Hello From The East Coast of Scotland (1 Viewer)

D

dxwalker

Deleted User
Hello all,

Came across this website and thought it would be a good idea to get to know the people who obviously enjoy motorhoming. My Wife and I are new to this and bought our Swift Bolero 680FB in March of this year so that we could travel to some of the places we'd flown across but had never had an opportunity to see.

In late April we flew down to Newcastle from Aberdeen to collect our motorhome from Brownhills of Newark and were delighted with the smooth handover. From here we travelled back home and got used to the Fiat's driving characteristics, we also managed to find out what rattled and managed to resolve most of these by the placement of some non slip padding.

A week or so later my Wife's Brother was celebrating his 50th birthday in their home village of Bettyhill in the far north of Scotland, we decided that this would be an ideal run out for the Bolero and with little thought to what we needed for the weekend, we headed off.

The trip north was going well until we stopped for a cup of coffee and realised that the gas bottle my Wife had collected from our local Homebase was not suitable for our gas fitting, a quick nip into a caravan dealer resolved this and off we went. Our first stop was to be Thurso to collect my Wife's Sister and to drop off a few items that we were asked to take up (a rocking chair, a double bed and some bedding), what else is a motorhome for but to double up as a transit van?

One Sister collected an we are on our way again, but after about 5 miles or so there's an almighty bang and it's obvious that we've had a blow out. No real drama and I manage to pull off the single track road into a passing place. The nearside rear tyre is shredded, cause unknown, so I start to look for the spare and soon realise that the Bolero is not fitted with a spare wheel. It does have a bottle of foam and a small compressor, but this will not solve my problem.

The next few hours are hectic, one Sister-In-Law on the phone trying to track down a tyre dealer in Thurso on a Saturday afternoon, my Wife moaning about why there is no spare and me searching for a toolkit to remove the wheel. To cut this part short, we managed to get someone out of the local pub who had a tyre of roughly the right size who came out and replaced the tyre for £128, very reasonable I thought given our remote location.

The rest of our journey went smoothly, arrived at Bettyhill and as my Wife was formally a local, we were allowed a pitch and electric hook up at no cost. That night we went to the local hotel and enjoyed a nice meal with some family members to celebrate the birthday boy's day.

We had no further drama's that weekend and arrived back home in one piece, one dirty motorhome was put to bed in a local Farmers barn and we headed home.

Our 2008 holiday plans were made in late April and involved a trip through the UK to visit friends we had not seen for sometime and then into Europe with the first real stopping place being Lake Geneva. The ferry was booked for August 26th, this gave us a week to make our way from Scotland via Liverpool and Middlesex to see some people.

My plan from here was to do some reasearch of the caravan sites enroute and to check out the local attractions, but with all the best intentions this was not to be.

In early May I was at work and managed to fall down a hole and twist my left knee so severely that I have to have an operations on it to determine what damage I have done, my op is planned for August 21st, no thanks to the NHS and their advising the physio would fix me up in no time.

Our holiday plans were doomed an we had to revert to going on a Med cruise. The holiday was good, but it was not what we had planned and has now left us with a motorhome with under 1000 miles on the clock sitting in a barn. I have attempted to talk to Brownhills with regards to our making a change to an auto gearbox version of the same motorhome but could not justify the £9500 price to change from our present manual Bolero.

Where we go from here is anyone's guess, my Consultant has indicated that I'm looking a 4-5 months of rehab, assuming all the damage to my knee is easily corrected. I would still like to look at the option of an auto box version of my Bolero and realise that I will have to handover some cash to do this, but will need to find a dealer or person who can do this for £5k.

If anyone out there has or knows of someone that would be prepared to do the swap, I'd be very happy to talk to them.
 

Wildman

Free Member
May 30, 2008
0
8,470
Ilfracombe, Devon
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2,913
MH
Amazon Ambassador
Exp
since 1967
Welcome to the site, sorry to hear of your problems, won't Brownhills help you out, they need to start earning a few brownie points with their customers.

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Feb 3, 2008
162
25
Highworth
Funster No
1,410
MH
A class
Exp
since 85
Hi sorry to hear of your problems.
You could try TB Turbo (in Lancaster I think).
They fitted an auto clutch to a disabled friends M/H which gave him manual change but no clutch.I drove it a couple of times and it seemed to work great.Don't know the cost but it might be another option for you.
Cheers
Pete
 
OP
OP
D

dxwalker

Deleted User
Hi sorry to hear of your problems.
You could try TB Turbo (in Lancaster I think).
They fitted an auto clutch to a disabled friends M/H which gave him manual change but no clutch.I drove it a couple of times and it seemed to work great.Don't know the cost but it might be another option for you.
Cheers
Pete

Pete,

This is another option I can look into after my operation. Hopefully all will go well and I can start to drive using a clutch. My Wife has already made me get rid of my
M3 with the SMG gearbox (too fast she say's) and now I'm stuck in an X5 for the duration.
 

Road Runner

Free Member
Jul 26, 2007
1,143
1,445
Europe
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16
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yes
Exp
Since before Motorhomefun
Welcome to Fun:thumb:

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C

Caravanning

Deleted User
Hello all,

In early May I was at work and managed to fall down a hole and twist my left knee so severely that I have to have an operations on it to determine what damage I have done, my op is planned for August 21st, no thanks to the NHS and their advising the physio would fix me up in no time.

