andrew.halls2309gma Posted October 22, 2020 Share Posted October 22, 2020 Hi Wonder if anybody can help me in the search for a replacement over-cab skylight for my 2008 Lunar Champ/Premier H592 (I've put Champ/Premier as my instruction book is for a Champ but models earlier than mine appear to be called Premier... confusing, but it is definitely a H592 body) It is the skylight which is positioned above the front cab seats, the original skylight bonding failed whilst driving down the motorway and the skylight just blew off, by the time I had pulled over and returned to see if anything was salvageable about 25-30 cars had driven over it so there wasn't much left. The photos show before and what I have now. The repair garage have contacted everybody in the country they can think of, including breakers and even abroad in an attempt to locate one but with no joy - even O'Leary's was a dead end! They have even looked at other caravan/motorhome makes to see if any have a similar skylight but those that do, are not the right size or shape. The problem is it is a unusual shape as it tapers from bottom to top, and is curved from front to back and from side to side. It would be quite easy to get one made if there was a mould available but there doesn't appear to be anybody with one. It has been suggested to get a solid panel shaped to fit as this appears to be what has been used on some other models, but this would look a bit odd both from outside but particularly from the inside as there is an skylight opening and a blind So I was hoping that somebody out there has been in a similar situation and if they managed to either replace the skylight or to come up with a solution to resolve the problem, they can let me know. Many thanks in advance Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted October 22, 2020 Share Posted October 22, 2020 Can you find a similar model for sale nearby, and look for a makers name and model number on the rooflight itself? Failing that, if you can find one for sale elsewhere, might you be able to contact the seller to see if they would be prepared to look for identifying information on the rooflight and let you have it? Just a photo should do it. You could then contact the manufacturer to see if they still have the patterns to produce a replacement (or even stock). Polyplastic and Dometic are both possibles, though there are bound to be others. If it's Polyplastic, you may get lucky as Dometic seem not to welcome contact from their "end users" these days - though you may get lucky even with them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Den Posted October 22, 2020 Share Posted October 22, 2020 Does your Mh insurance cover it under windscreen cover The side window on my LeVoyageur was covered and all I paid was £60. The bill was huge. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted October 23, 2020 Share Posted October 23, 2020 Welcome to the Out&AboutLive forums, Andrew. Your motorhome is not a Lunar “Champ”, it is a Lunar “Premier”. In fact, it’s a re-badged Home-Car PR592, built in Belgium in right-hand-drive format with a UK-norm layout (eg. habitation-area entrance door on left) for sale here through Lunar dealerships. Lunar in the UK had been owned by a Belgium company “Tyrus" (that also owned the “Home-Car” brand) until 2007/2008 when there was a Lunar management buy-out. Besides RHD Belgium-built Lunar models, Belgium-built RHD Home-Car models were also marketed in the UK for a while. Attached below are two photos, with the 1st showing a RHD Lunar Premier H592 and the 2nd a LHD Home-Car PR592, and the similarity will be plain. The over-cab skylight is apparent in both photos. In the UK the Lunar company does not build motorhomes any more (and they never built the Premier H or Home-Car PR models in any case) and Home-Car itself no longer exists. So there’s no spare-parts support for these motorhomes. All the Lunar Premier and Home-Car PR models seem to have the over-cab skylight, but - as your repair garage has found - the chances of finding a replacement window are pretty slim. As Brian says, if you can identify the maker of the skylight you might get lucky. Otherwise you might try this company to see if they can manufacture a bespoke window. https://eeco-ltd.co.uk/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrew.halls2309gma Posted October 23, 2020 Author Share Posted October 23, 2020 Hi Brian Thanks for the suggestion, that's a possibility we haven't explored yet, will start looking in the for sale sections. Hi Den My van is at the insurance repairers and they are having no luck finding a replacement hence the message in this forum. Hi Derek The instruction manual for my van is for a Champ and it has a Champ decal on the back. It's a 2008 model which I think was the last year of manufacture, I have seen earlier models labelled Premier but mine is definitely called Champ but it does have the H592 body. EECO don't do rooflights/skylights only windows and need an existing window to make a mould from, as do most replacement