Jump to content

Alpine satnav for Camper Vans


OttosMum

Recommended Posts

My husband, bless him read the review on this bit of technology, and decided he had to have one. The only sin of our very reliable Garmin was it wasn't built in, and sometimes fell off the dash.

48hrs before we set off for a 3 week holiday to France. It was installed. The plastic dash surrounding the speaker was cracked, but we were promised it would be repaired, and we wouldn't know it was broken!

That clearly hasn't happened......yet!

The local chap who fitted it, has not been very forthcoming in helping to sort this. I choose not to name and shame him...yet, as we still need him to sort this problem out, and fix the dash.

20 minutes into our journey to Folkestone and The Tunnel, the satnav came up with the message we should turn right immediately. As we were on an unauthorised route and didn't have a permit. We were on M3. The thing kept telling us to turn round, then lost signal, then went blank, then told us to turn round again. My patience was spent. It went on like this most of the holiday. It failed to come up with Campsites, it failed on everything. I am furious this piece of kit ( i would use another word) is not fit for purpose. Alpine have fobbed us off. Probably you have the truck version, help has not been forthcoming. Despite numerous promises to call back. They have failed. We are now awaiting something else to download. What a waste of a huge amount of money. Completely fed up, they take your money and hope you will go away. Absolutely no chance!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Unfortuneately it's appears to becoming a sign of the times we live in, but solutions are available.

Inform the vendor (that's who your contract is with) you consider it's not fit for purpose & depending on how long since purchase, require them to give you a full refund & not a replacement.

Check consumer rights website regarding applicable timescales.

Follow up with a letter, stating you require the refund within a timeframe, which if not met will result in a claim through small claims court.

All the relevant information is available via the Consumer Protection website or Trading Standards.

Sorry i can't add links, on my phone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wendy

 

I think the Alpine product you have is the one described here

 

https://www.alpine.co.uk/p/Products/SingleView/X902D-DU

 

I remember seeing it being exhibited at the last NEC leisure show. It has a LOT of features and - as you rightly say - is far from cheap (£1700 from UK ebay). There’s an installation video-clip here

 

 

The Alpine website advises "If your camper has a 2DIN radio or navigation installed, you can still upgrade to the X902D-DU, however a few additional parts are required”. I don’t know if that caveat would be relevant to your (Dethleffs Esprit?) motorhome, but, in any case, I’m doubtful that it would affect how the sat-nav part of the device behaves when issuing driving instructions, though a flawed installation might result in the loss of signal you mention.

 

It’s possible that the Alpine unit’s mapping and software both need to be updated and I’m guessing that this action is what’s being proposed when you say "We are now awaiting something else to download”.

 

Obviously the matter of the damaged speaker-surround needs addressing and that will either be the responsibility of your local fitter if he/she caused that damage, or of the unit’s vendor if the unit were supplied damaged.

 

As for the Alpine unit’s apparent inability to work effectively as a sat-nav, you’d probably be best to wait to see if the ‘download’ cures the present problems. If it does not, it will need to be decided whether the unit itself is faulty (when you’d need to target whoever sold it to you) or the installation is the culprit (when the fitter would be to blame). The Alpine unit certainly OUGHT to be capable of providing sensible and accurate driving instructions, and also identify campsites if that feature is included in the unit’s advertised specification.

 

(It would be best not to ‘name and shame’ the local fitter. It would not help your relationship with the fitter and the result would be that your identifying information would either be deleted from this discussion or the complete discussion would be removed from this forum.)

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not much help for Wendy I know, and I do sympathise with her predicament, but for many years we reliably navigated our way around Europe from Gibraltar to the Nordkapp without any problems using a mostly out of date bog standard cheap car Tom Tom sat nav, plus a decent road atlas for back up and longer distance planning, plus copious volumes of experience and common sense to avoid roads that Tom Tom thought were suitable and we did not agree, plus a few decent site and aires books.

Our Tom Tom does not have any fancy add ons but good sites and aires books not only have a site/aire description but also sat nav co-ordinates which were easily entered into the sat nav so we invariably drove straight to them - assuming I had entered the lat and long without error!

I sometimes think we make life difficult for ourselves in our attempts to make life easier and part of the holiday for us was always the day to day route planning which gave us a good insight as to the terrain and towns we would encounter. Subsequant changes of mind as the whim to explore often took us well away from the route we thought we would take, but always we found a way. We so often found tourist information offices a great source of info - if you could find them and park nearby that is!

None of which helps Wendy I know, but for the benefit of others, you do not need to spend a fortune to find your way around.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...