Where we go from here is anyone's guess, my Consultant has indicated that I'm looking a 4-5 months of rehab, assuming all the damage to my knee is easily corrected. I would still like to look at the option of an auto box version of my Bolero and realise that I will have to handover some cash to do this, but will need to find a dealer or person who can do this for £5k....

Sorry to hear your news. In my 'real life' I am an Accident Investigator for a very large company. Drop me a line if you need any personal advice.
 

iain4702

Free Member
Sep 8, 2008
22
0
East Scotland
Funster No
3,983
MH
C Class
Exp
10
Bessacarr E560

Read you notes with interest as my wife and I have just changed motorhome to the E560 which I believe is similar to yours.We did not travel to continent this year but instead visited outerhebrides for two weeks.
How is your injured limb?
Regards Iain
 

RuthRv

Free Member
Jan 4, 2008
865
1
Funster No
1,125
welcome to the fun and the joys of motorhomng, good luck with your op, my other half has got to have both his knees replaced and also has been told his recovery will be four months, the withdrawal symptons of not being able to use the motorhome for that length of time will be awful,:cry: but we will have to grin and bear it to reap the benefits of two new knees, hope you are able to sort out your motorhome soon.:thumb:
ruth

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johna

Free Member
Sep 8, 2008
16
0
Funster No
3,990
Bettyhill

Strange old life, your letter took me back many years whilst o a camping holiday with my mam and dad and rest of the family, the axle broke on our camping trailer, we actually stopped in a static carvan in BettyHill, I remember my dad getting shaved in the peoples kitchen and the warm hospitality we were given, happy days. Thanks Johna.ws
Hello all,

Came across this website and thought it would be a good idea to get to know the people who obviously enjoy motorhoming. My Wife and I are new to this and bought our Swift Bolero 680FB in March of this year so that we could travel to some of the places we'd flown across but had never had an opportunity to see.

In late April we flew down to Newcastle from Aberdeen to collect our motorhome from Brownhills of Newark and were delighted with the smooth handover. From here we travelled back home and got used to the Fiat's driving characteristics, we also managed to find out what rattled and managed to resolve most of these by the placement of some non slip padding.

A week or so later my Wife's Brother was celebrating his 50th birthday in their home village of Bettyhill in the far north of Scotland, we decided that this would be an ideal run out for the Bolero and with little thought to what we needed for the weekend, we headed off.

The trip north was going well until we stopped for a cup of coffee and realised that the gas bottle my Wife had collected from our local Homebase was not suitable for our gas fitting, a quick nip into a caravan dealer resolved this and off we went. Our first stop was to be Thurso to collect my Wife's Sister and to drop off a few items that we were asked to take up (a rocking chair, a double bed and some bedding), what else is a motorhome for but to double up as a transit van?

One Sister collected an we are on our way again, but after about 5 miles or so there's an almighty bang and it's obvious that we've had a blow out. No real drama and I manage to pull off the single track road into a passing place. The nearside rear tyre is shredded, cause unknown, so I start to look for the spare and soon realise that the Bolero is not fitted with a spare wheel. It does have a bottle of foam and a small compressor, but this will not solve my problem.

The next few hours are hectic, one Sister-In-Law on the phone trying to track down a tyre dealer in Thurso on a Saturday afternoon, my Wife moaning about why there is no spare and me searching for a toolkit to remove the wheel. To cut this part short, we managed to get someone out of the local pub who had a tyre of roughly the right size who came out and replaced the tyre for £128, very reasonable I thought given our remote location.

The rest of our journey went smoothly, arrived at Bettyhill and as my Wife was formally a local, we were allowed a pitch and electric hook up at no cost. That night we went to the local hotel and enjoyed a nice meal with some family members to celebrate the birthday boy's day.

We had no further drama's that weekend and arrived back home in one piece, one dirty motorhome was put to bed in a local Farmers barn and we headed home.

Our 2008 holiday plans were made in late April and involved a trip through the UK to visit friends we had not seen for sometime and then into Europe with the first real stopping place being Lake Geneva. The ferry was booked for August 26th, this gave us a week to make our way from Scotland via Liverpool and Middlesex to see some people.

My plan from here was to do some reasearch of the caravan sites enroute and to check out the local attractions, but with all the best intentions this was not to be.

In early May I was at work and managed to fall down a hole and twist my left knee so severely that I have to have an operations on it to determine what damage I have done, my op is planned for August 21st, no thanks to the NHS and their advising the physio would fix me up in no time.

Our holiday plans were doomed an we had to revert to going on a Med cruise. The holiday was good, but it was not what we had planned and has now left us with a motorhome with under 1000 miles on the clock sitting in a barn. I have attempted to talk to Brownhills with regards to our making a change to an auto gearbox version of the same motorhome but could not justify the £9500 price to change from our present manual Bolero.

Where we go from here is anyone's guess, my Consultant has indicated that I'm looking a 4-5 months of rehab, assuming all the damage to my knee is easily corrected. I would still like to look at the option of an auto box version of my Bolero and realise that I will have to handover some cash to do this, but will need to find a dealer or person who can do this for £5k.

If anyone out there has or knows of someone that would be prepared to do the swap, I'd be very happy to talk to them.
 

Peter JohnsCross MH

Funster
Deceased RIP
Jan 5, 2008
9,617
6,194
East Sussex
Funster No
1,134
MH
Autotrail
Exp
1995
Hi Dx and welcome to FUN,

As to getting an auto, try giving Lawrence or Andy a call, dont promise anything but one never knows.

Autos are like hens teeth at the moment, but there may be a deal to be had somewhere.

Good luck with the knee.

Regards

Peter
 

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