window people we have spoken too. Between the garage and myself we have spoken to over 50 possible suppliers incl the obvious one like O'Learys and E S Hartley, to breakers and even other motorhome/caravan makes with similar skylights all with no luck, Brian's suggestion is one route we hadn't thought of, so will give it a go. Thanks to all for the responses Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lancepar Posted October 23, 2020 Share Posted October 23, 2020 andrew.halls2309@gma - 2020-10-22 9:18 AM The repair garage have contacted everybody in the country they can think of, including breakers and even abroad in an attempt to locate one but with no joy - even O'Leary's was a dead end! They have even looked at other caravan/motorhome makes to see if any have a similar skylight but those that do, are not the right size or shape. Have they tried..... https://www.caravanrepaircentre.net/ Only place apart from having one made that came up trumps for me when I needed a replacement for our MoHo. They had a new unit and it was cheap. HTH. B-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted October 23, 2020 Share Posted October 23, 2020 I've had a look at mobile.de and there are no used coachbuilt Home Car motorhomes for sale at all, which is very unusual. There seem to be a few for sale in UK under the "Premier/Champ H592" description, so you may get lucky for a maker/part number if someone is feeling helpful. Final "wild card": Home Car was a Belgian firm, and Polyplastic is a well known manufacturer of plastic "caravan" windows based in Rotterdam. They have an excellent English language website. So, might it be worth contacting them direct (there is an e-mail link on the website) to ask if they might have supplied Home Car, as they are the "boys next door"? Given that Home Car was a mainland based manufacturer it seems there will be quite a few Home Car PR592s around Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Germany - and I even caught one that had now been sold in Sweden! De-bonding over cab rooflights are not unknown - our 2007 Hobby Van suffered similar - though I spotted the resulting leak before the rooflight took off - and I know that was not an isolated instance, so it seems other will be a number of others across the ditch with similar problems. That may be enough for the manufacturer to have maintained at least the moulds, so that one-offs could be produced to order - doubtless at a price!! Otherwise, it seems a carefully trimmed (internally) and insulated GRP infill piece would be the only economical work-around. Better that, than write off the van for want of a rooflight. Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted October 23, 2020 Share Posted October 23, 2020 andrew.halls2309@gma - 2020-10-23 10:13 AM Hi Derek The instruction manual for my van is for a Champ and it has a Champ decal on the back. It's a 2008 model which I think was the last year of manufacture, I have seen earlier models labelled Premier but mine is definitely called Champ but it does have the H592 body. When Lunar-branded RHD Home-Car motorhomes were marketed in the UK the model number matched that of LHD equivalents marketed in Continental Europe, with a letter prefix (H or A) indicatiing whether the design was ‘low profile’ or ‘luton bodied’. Most Champs sold in the UK were Fiat Ducato-based (eg. H590 or A670). A few Renault Master-based low-profile designs also came in carrying a “Premier” decal, with these equating to Home-Car models with a “PR” letter prefix. Looking at on-line videos/images suggests that the Lunar Premier models did not normally have “Champ” decals, just the “Premier” name - but I can well believe there might be variations as the Home-Car parent was in major financial difficulties in 2008 and this might well have affected production . This Buyers Guide entry https://www.outandaboutlive.co.uk/motorhomes/buyers-guide/motorhomes/details/h592/198 refers to a 2009 model-year Lunar Premier H592 and makes no mention of the “Champ” name, but I’ve seen a 2007 version advertised as a Lunar Champ H592. It probably doesn’t matter what the UK RHD model is called (Premier H592 or Champ H592) but, if the search for a new skylight extends outside the UK, the Home-Car vehicles will be “PR” models and won’t carry a Champ or a Premier name. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyishuk Posted October 23, 2020 Share Posted October 23, 2020 Might be worth investigating acrylic moulding companies that make light weight windows for cars. There do seem to be several about in the UK. Slightly off topic, in NZ it is quite common to have rear windows formed in acrylic after breakage of the original. Took my son's Mazda 8 people carrier rear screen 2 days to be measured, made and fitted. Rgds Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ColinM50 Posted October 23, 2020 Share Posted October 23, 2020 Would it not be possible to fit a different roof light and trim the roof to fit? My Magnum has a similar looking roof light and I'm sure with a bit on ingenuity a similar one could be made to fit. Roof lights fitted to Eldiss, Bailey and Swift caravans and m/h's won't be unique to each manufacturer, they'll buy them from the roof light manufacturer. I'd be tempted to pop into a local dealer armed with a camera and a tape measure and have a look/chat with the technicians. