SueBaz
Free Member
Hello motorhomers
We are Barry and Sue, signed up since February, regular readers but not yet posted *mainly because we couldn't hope to compete with the wealth of humour and, being very recent owners of a motorhome, hadn't very much in the way of useful experience to contribute. *.........but if you have a Fiat Ducato based motorhome you may wish to read on *or at least skip to the penultimate paragraph (apologies this ended up longer than I intended).
Our purchase of a Burstner 747 in February of this year is the culmination of a 10 year dream - we've wanted one since we first saw one. *It's proved to be everything we had thought it might be and we love it. * I retired a couple of years ago and now free of commitments elsewhere *we plan to spend most of next year (and hopefully longer) exploring Europe - so *a big thank you from us to all the site's contributors for insights into all sorts of things we had hardly thought about. *Geordie's tale, and the support from members of the forum, has however now prompted me to drop a line - not for help but to share and ask for information.*
Our problem is a bit different to Geordie's. *Our van is a 10 year old left hooker of German origin brought into the UK, as far as I can gather, at the start of the 747production run. We bought it privately from it's previous owners, it's covered 43000 miles, very clean and tidy and apparently well looked after. *We used it in the UK *for weekend trips in the spring and then took it to France for a week in May as a shakedown *for long trip planned for August. *No problems at all until on the way back, quite out of the blue, we had electrical problems, cause unknown, which resulted in a burn-out of the underdash wiring loom.*
Long story short - it's still there in France at the garage the RAC recovered it to at the end of May. *Why? Because FIAT can no longer provide a replacement wiring loom.
The garage, the RAC and I have spent a great deal of time and effort looking without success - Fiat, Burstner, short run wiring manufacturers, breakers and their sites etc, etc, *we've seemingly tried them all.
Burstner have taken an interest but it's not a Burstner part (their wiring loom still works and the van electrics remain 100%) - they e-mailed a couple of weeks ago to tell me they are still waiting for an answer from Fiat.
We have had great support from our local FIAT dealer, Fiat Direct at Hayes, whose service manager spent a considerable amount of time looking at the technical spec of the looms that are still available trying to find one that might be adapted, albeit in the end none can be. *
FIAT themselves however have proved particularly evasive and unhelpful and here is where we are looking for some possible information from you guys. *Any info you guys might have on the whereabouts of a loom ( part no. 1334740080 ) might be too much to hope for but we do have very real problem now in getting the vehicle repaired so suggestions on specialists who might be able to help would be very welcome.*
Understanding why Fiat have been so unhelpful would also perhaps relieve or confirm my growing suspicions. *Is anyone out there aware of problems with Ducato wiring?
It seems that back in 2003 there was a recall on certain Fiat Ducatos for a wiring loom chaffing problem on the heater motor (yep, that's under the dash ..........). Fiat are adamant that it doesn't effect our vehicle but I'm a tad suspicious both because I can't quite see what the difference is between different Ducatos and their heater motors and secondly because wiring looms aren't a fast mover in parts sale terms (normally). *Intriguingly it seems Fiat exhausted their stock of looms for our vehicle back in the beginning half of 2010 and haven't had any since so I can't but wonder whether this was because they didn't bother to lay many down in stock or because the demand was higher than might normally be anticipated?
As Heyupluv has pointed out this week the Ducato platform and it's Citroen and Peugeot clones provide an incredibly large proportion of the base for motorhomes, something Fiat seem very proud of. *They know that our motorhomes last many years longer than the donor delivery vans they are derived from and you would expect that, having such a large share of this market, they would be keen to be seen to support it. *It seems not however. *They would not respond without considerable pressure and it took over a month culminating in week of ringing every day to solicit a final answer - which was to say they couldn't help and to provide me with the email address of a website for finding breakers!*
Those of you with motorhomes built on Fiat Ducato chassis made between*May *2001 and *April 2002 having a chassis number between 6133293 & 6227258 please do check that your vehicle isn't subject to recall number R/2003/027. *If it is please make sure it has been modified by Fiat. *A nice man at VOSA has told me that the recall captured 83% of the vehicle parc which means that something like 1 in 5 vehicles got missed. *Whilst most of these will now be dead or dying delivery vans one might just be your motorhome.
Again my apologies for this long tale of woe. *I love Monty Python and we do always try to look on the bright side of life - sometimes you do have to look a bit harder than one might hope! *I spoke to the RAC this morning and we are now *getting the vehicle shipped home, whilst the last vehicle I made a wiring loom for was a BSA C15 many years ago it looks like I may be building on that experience. *Will we still be going to Europe in our motorhome next year? *Of course - The pleasure we had from our short trips proved to us how good Burstner make a motorhome. *Will we be taking extraordinary precautionary measures and worrying about the Fiat chassis it sits on? *Without doubt!
