hymerwoman Posted November 22, 2010 Share Posted November 22, 2010 Just posting this on behalf of a friend. Having looked at my camper and listening to me talking about my touring holidays she has decided to buy a van for herself, but she is a little apprehensive before making a decission. She has looked at 5 vans this last weekend ,these being autocruise star and autosleeper neveo. She likes them all but they are all based on the peugeot engine, ranging from 2008 to 2009 models,all less than 6000 miles having 2 owners. Would you be wary about buying considering the mileage and number of owners considering the gearbox fiasco with these vehicles over the last few years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted November 22, 2010 Share Posted November 22, 2010 Depends on how technically confident she is. If she feels able to assess the base vehicles by driving them, providing they drive OK, and have full service histories, preferably from Peugeot authorised service centres, at least one out of the five should be OK.However, there will, I suspect, be an underlying reason why these two year old vans have all had two owners, and have only travelled 3,000 miles on average with each. Maybe one of the registered owners is a dealer, in which case he may have used it as a demonstrator and sold it quite quickly at reduced price. It may, therefore, have stuck in his stock for some time before he did that, meaning the van itself is substantially older than its registration date. They may have unrealistically low payloads, which owners have discovered to their cost, making them more or less unusable.I would be suspicious of all, and even more so of any the dealer in question has not handled before. If any of them were sold new to the first owner, and again to the second, by the dealer who is now selling them, he should have all the relevant details, and should have carried out all/any warranty work and completed all habitation/water ingress checks, so can easily vouch that all warranties, base as well as conversion, are in place, valid, and fully up to date. If they are inexplicably cheap, and his answers are evasive, go sniffing for the dead rat! Previously flood damaged, for example? She should tread with great caution, but just may get a bargain.Ultimately, the proof of the pudding etc............. Oh yes, that, and caveat emptor! :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flicka Posted November 22, 2010 Share Posted November 22, 2010 I agree with Brian, but they might be cheap or a good discount obtainable, if the Dealer is looking to reduce his stock for the (s)low sales period & freeing up funds for influx of new 2011 models. If your friend is concerned regarding the "Fiat" problem, can you or another friend, who is mechanically minded check out if the gearbox mod has been fitted & give them a test drive. If still in doubt, tell the Dealer you would only be interested IF he has evidence that the work has been carried-out. Not sure which of the Autocruise "Star" range, she is looking at, but check Driving Licence, if the Starblazer & Starquest as both are on the 4005kg chassis. The Starfire is a similar layout to the Neuvo, but was not in the Autocruise 2009 range. Some other (UK) alternatives upto 6m long, with the AutoSleeper Neuvo / Autosleeper Starfire layout are:- Swift Sundance 530, Bessacarr E410, Swift Bolero 600EK & Autotrail Excel 590. (All on Fiat chassis.) AutoSleeper Neuvo, Autosleeper Starfire & Elddis Autoquest 115, are on the Peugeot badged version. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mel wood Posted November 22, 2010 Share Posted November 22, 2010 Hi Hymerwoman, I hope your friend gets a van and that she enjoys it. We considered a Nuevo and looked at 3 (admittedly older models). Build quality, especially on the upholstery was poor.We have talked to owners of 08 and 09 Nuevos and have not been reasssured. There seem to have been a number of problems, including water ingress through the rear. We bought a new 58 Auto-Sleepers Peugeot panel van and had many problems in the conversion, especially in the first 4 months. Most of these were satisfactorily sorted by the dealer under warranty. We thought that we had no 'reversing problems' until about 18 months and 18000 miles. When having to reverse uphill on rough ground we had clutch smell but no judder. Peugeot Customer care was very helpful and, within 3 days of being made aware, arranged for thorough modification by the local main dealer. I would recommend that your friend does indeed have a full test drive and asks whether any modification has been done. Paperwork should be available if modification has been done. Our Peugeot dealer provided us with a detailed typed account of what had been done. Peugeot warranty should be for 3 years. (A major service has to be carried out at 2 years.) Auto-Sleepers warranty is for 2 years. A good motorhome dealer will provide a warranty if the manufacturer's warranty has expired. Hope all goes well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pepe63xnotuse Posted November 23, 2010 Share Posted November 23, 2010 I'll just stick my oar in.. :$ Firstly,as long as everything checks out (history,finance etc),I wouldn't be overly suspicious of a MH with low(ish) mileage...there are many reasons why MH owners swap their vehicles earlier than you would expect(..to big/small, wrong layout,not using it enough etc etc *-) ).. On the AS side of things,as couple of years back whilst I was I was having some work done at their Willersey workshops,I got chatting with a couple of Nuevo owners,who were quite disgruntled due to water ingress in the 'vans(..'vans which were at that time,still pretty new!)... As for Peugeot,well we never really experiened any reverse problems with our previous 2007 2.2 5speed,(other than reverse being geared to high,to my mind). ..and from what I've read in the press and online,it appeared as though Peugeot acknowledged the reverse gear problems long before Fiat ever did. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
euroserv Posted November 23, 2010 Share Posted November 23, 2010 pepe63 - 2010-11-23 1:33 PM ..and from what I've read in the press and online,it appeared as though Peugeot acknowledged the reverse gear problems long before Fiat ever did. If by acknowledge you mean suggest a software update, followed by criticism of driving technique and finally throwing up their arms because they did not know what to do about it for 2 years, I guess they did more than Fiat. It was a collective mess, and caused much anguish for many owners. Be 100% sure that these vans are free of trouble before any manufacturer's warranty runs out (and make sure nothing has ocurred that could have invalidated the warranty - like a missed service), otherwise I would suggest you steer clear. Make no mistake; Peugeot, like Fiat, will not want to know once the vehicle has passed three years of age. You will be on your own. Nick Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pepe63xnotuse Posted November 23, 2010 Share Posted November 23, 2010 Well..I never said that Peugeot actually fixed anything.... (lol) (lol) So,where are they up to now with this malarky?...cured?..not cured?..are chassiss after a given date,okay?.... Off topic,sorry and I didn't want to de-rail a thread with this old chestnut :$ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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