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted October 24, 2020 Share Posted October 24, 2020 andrew.halls2309@gma - 2020-10-22 9:18 AM ...It is the skylight which is positioned above the front cab seats, the original skylight bonding failed whilst driving down the motorway and the skylight just blew off, by the time I had pulled over and returned to see if anything was salvageable about 25-30 cars had driven over it so there wasn't much left. The photos show before and what I have now... As you’ve mentioned having photos that show the damage but you haven’t provided them, I’m guessing you have fallen foul of this forum’s file size limitation of a 100KB maximum. If that’s the case and you email the photos to me at this address (deleted) I’ll attempt to put them on the forum for you. (I’ve added some images below (relating to a UK-specification 2006 Home-Car “PR" model not a Lunar Premium equivalent). These suggest that the over-cab window is fixed rather than openable and indicate what a challenging task it would be to install any sort of alternative so that the end result would be acceptable.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrew.halls2309gma Posted October 27, 2020 Author Share Posted October 27, 2020 Hi all Thanks for all the suggestions. After nearly 6 weeks of searching and just starting to go down the "try and find one for sale and get a part code" route, a company we had contacted early on, Caravan Crazy in Kidderminster, contacted both my garage and myself to say they had sourced one in Europe but didn't say where and to be honest I was so excited/relieved I never thought to ask. Came in at £780 supply only so plus shipping plus fitting plus VAT, but the insurance will cover most of that Just got to wait for the 10-14 days delivery period and fitting and then hopefully will be back on the road late Nov (Covid permitting!!!!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted October 27, 2020 Share Posted October 27, 2020 Excellent... In due course, if you can find out where Caravan Crazy managed to source a replacement skylight from and who the manufacturer of the skylight was, it might be useful information to have in the unlikely event that the problem happens to someone else in future. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andrew.halls2309gma Posted November 16, 2020 Author Share Posted November 16, 2020 Derek Uzzell - 2020-10-27 5:59 PM Excellent... In due course, if you can find out where Caravan Crazy managed to source a replacement skylight from and who the manufacturer of the skylight was, it might be useful information to have in the unlikely event that the problem happens to someone else in future. Hi Derek Finally got van back just in time for latest lockdown. I did ask Caravan Crazy about the supplier of the skylight but they were not too forthcoming and simply said it was from a contact in Belgium, which i suppose makes sense as that is where Lunar/Homecar were based Just for your records here are a couple of photos which show my van (complete with new skylight) as a H592 with the Champ logo on the back Thanks Andy Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted November 16, 2020 Share Posted November 16, 2020 Thanks for the update. Regarding ‘naming’, there seems to have been a decal revision around 2006/2007 - there’s a 2006 H592 advert here but even after the revision the decals on the rear body-panel vary, with some H592s still having “Lunar” at the top left corner and others having “Champ” there. Perhaps the Belgian Home-Car factory put on what they had handy, or there was a decision to call all the motorhomes built for the UK market “Champs”. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rayc Posted November 16, 2020 Share Posted November 16, 2020 My very first MH was a 2006 Lunar Premier 592. It got me hooked and as they say the rest is history. Mine was definitely not a Champ. I only kept it a year or so as I no longer wanted the French bed layout but I enjoyed it whilst I had it including the Renault Master with the robotic Quick Shift 6 gearbox. I looked up my records and see that in April 2008 at 2 years old I paid £25,498. I think they are still being sold by dealers at not much less now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Uzzell Posted November 17, 2020 Share Posted November 17, 2020 Some fairly recent adverts for Lunar “Premier” motorhomes here https://www.newsnow.co.uk/classifieds/caravans-camper-vans/lunar-premier.html including one for a 2007 “lunar champ premiere H592” at £24.990 In 2007 the UK list-price for a Lunar Premier H592 was £30,725 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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