And so it came to pass, that I decided that one of my missions whilst in Jockland, was to speak to other MH owners about their vans. I chose those with rather new stuff, because I wanted to see if they were happy with what they had purchased for about 40K +.
Result.........Anger, apathy and disgust.
I was really shocked. Over two weeks I must have spoken to about twenty owners, just in chat, you understand. I couldn't believe what they were saying. Supplied mattress on a new Bailey that had absorbed water like a sponge......until it was so heavy three guys had to carry it out. (this by the way was water in the air!) Another Bailey that refused to take on fresh water unless the habitation computer was re-programmed every time....Same vehicle with shower hot pipe never connected, result, flood. Two year old Bolero on it's second fuel injector rail, (both the others had holed on the high pressure side, spraying diesel down the motorway). Two year old Swift with luton front facing window, never sealed at the bottom, so that driving through puddles allowed spray to enter and drip down into the cockpit. Second hand, (and just purchased) Rapido....Their first trip away. Techtronic gearbox decided to play it's own version of 'Flight of the Bumble bee', selecting up and down several gears in seconds. Same van, water dump lever stuck in 'DUMP', with no way of closing it. Broken toilet seat, (not spotted until it was sat on). Strangely, this guy was pretty cool about things.
And so, the common denominator seemed to be.....Little or no quality control on the new vans, lack of a decent PDI on the second hand ones, but mostly the complaints seemed to rotate around this: 'No one to get in contact with, no one wants to know after you have coughed up the cash, and when you finally get through to someone from CUSTOMER CARE, no answers to your problems'.
The above is just a taster of what I was told. Doesn't make you really want to buy new, in fact, we drove onto one site in our 21 year old Hymer feeling like tramps, and drove off three days later feeling proud of our old truck.
Result.........Anger, apathy and disgust.
I was really shocked. Over two weeks I must have spoken to about twenty owners, just in chat, you understand. I couldn't believe what they were saying. Supplied mattress on a new Bailey that had absorbed water like a sponge......until it was so heavy three guys had to carry it out. (this by the way was water in the air!) Another Bailey that refused to take on fresh water unless the habitation computer was re-programmed every time....Same vehicle with shower hot pipe never connected, result, flood. Two year old Bolero on it's second fuel injector rail, (both the others had holed on the high pressure side, spraying diesel down the motorway). Two year old Swift with luton front facing window, never sealed at the bottom, so that driving through puddles allowed spray to enter and drip down into the cockpit. Second hand, (and just purchased) Rapido....Their first trip away. Techtronic gearbox decided to play it's own version of 'Flight of the Bumble bee', selecting up and down several gears in seconds. Same van, water dump lever stuck in 'DUMP', with no way of closing it. Broken toilet seat, (not spotted until it was sat on). Strangely, this guy was pretty cool about things.
And so, the common denominator seemed to be.....Little or no quality control on the new vans, lack of a decent PDI on the second hand ones, but mostly the complaints seemed to rotate around this: 'No one to get in contact with, no one wants to know after you have coughed up the cash, and when you finally get through to someone from CUSTOMER CARE, no answers to your problems'.
The above is just a taster of what I was told. Doesn't make you really want to buy new, in fact, we drove onto one site in our 21 year old Hymer feeling like tramps, and drove off three days later feeling proud of our old truck.