Faults on motorhome cannot get the dealer to rectify

M

MontyB

Joined
Oct 15, 2020
Posts
57
Likes collected
106
Location
Darlington
Funster No
76,915
MH
Pilote
Exp
Since 2009
Bought a new Pilote motorhome from SMC Newark just at the beginning of the last lock down and couldn't use it until may and found a lot of faults and issues with it after contacting SMC on a few occasions have just been fobbed off.
The motorhome was brand new with a two year warranty.
On two occasions i have had to rectify the faults myself the most severe being the electrics were constantly tripping out which when traced led to a connection that had been wrongly wired with the earth and neutral crossed i would have thought that a full electrical test would have been carried out prior to delivery.
Due to the amount of issues I am now finding I have lost all faith in SMC and Pilote.
Does anyone know what course of action I may be able to take to get these problem sorted.
 
Write to them. Be clear about the faults and your expected satisfactory outcome of writing to them

edit: & w2f
 
In the end of the day you have to weigh up whether the time and effort trying to get the manufacturer/dealer to correct faulty items is worth it. I have given up. Just costing me another £500 to get an independent workshop to replace all the crap fittings Adria put in their motorhomes with ones that wont leak. Beyond annoying, but they just don't care. Even more so now their order books are full. Even "known issues" are just ignored.

And from what I read, every manufacturer is the same.

I honestly don't know what we will do when we want to change next time. Because of the terrible customer service, we may end up keeping this one forever!

We need a legal way of making the industry change!
 
:welcome4:

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You might have already escalated this at SMC but if not, you might want to email Alistair Briggs Price and or Gavin Briggs Price who are the MD/owner of the business

alistair@smcnewark.co.uk

gavin@smcnewark.co.uk

It might be worth mentioning (as I have ) that their reputation is currently turning to cr@p based on appalling post sales service.

since getting Alistair involved things have moved on, but for example today I had to chase them up as the promised phone call on Monday hadn‘t materialised.

once my issues have been sorted I will post the tale here but for now as we are working collegiately to get to a satisfactory solution I want to keep my head down!
 
For us the fount of Pilote knowledge is Bill Hayes and all his staff at Hayes Leisure in Darlaston so if you had a choice I'd say ask them - but no help now (I don't think anyway?) as it's warranty on a new vehicle.
 
I would give the original dealer notice of say 2 weeks outlining what you want them to resolve. State that if it is not rectified you will get it resolved by a specialist auto electrical company and will be billing them for the work. Mention that you are also concert from a safety aspect as you have no confidence in the equipment sold.
 
Probably not relevant to OP problems, but dealers are very short of parts at present, e.g. pumps. All the same issues of deliveries etc that apply to other items
 
At last thanks to your help and a few e-mails things are starting to happen have sent photos to everyone and been very firm the motor home is now booked in for repairs watch this space believe it when I see it
 
Why does the customer have to put up with faulty goods and then a long struggle with the dealer? I have had faulty goods from China, immediately replaced with an apology. Always worried about their reputation.

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We've bought two new vans from SMC (Pilote and Globecar) and I have to admit that they've been relatively pro-active in sorting my problems but I had to chase them quite often too.

That said, the main gripe that I had with SMC was the quality of their workmanship which, all told, was really crappy and I had to ensure that I checked everything afterwards.

My new Pilote was flooded because they didn't fit and seal the solar panel system correctly - and I do mean flooded. It took £560 of electric via a 2000W dryer to get the van dry again. I did the roof repair myself as I didn't trust them to fix it properly.

They've also been fairly poor when it comes to understanding electrical systems and batteries; sealing watertight doors, refitting furniture etc and a number of other things.

I've had lots of interaction with SMC over the years and the ultimate problem is that they are incredibly disorganised behind the scenes. The left hand doesn't know what the right is doing.

Enough said!
 
MontyB said:
On two occasions i have had to rectify the faults myself the most severe being the electrics were constantly tripping out which when traced led to a connection that had been wrongly wired with the earth and neutral crossed i would have thought that a full electrical test would have been carried out prior to delivery.
Click to expand...

That's completely inexcusable. Good luck. This is an £18 Chinese socket tester I plugged (ha) on another thread recently, which I keep in the van. It'll find incorrectly wired sockets, but I haven't tested that bit of it, as I'd have to be pretty dumb to wire a socket incorrectly.
 
