Do all new Motorhmes have faults??

etap

etap

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Nov 19, 2014
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Somerset
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Chausson Flash 610
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3 years
Just a thought, reading this forum and some others it appears that many new motorhomes have a few or more faults, so am wondering if anyone has actually bought one that has been perfect from new, I will also add that perhaps cars vans caravans may also be in the same category. certainly from my experience almost always there is something that takes you back to the dealer early on.
Etap
 
We bought a new Swift a few years back and it was faultless during our ownership. Wish we could say the same for 2 of the German motorhomes we've owned.
 
etap said:
Just a thought, reading this forum and some others it appears that many new motorhomes have a few or more faults, so am wondering if anyone has actually bought one that has been perfect from new, I will also add that perhaps cars vans caravans may also be in the same category. certainly from my experience almost always there is something that takes you back to the dealer early on.
Etap
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I will let you know on Monday (y). Where is the fingers crossed icon;)

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@etap Depends what you consider a fault ..

one man's loose screw that needs two turns to tighten it up, gives it no thought and is happy to do... ... is another's disaster and a trip to the dealer..

at the other end of the spectrum, and what I would consider a serious fault would be water ingress from window , roof light etc. that is a 'back to dealer' and warranty claim.. and I would be making a lot of noise..

most new vans I imagine will have a few minor 'niggles' .. most of which will be easily rectified by the owner..
also, some owners are more picky than others..

is there such a thing as a perfectly built van.. ? Probably not..
 
We've had 5 vans, all of which had faults. Major ones which could be fixed by us.
We're still searching for a perfect one.
 
On our Chausson, one on the curtains had the "wrong" Velcro on it. Dealer offered to get us new curtains but we said not to bother. That was the extent of the faults.

Mind, I have changed or fettled other things to suit us.
 
Most likely.

Some faults are bigger than others, some owners don't even know it's there.

Somebody we know picked up a new van (German) and after two weeks found that one of the shower drains had not been connected.

Oops.
 
The clue is in the name, Motor HOME and as most know when a new home is built you have to make a snagging list so with a new motorhome or caravan there may be minor problems.

Yes it's nice to buy a brand new item but in some cases buying nearly new means that the first owner as 'sorted' out all the problems, well you hope? :(

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The problem with motorhomes (the way I see it), is that there is more human interaction with the build of the vehicle (as opposed to factory line robots) and thus potentially more faults creep in.

That’s no excuse of course for the base vehicle. If they can get it wrong, what chance has the MH manufacturer got?

Must go, off to view a new Baliey, maybe I’ll come back with a different point of view :)

Brian
 
Well the main problem in my opinion is that people who buy a new van that does not have faults are not very likely to go on a forum to say "we bought a new (insert whatever brand you want here) and we have not had an problems with it".

Whereas people who find a fault however small are shouting it from the roof tops.

Bad reports = lots or comments. Good reports = very few.
 
Brian_K said:
The problem with motorhomes (the way I see it), is that there is more human interaction with the build of the vehicle (as opposed to factory line robots)
Click to expand...

I worked at Fords Dagenham plant and there were very few robots involved with the 'build'
.. the paint shop had robotic sprayers, the body plant had robotic spot welders.. and that was about it.... Of course newer Japanese factories may use more.. but by and large , car building is still very labor intensive..

I would say 98% is 'hands on' manual labour.. at the end of the line, all cars are tested exhaustively before leaving the factory.. rolling road test, water spray test, emissions test etc.. .. and there always a line of cars waiting for remedial work.. and the dealer also does a PDI.. so the change of buying a bad car is minimal..

this is where I think 'some' motorhome convertors cut corners.. they don't do a good pre delivery road test and their QC is clearly missing build faults ..
 
We had many faults with our new Swift during the first year of ownership, the majority being with third party equipment simply installed by Swift.
The major and worrying faults I feel were due to poor staff training, workmanship and poor quality control, all symptoms of a poorly implemented plan of cost reduction.
The missing floor bolts were fixed by an engineer home visit and the major water ingress problem was solved by Swift taking the MH back to Swinton.

I was reassured during my factory visit that every effort was being made to rectify the fault, time will tell when the weather conditions permit an accurate damp test.
Swift were quick to recognise that they had built the MH with inherent faults and apologised for the distress caused to us, of course this should simply not have happened in the first place.

The dealer owner/management response was virtually non-existent but that's another story.

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We recently purchased a new motorhome with a number of faults (see MHF passim), as someone else has said I did expect some minor "snags" and would happily have sorted these myself. But I do expect a good PDI will pick up any major issues and this is were a lot of company's seem to fail. They seem to be too busy spending money on marketing and seem to have forgotten that the best sales person is a happy customer.

