Unregistered 2017 Ducato should I be worried?

Stealaway

Stealaway

Free Member
Joined
Jan 8, 2013
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Location
Dronfield - Derbyshire
Funster No
24,202
MH
Burstner Lyseo 690G
Exp
Happy FLT since 2011
I've been checking up any recalls from Fiat for my new Burstner vans VIN number. Im supprised to see it's coming up as being built in 2017. Is this normal for a German MoHo? Is very old stock and been stood on a forecourt for years. Should I be worried about 3 year old tyres? 3 year old batteries and oil? 3 year old cam belt?
 
Yes.
Well I would be,until such time as proof provided of different age.
 
Our first Hymer merc chassis was built 2005, Hymer bit 2006 and we bought in 2007

Difference is to your situation is it was advertised by the German dealer as old stock and greatly reduced price, we never had a minutes trouble with any aspect of the van
 
Sorry unable to help with some of the questions but we can confirm that our Motorhome was built on a 2017 Fiat cab and chassis and since taking delivery back then we have received two safety recall letters and had to book our Motorhome into a Fiat dealer twice for checks / modifications to be carried out. I don’t have the recall paperwork to hand at the moment but happy to upload if of help to you.
 
Before buying ours which we have taken delivery of two weeks ago and also after reading Minxy Girls post on how old some of these Motorhomes are before sale I asked the selling dealer to see the certificate of conformity which I think shows the build date. Or at least the date build was completed.
our supplying dealer ordered this van in October 2018, build was March/April 2019 and delivered to the dealer around July 2019. That is some lead time....one year from order to sale. I think not many are aware how long these things take, mind you I would think factory order confirmed sales would probably jump the build slot compared to an unsold unit?
In view of this I have extended my Fiat warranty to the full 5 years but it’s all a bit annoying if you realise how old your actual new purchase is. I did get caught out on a car thinking it was new only to find it was actually 18 months old. Been sitting in a holding car park for some time....
 
By the way, having initiated the extended warranty this week I’ve also found out there’s a recall on the brake line fixings that need checking by Fiat. That’s going in as soon as I can.

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Our Burstner chassis was built May 2018, body completed Aug 18. We bought it in Sept 18 and collected it Oct 18.
When we we’re looking for vans we noticed one dealer in Norfolk had 2017 Burstner vans in mid 2018 and were being sold as unregistered but old stock.
Sounds like you’d has been sitting around a lot, and yes, I would be worried about the tyres, have you checked the date codes on them? If they are 3 years old, they are about half way through their life.
 
BishBosh said:
By the way, having initiated the extended warranty this week I’ve also found out there’s a recall on the brake line fixings that need checking by Fiat. That’s going in as soon as I can.
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We had ours checked a couple of weeks back, very quick. I think it is a fixing clamp on the bulkhead to the right of the master cylinder that stops the two brake lines from rubbing against each other.
 
DaveandJen said:
Sorry unable to help with some of the questions but we can confirm that our Motorhome was built on a 2017 Fiat cab and chassis and since taking delivery back then we have received two safety recall letters and had to book our Motorhome into a Fiat dealer twice for checks / modifications to be carried out. I don’t have the recall paperwork to hand at the moment but happy to upload if of help to you.
Click to expand...

I've found the first Fiat safety recall letter regarding our 2017 Fiat cab and chassis that our MH was built on and posted below should it be helpful.

I'll post the second one when I can find it.


Page1.jpgPage2.jpgPage3.jpg
 
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As previously planned before all this kicked off. I'll be calling at the Burstner factory reception center tomorrow. Hopefully they will be able to supply a copy of the comformaty certificate for this chassis number.
 
soreeyes said:
The Vin number will give the build year . 10th digit .

en.m.wikipedia.org

Vehicle identification number - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org en.m.wikipedia.org
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Not on the Ducato it won't. Whilst some European VINs contain a model year either explicit or coded, you can see from the article you quoted that it is only mandated in North America. The 10th digit in a current Ducato VIN is normally zero whatever year it was built.
 