Regards
SueBaz,
We are Barry and Sue, signed up since February, regular readers but not yet posted *mainly because we couldn't hope to compete with the wealth of humour and, being very recent owners of a motorhome, hadn't very much in the way of useful experience to contribute. *.........but if you have a Fiat Ducato based motorhome you may wish to read on *or at least skip to the penultimate paragraph (apologies this ended up longer than I intended).
Our purchase of a Burstner 747 in February of this year is the culmination of a 10 year dream - we've wanted one since we first saw one. *It's proved to be everything we had thought it might be and we love it. * I retired a couple of years ago and now free of commitments elsewhere *we plan to spend most of next year (and hopefully longer) exploring Europe - so *a big thank you from us to all the site's contributors for insights into all sorts of things we had hardly thought about. *Geordie's tale, and the support from members of the forum, has however now prompted me to drop a line - not for help but to share and ask for information.*
Our problem is a bit different to Geordie's. *Our van is a 10 year old left hooker of German origin brought into the UK, as far as I can gather, at the start of the 747production run. We bought it privately from it's previous owners, it's covered 43000 miles, very clean and tidy and apparently well looked after. *We used it in the UK *for weekend trips in the spring and then took it to France for a week in May as a shakedown *for long trip planned for August. *No problems at all until on the way back, quite out of the blue, we had electrical problems, cause unknown, which resulted in a burn-out of the underdash wiring loom.*
Long story short - it's still there in France at the garage the RAC recovered it to at the end of May. *Why? Because FIAT can no longer provide a replacement wiring loom.
The garage, the RAC and I have spent a great deal of time and effort looking without success - Fiat, Burstner, short run wiring manufacturers, breakers and their sites etc, etc, *we've seemingly tried them all.
Burstner have taken an interest but it's not a Burstner part (their wiring loom still works and the van electrics remain 100%) - they e-mailed a couple of weeks ago to tell me they are still waiting for an answer from Fiat.
We have had great support from our local FIAT dealer, Fiat Direct at Hayes, whose service manager spent a considerable amount of time looking at the technical spec of the looms that are still available trying to find one that might be adapted, albeit in the end none can be. *
FIAT themselves however have proved particularly evasive and unhelpful and here is where we are looking for some possible information from you guys. *Any info you guys might have on the whereabouts of a loom ( part no. 1334740080 ) might be too much to hope for but we do have very real problem now in getting the vehicle repaired so suggestions on specialists who might be able to help would be very welcome.*
Understanding why Fiat have been so unhelpful would also perhaps relieve or confirm my growing suspicions. *Is anyone out there aware of problems with Ducato wiring?
It seems that back in 2003 there was a recall on certain Fiat Ducatos for a wiring loom chaffing problem on the heater motor (yep, that's under the dash ..........). Fiat are adamant that it doesn't effect our vehicle but I'm a tad suspicious both because I can't quite see what the difference is between different Ducatos and their heater motors and secondly because wiring looms aren't a fast mover in parts sale terms (normally). *Intriguingly it seems Fiat exhausted their stock of looms for our vehicle back in the beginning half of 2010 and haven't had any since so I can't but wonder whether this was because they didn't bother to lay many down in stock or because the demand was higher than might normally be anticipated?
As Heyupluv has pointed out this week the Ducato platform and it's Citroen and Peugeot clones provide an incredibly large proportion of the base for motorhomes, something Fiat seem very proud of. *They know that our motorhomes last many years longer than the donor delivery vans they are derived from and you would expect that, having such a large share of this market, they would be keen to be seen to support it. *It seems not however. *They would not respond without considerable pressure and it took over a month culminating in week of ringing every day to solicit a final answer - which was to say they couldn't help and to provide me with the email address of a website for finding breakers!*
Those of you with motorhomes built on Fiat Ducato chassis made between*May *2001 and *April 2002 having a chassis number between 6133293 & 6227258 please do check that your vehicle isn't subject to recall number R/2003/027. *If it is please make sure it has been modified by Fiat. *A nice man at VOSA has told me that the recall captured 83% of the vehicle parc which means that something like 1 in 5 vehicles got missed. *Whilst most of these will now be dead or dying delivery vans one might just be your motorhome.
Again my apologies for this long tale of woe. *I love Monty Python and we do always try to look on the bright side of life - sometimes you do have to look a bit harder than one might hope! *I spoke to the RAC this morning and we are now *getting the vehicle shipped home, whilst the last vehicle I made a wiring loom for was a BSA C15 many years ago it looks like I may be building on that experience. *Will we still be going to Europe in our motorhome next year? *Of course - The pleasure we had from our short trips proved to us how good Burstner make a motorhome. *Will we be taking extraordinary precautionary measures and worrying about the Fiat chassis it sits on? *Without doubt!
Regards
SueBaz,
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