My main complaint was a unrealistic delivery date that drifted like sand across a beach.

I also think some customers have unrealistic expectations because they are buying new, all of the new cars I have had over the years - across the price range have had a fault or recall in the first three months.
 
Mack100 said:
Swift were quick to recognise that they had built the MH with inherent faults and apologised for the distress caused to us, of course this should simply not have happened in the first place.
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exactly the point I made.. Swift 'may' make a great van.. but if they have poor QC they will end up with poor quality vans and dissatisfied owners.. and worse.. a bad reputation.. the cost of good QC.. and exhaustive pre delivery testing would put the cost up..
 
Just back from doing the deal on a new Bailey Advance 615, now the fun begins.

The Bailey rep promised me it was a great MH and I have purchased a quality vehicle, we shall see :cautious:

Brian
 
Brian_K said:
Just back from doing the deal on a new Bailey Advance 615, now the fun begins.

The Bailey rep promised me it was a great MH and I have purchased a quality vehicle, we shall see :cautious:

Brian
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hope it goes well Brian, but ive never met a salesman who told me he was selling something sh*t (y)
 
a lot of them talk it. I heard one sales person that a 3 ton van that was classed as a 3.5 ton. you could take up to a ton in it. got glared at for laughing.

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We were talking about this last night. Ralph said " well at least there won't be any snagging with our new pvc "Pug" ."
He has a point, he's building it. Doing a fantastic job too.
 
Ralph-n-Bev said:
We were talking about this last night. Ralph said " well at least there won't be any snagging with our new pvc "Pug" ."
He has a point, he's building it. Doing a fantastic job too.
Click to expand...

and he won't have far to take it back to the dealer for warranty work..(y)

but he will have to give himself a bollocking :LOL:

PS

meant to say he's doing a great job.. looking forward to seeing it completed..
 
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no you will do that for him. last lot of photos it looks great.
 
This PDI matter is one which really annoys into not buying new. I pay for a vehicle I expect it to be good and I do not want to pay a dealer on top of his large profit another £800-1000 to check it over. It is one of the ripoffs they do to the public.
 
Yes, all taken all with a pinch of salt. But the dealer looked pretty clued up and I managed to get a few bits thrown in and others fitted for free, so all in all I'm happy with the deal.

Brian

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Just taken delivery of a new Swift Esprit.

Faults found:-

Incorrect fuse in Truma Combi (1.6amp instead of 10amp), so it blew. Corrected by inserting correct fuse. The Truma unit worked OK during the handover.

Water in reversing light lens. New unit ordered by dealer.
One small LED light not working. New unit ordered by dealer. Both spotted on handover by dealer.

One screw pulled out of fixing.

I consider these minor niggles. Others may consider them otherwise.

On the other hand we owned a brand new Autosleeper Ravenna. The list of faults was endless including no fewer than five separate gas leaks within four months. Those I do consider serious. We exchanged it as soon as possible.

Reading reviews on here shows that virtually all motorhomes have, or develop, faults. It depends on how you regard them and on how good your dealer is at correcting them quickly, efficiently and willingly.
 
Think the trend these days with 'most' car, caravan or motor home dealers is put it on the forecourt as is and let the buyer find any problems. :(
 
My mate Brendan has just driven his brand spanking new Hymer down to the Algarve from Ireland and has had zero things go wrong with it...

Mind you the stories he has to tell about the time between ordering it and taking it off the dealer's forecourt are fascinating.


JJ :cool:
 
Our first motorhome - a 3 year old 03 Aclass Rapido, had a major fault which was not so much shoddy craftsmanship but bad (shoddy) design, namely the installation of the fridge/freezer which need good, smooth, uninterrupted ventilation to work properly.
Well, ours was not even sealed around the unit - you could see daylight between the top of the f/f and the cupboard above and drafts even came through. It also had a large void above the f/f which prevented the smooth flow of air. But worst of all, it wouldn't get cold - wouldn't keep ice cream frozen.
Eventually the f/f packed up. An engineer came to fix the fridge/freezer and, ideally he should have been able to get the f/f out of the van. But the habitation door was too narrow - by 10mm!!. So he had to struggle with it inside the van. What kind of designers did they employ? Obviously the fridge/freezer had been put in first, then the van built up around it! Merde!

We have a Sprinter Westfalia James Cook now which I cannot fault. Build quality and finish is amazing as is the attention to design and detail.
 
A decade or so back, we joined a RV caravan [23 RV's] on a 6 week trip across Mexico. The stories we heard about the teething problems on their $250K to $500K RV's were amazing. [We just had a simple slide-in camper on a pickup.]

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