each year after taking it out of winter storage It seems to leak a little but only if 100% filled and we get some weird external leaks as the water finds it's way out of the insulated tank box.
 
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Lenny HB

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@obanvanman ... thanks ill lookout out

Lenny ... I'm sure this is not form the door seals, we are talking full after three days and only a short shower in Rutland!

I'm hoping its just a loose cap. Fingers crossed

Currently I'm in the process of sorting out the paperwork. The van has been to the garage and is ready for collection following hate conversions, the VAT should be sorted by the end of the day.

Then a wait for the returned VCA certificate before applying for first registration , I do need to wait for this VCA certificate right ?

How are you getting on with the paperwork ?
Yes you have to wait for the VCA certificate you can't register without it. As for mine after advising loads of people how to do and double check everything I managed to send mine in without signing it. What is annoying is it took them 2 weeks to return it, I'm not in any hurry.
As for the water do you know if the well in the garage was dry when you picked it up? Because if it's the door seals it could of happened while sitting around at the dealers.

Getting there with the mods on my van if you haven't seen the thread here's a link.
 
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Alistair33

Alistair33

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No idea if it was full or not, I had no idea that there was a well ..... do you know what it is for ?

I've been reading about your improvements and they all sound great. I've got our son visiting tonight so we are going to sit down and see what I need to do, it mostly appears to be extra 5v sockets ..... I did ask the dealer but either I forgot to say 5v usb or it got lost in translation and I got extra 240v !

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Lenny HB

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If you look underneath you will see the overhang has no chassis supports and the well/GRP tray is all part of the water tank housing I think it serves two purposes increases strength & makes the mold simpler for the water tank housing.
Don't be tempted to store anything in there, my spare water pump was in there when I needed it took longer to empty the garage to get it than fit the pump.
I'll still bet on it being the garage door seal.
 
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