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EML said:
That's completely inexcusable. Good luck. This is an £18 Chinese socket tester I plugged (ha) on another thread recently, which I keep in the van. It'll find incorrectly wired sockets, but I haven't tested that bit of it, as I'd have to be pretty dumb to wire a socket incorrectly.
Click to expand...
The earth should never we swapped with live or neutral.
Live and neutral swapped on a contental van would not be considered a problem as all contental supplies are double switched and they don't differentrate between live & neutral.
 
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MontyB said:
Bought a new Pilote motorhome from SMC Newark just at the beginning of the last lock down and couldn't use it until may and found a lot of faults and issues with it after contacting SMC on a few occasions have just been fobbed off.
The motorhome was brand new with a two year warranty.
On two occasions i have had to rectify the faults myself the most severe being the electrics were constantly tripping out which when traced led to a connection that had been wrongly wired with the earth and neutral crossed i would have thought that a full electrical test would have been carried out prior to delivery.
Due to the amount of issues I am now finding I have lost all faith in SMC and Pilote.
Does anyone know what course of action I may be able to take to get these problem sorted.
Click to expand...
 
So sorry to learn of your problems, I can only imagine your frustration and disappointment. The many problems I have read about regarding new MH's lead me to purchase a lightly used, well cared for MH from a dealer with a good reputation. I know things price wise have changed lately but the MH I purchased was 18 months old, £7K less than new and had 3k miles on it. All the warranty work had been completed and it was prepared for sale beautifully. My view is let someone else sort the niggles, and just enjoy the MH without the agro. By the way the MH I purchased has performed faultlessly and nothing has dropped off, broken or leaked. Perhaps I have just got lucky....

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BigDean said:
In the end of the day you have to weigh up whether the time and effort trying to get the manufacturer/dealer to correct faulty items is worth it. I have given up. Just costing me another £500 to get an independent workshop to replace all the crap fittings Adria put in their motorhomes with ones that wont leak. Beyond annoying, but they just don't care. Even more so now their order books are full. Even "known issues" are just ignored.

And from what I read, every manufacturer is the same.

I honestly don't know what we will do when we want to change next time. Because of the terrible customer service, we may end up keeping this one forever!

We need a legal way of making the industry change!
Click to expand...

The legal position is laid out here:

Consumer Rights Act 2015

An Act to amend the law relating to the rights of consumers and protection of their interests; to make provision about investigatory powers for enforcing the regulation of traders; to make provision about private actions in competition law and the Competition Appeal Tribunal; and for connected...
www.legislation.gov.uk www.legislation.gov.uk
Some aspects have time limitations so good record keeping for correspondence is important. Avoid telephone calls where there is no record of any discussion, use email or post where possible.
 
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Just a bit more ammunition for your arsenal: The Consumer act 2015, into which is subsumed the earlier Sale of goods & services act and the Consumer credit act, Your first port of call for redress on any purchase is the retailer (the motorhome dealership) not the manufacturer (converter or base vehicle manufacturer).

It's probably out of the range of the consumer credit act (£100 to £30,000), but if you were to purchase goods with a deposit paid with a Credit Card (not applicable to a debit card) and the retailer doesn't respond you can ask the credit card company to act for you and they are obliged to do so.

we had solar PV fitted in 2013 and the company went bust before it had provided the ten year repair insurance policy. We had paid a £50 deposit with the credit card (Halifax) and when the roof started leaking and we found that optimisers had not been fitted, I contacted the Halifax and they stepped up, no fuss and covered a £3,000 repair job, paid up promptly and still accept warranty until the installation is ten years old (the original insurance cover period).

We don't use credit cards for credit (we pay off at the end of every month) but we have have a number of other refunds from the card issuer, where the retailer kicked up or refused to accept their responsibility under the Consumer act 2015. Let the credit card cmpanies do the work of challenging the retailers that don't respond.

I'm happy to advise on Consumer Act issues and taking companies to the Ombudsman.