Deneb said:
Not on the Ducato it won't. Whilst some European VINs contain a model year either explicit or coded, you can see from the article you quoted that it is only mandated in North America. The 10th digit in a current Ducato VIN is normally zero whatever year it was built.
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Ah, you 'nipped in' whilst I was typing! :giggle:
 
Minxy Girl said:
This give the year of build, at least it does for our new MH:

Fiat DUCATO VIN Decoder - Lookup and check Fiat DUCATO VIN number and get options and specs for free

Fiat DUCATO VIN decoder - Lookup and check Fiat DUCATO VIN number and get options and specs for free
www.vindecoderz.com www.vindecoderz.com

However it gets our 2 previous ones totally wrong by a LOT of years!
Click to expand...

Just coincidence. There is no way to determine the year of build from a Ducato VIN, or most other Fiats manufactured for the European market in fact, without explicit reference to factory records.

According to my books the only Fiats with year of build encoded in the VIN are the Sedici and the Freemont (because they are manufactured by Suzuki and Chrysler USA respectively, and conform to the formats used in those factories).

It used to be possible to obtain a summarised build sheet by entering the VIN on Fiat's MyDucato website after registering as the vehicle owner, but I think they removed the facility a couple of years ago.

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After the ZFA which seems to indicate it's Fiat the 250000 seems to indicate the model probably Ducato. Mine is followed by 02H which means H is the 8th letter of the alphabet so it's 2018 build. I think??. I'm told by Burstner that this MoHo was built in October 2018. Still over a year old but not unusual for stock MoHo's
 
Stealaway said:
As previously planned before all this kicked off. I'll be calling at the Burstner factory reception center tomorrow. Hopefully they will be able to supply a copy of the comformaty certificate for this chassis number.
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Why haven't you got the Certificates of Conformity?
You should have 3, Fiat, Al-Ko & Bunrstner each one will give the build date. You should have given them at the handover. I'm wondering if the dealer has deliberately held them back.

All 3 Hymer's we have had been completed in 3 months of Fiat build. Current one is Fiat Nov 16, Al-Ko Dec 16, Hymer Feb 17 & we took delivery Mar 17.
 
Stealaway said:
After the ZFA which seems to indicate it's Fiat the 250000 seems to indicate the model probably Ducato. Mine is followed by 02H which means H is the 8th letter of the alphabet so it's 2018 build. I think??. I'm told by Burstner that this MoHo was built in October 2018. Still over a year old but not unusual for stock MoHo's
Click to expand...

ZFA = Fiat
250 = Ducato (2006 on)
0000 = filler characters, no meaning. On some Fiats these are used to denote body variant, engine and gearbox type respectively, but not used on the Ducato.
2Hnnnnn = sequential serial number. The H has no other significance. Serial numbers beginning with 2B, 2C and 2D were used in 2016. The VIN musty be unique to a single vehicle within a period of 30 years. Eight numeric characters limit the number of permutations so letters have more recently been included in the sequential numbering.
 
I though they had to conform to ISO 3779 ?
 
I've not finalised the sale yet Lenny HB . I've been trying to confirm what I was buying. Plus we had a month trip planned for this month. They are waiting until we get back on the 11th November. I've already had run in with them for fitting the TV aerial where I couldn't reach it and it couldn't be lowered. Clowns ??I need to see how successfully they have repaired the hole in roof, in the wrong place.

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soreeyes said:
I though they had to conform to ISO 3779 ?
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They do, but the standard doesn't require the year of manufacture to be present. It states that if a manufacturer chooses to include that information in their VIN, it is recommended that they use the first character of the third (vehicle indicator) section for that purpose (i.e. the 10th digit) and also specifies the range of characters recommended to be used.

In North America, the requirements of the ISO are further qualified by NHTSA requirements which mandate the check digit and year of manufacture.

In the rest of the world, check digits are rarely used and year of manufacture is optional and not used by many manufacturers. Some, like Ford use two digits to represent the year and month of manufacture, which also ignores the ISO recommendation because the position of the character used to denote the month of build is suggested by the ISO to be used to denote the manufacturing plant should the manufacturer choose to include it.
 