Regards Ken
 
duplicate of above
 
The Consumer Rights Act 2015 is your friend. I recently rejected a £250K super car due to it having many faults. I needed to get a solicitor involved but the end result was the supplier (not manufacturer) replacing it with a new car and compensating me for solicitors fees. You have a statutory right to reject the vehicle and expect a replacement or full reimbursement. By law the supplier has one opportunity to fix the issues but if not successful you can reject it. The CRA 2015 has some differences for vehicles, in contrast to items such as TV’s etc.

Top tip: everything to be done in writing and if there is a phone call, follow up with an email to cover what was discussed.

This explains it further….

https://www.clerksroom.com/downloads/697-Consumer-Rights-for-Motorhome-Owners-and-Rejecting.pdf

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MontyB said:
Bought a new Pilote motorhome from SMC Newark just at the beginning of the last lock down and couldn't use it until may and found a lot of faults and issues with it after contacting SMC on a few occasions have just been fobbed off.
The motorhome was brand new with a two year warranty.
On two occasions i have had to rectify the faults myself the most severe being the electrics were constantly tripping out which when traced led to a connection that had been wrongly wired with the earth and neutral crossed i would have thought that a full electrical test would have been carried out prior to delivery.
Due to the amount of issues I am now finding I have lost all faith in SMC and Pilote.
Does anyone know what course of action I may be able to take to get these problem sorted.
Click to expand...
We bought a new Bailey Autograph august 20.Continental leisure Llanilli.We live 4 hours away.Loads of things wrong.Good job other half is good at fixing things.They wanted us to take it back & leave it for 3 months before they went in it due to Covid.I got in touch with bailey who advised to get jobs done under warranty at a local Bailey dealer.Nobody would fit us in.I rung 3 dealers who wil only deal with past customers.So guess what I’ve bitten the bullet and we are going to Llanilli in nov.They Will have a look & we will have to take it back when parts in.Which she said could take up to 6 months due to not getting hold of parts from bailey.She said she even had to drive to Bristol herself the other day to pick up parts (oh dear)
 
Lenny HB said:
The earth should never we swapped with live or neutral. Live and neutral swapped on a contental van would not be considered a problem as all contental supplies are double switched and they don't differentrate between live & neutral.
Click to expand...
 
After 20 years of almost trouble free second hand motorhomes of all shapes and sizes, we bought a brand new premium model from a main dealer as our ‘keeper’ into retirement. After two years (including the first lockdown) half of the total mileage was return trips to the dealer for remedial work, often with a car following to take me home/bring me back. Having run a business with many skilled tradesmen doing quality work, I find the total lack of quality at all levels from design, manufacturing and service lamentable. We have sold it and shall not replace it having discovered the benefits of hotels and a sports car.
 
Mike N said:
So sorry to learn of your problems, I can only imagine your frustration and disappointment. The many problems I have read about regarding new MH's lead me to purchase a lightly used, well cared for MH from a dealer with a good reputation. I know things price wise have changed lately but the MH I purchased was 18 months old, £7K less than new and had 3k miles on it. All the warranty work had been completed and it was prepared for sale beautifully. My view is let someone else sort the niggles, and just enjoy the MH without the agro. By the way the MH I purchased has performed faultlessly and nothing has dropped off, broken or leaked. Perhaps I have just got lucky....
Click to expand...
Out of interest which dealer did you buy from? Sounds like you had a good experience and we are Essex based as well. Recent visits to dealers a distance away have left a less than pleasant taste and we are leaning more towards buying older, forget manufacturers warranty if we buy 2016/17 and avoid being tied to one dealer for repairs.
 
CarlandMandy said:
Out of interest which dealer did you buy from? Sounds like you had a good experience and we are Essex based as well. Recent visits to dealers a distance away have left a less than pleasant taste and we are leaning more towards buying older, forget manufacturers warranty if we buy 2016/17 and avoid being tied to one dealer for repairs.
Click to expand...
TC Motorhomes in Herne Bay, Kent. My experience was first rate. I am not sure how much second hand stock they have, I was down there a few months back for a service and Hab check and they only had a few second hand MH's in stock. They are a main dealer for Chausson. If a decent trade in lands they market it on their forecourt. I simply cannot believe how many problems new MH's seem to have. I am so glad my nearly new MH has been a good one.... A little tip, Les Bateman Motors in Southend are a decent little find for running repairs and general maintenance and MOT's. Bit old school but do a decent job and trustworthy.

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