Stealaway said:
I've not finalised the sale yet Lenny HB . I've been trying to confirm what I was buying. Plus we had a month trip planned for this month. They are waiting until we get back on the 11th November. I've already had run in with them for fitting the TV aerial where I couldn't reach it and it couldn't be lowered. Clowns ??I need to see how successfully they have repaired the hole in roof, in the wrong place.
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Sound like a bunch of cowboys. I hope they haven't done what a lot of UK Hymer dealers do, flog you A TV aerial and fit when Hymer's have one built in as standard but the dealers don't know about it.

Why not ask them to email copies of the C of C's
 
It can wait until we are back. I've not finalised the deal yet.
Aerial was free but some numpty had fitted it at the back of a cupboard above the fridge and couldn't be lowered because it hit the fridge top.
I can see an even bigger discount on the horizon.
 
BishBosh said:
Before buying ours which we have taken delivery of two weeks ago and also after reading Minxy Girls post on how old some of these Motorhomes are before sale I asked the selling dealer to see the certificate of conformity which I think shows the build date. Or at least the date build was completed.
Click to expand...
I'm pleased that your 'check' proved to be okay.
Stealaway said:
I've been checking up any recalls from Fiat for my new Burstner vans VIN number. Im supprised to see it's coming up as being built in 2017. Is this normal for a German MoHo? Is very old stock and been stood on a forecourt for years. Should I be worried about 3 year old tyres? 3 year old batteries and oil? 3 year old cam belt?
Click to expand...
As per BishBosh's comments above, I found out that the first Carthago we were looking to buy was actually completely nearly 2 years ago according to the COC, not sure exactly when the base part had been built but obviously before that, which is why we walked away from it. The one we did buy is a 2019 model and was completed towards the end of 2018, so approx a year old.

No one has answered your question about the cam belt which is something that concerned us about the original Carthago, especially being an A-class I don't think it wouldn't be cheap to change but I've never had this done on a MH so no idea what's involved.

At the very least it will need a full service and the tyres may, or may not, be okay depending on how long its been stood in one place (flat spots, cracking etc). As for the batteries - new ones would be needed without question.

If it was me in your position I'd RUN away, not walk, no way would I buy a 3 year old 'new' MH unless it was around the same price as a used one of the same age. With what the dealer has done regarding the aerial though I'd be extremely wary ... if they can mess that up what else have they/will they mess up?
 
Minxy Girl said:
I'm pleased that your 'check' proved to be okay.

As per BishBosh's comments above, I found out that the first Carthago we were looking to buy was actually completely nearly 2 years ago according to the COC, not sure exactly when the base part had been built but obviously before that, which is why we walked away from it. The one we did buy is a 2019 model and was completed towards the end of 2018, so approx a year old.

No one has answered your question about the cam belt which is something that concerned us about the original Carthago, especially being an A-class I don't think it wouldn't be cheap to change but I've never had this done on a MH so no idea what's involved.

At the very least it will need a full service and the tyres may, or may not, be okay depending on how long its been stood in one place (flat spots, cracking etc). As for the batteries - new ones would be needed without question.

If it was me in your position I'd RUN away, not walk, no way would I buy a 3 year old 'new' MH unless it was around the same price as a used one of the same age. With what the dealer has done regarding the aerial though I'd be extremely wary ... if they can mess that up what else have they/will they mess up?
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Can only agree with Minxy Girl, very sensible response, I bought a new 2019 registered van with full disclosure from the dealer that it was on a 2017 Ducato. Additional pdi from Fiat Professional and price negotiated as if it was a second hand van albeit no mileage plus the expected discount for agreeing to buy a van that had running gear two years old and had been hanging around. 5 months old now (or since registration) and 6500 miles later only issue was leisure battery cooked, replaced with full dealer back up, once again pointed out by Minxy above. Personally wasn't worried about cam belt, and no issue with Continental CP tyres which I thoroughly checked over, however, ensured dealer had had any recalls sorted before collection. Point I am trying to make is that so long as the deal is right and you check the obvious I wouldn't be worried that it was on a 2017 base.

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