what would you suggest

[weldted]

For legal reasons type of van and dealer location not published as yet. New van ordered Oct 2011 collected 01/03/2012, dealer 300 miles from home, first used for holiday 05/04/2012, intended holiday duration 8 weeks Southern France, brief return to UK June then onto Sweden returned home early 18/05/2012. Fridge not room sealed if side of van with fridge facing the wind smells and headaches, oven kept either going out or smell of burning, toilet flush (Dometic Ceramic bowl type) so poor had to flush with shower hose to stop smells, these were the cause of returning home, other problems whilst not cause of early return, Microwave us never worked from new, holes in floor not sealed allowed rain/road spray to enter van when driving, bits of trim inside coming off etc etc. contacted maker for advice whilst away, poor response contacted suppling dealer told as I had contcted maker see how I got on. when buying van told local network of service agents would take care of and issues, having got knowhere sent letter to dealer stating if problems were not resolved shortly would reject van as not fit for purpose. Told bring it back to us we will sort it (leaving it with them) at my own expense this would entail wife following me 300 miles to dealer 300 back in car and same again to collect it. This is to fix a van that had as I understand it left the factory with these faults not something that had happened some time later, Local place is working very hard to fix problems has done some of them but waiting for parts, bearing in mind we came home 18th of May, still waiting for oven and toilet to be fixed, as we travel abroad a lot van not fit for this purpose until all problems sorted. :-(

[Brian Kirby]

First things first, Ted. It is the supplying dealer with whom you have your contract, and through that any legal rights of redress. You have no contract with the manufacturer, only his warranty, which is not legally enforceable in any practical sense: in effect it is just a promise to fix certain things, under certain circumstances. If the manufacturer fails to live up to his promises it is the dealer who carries the can. This can be tough on the dealer, but it is the way British consumer law works. So, it is the dealer on whom you have to concentrate your fire.

 

I assume the "local place" you refer to is a dealership who did not supply your van? You are lucky they are trying to progress your problems, because many will outright refuse to do this whatever the warranty says. They will be trying to secure repairs under the manufacturer's warranty but, as they (presumably) did not supply, you have no legal leverage against them, and they have no special duty to make your van a priority over those of their own customers. For that reason, cynic that it may make me, I would not expect them to make maximum efforts for promptitude.

 

Unfortunately, you have split your shot! You decided to buy from a dealer 300 miles from where you live. Those long awkward, expensive, journeys to return the van should it have faults were a foreseeable consequence when you made that decision. You have now used the warranty route, rather than the Sale of Goods etc Acts, route to redress, by going to A N Other, who is not performing as you wish. In so doing you have denied the supplying dealer the opportunity to demonstrate that he could have got it all fixed far quicker. In effect, I'm afraid, you have rather shot yourself in the legal foot.

 

Under the circumstances, I think it would be wise to first take some advice. Trading Standards or Citizens Advice would be a good start, because they will give free general guidance. I suspect that by now you will be deemed to have incontrovertibly accepted the van, and can no longer legally reject it. They will be able to advise on this. I think you probably need to contact again the supplying dealer, as your attempts to gain redress under warranty are not proving fruitful, but I have a feeling you will need to write a very specific letter to them to ensure you do not inadvertently prejudice your consumer rights on the one hand, or lead them to believe you are about to issue proceedings against them on the other. They should also be able to advise on this. Firm, but "softly softly", and with regret, I think.

 

In removing your van from where it presently is, and taking it to the supplying dealer you will, in effect, re-set the clock so far as the supplying dealer is concerned, and may cause delay and confusion over the supply of parts ordered by one dealer, but now to be delivered to another. It will probably help if the present dealer hands you the record of all outstanding parts orders to assist the changeover. You will need to gain and maintain the sympathy and support of the supplying dealer in doing this, so try to keep the frustration in check in writing to, and dealing with, them! :-) From what you say, they have not yet been given the opportunity to make amends, so the delays to date are, on the face of it, hardly their fault. However, unless the dealer who presently has the van (and by now probably rather wishes he hadn't!) can get much greater co-operation from the manufacturer, I think taking the van back to the supplier is your best option. You will need patience, because although you wrote to them once, that will be more or less the last they have heard of you or your van, and will be pretty much starting from scratch. Good luck.

[Derek Uzzell]

weldted - 2012-08-11 10:11 AM

 

For legal reasons type of van ..... not published as yet....

 

Just in case it has legal relevance for you, you did identify your motorhome's make and model in an earlier posting.

 

 

[weldted]

Thank you for your post Brian. It is the maker who has arranged the repairs not the dealer, and having dealt with the firm that is carring out the repairs I can assure you that they are working hard to sort it out. When buying the van I was told a network of agents would be able to address any problems without having to return to the suppling dealer otherwise we would not have bought it from them. this has not been the case and why should I have to drive 300 miles followed by my wife in the car to leave it with the suppling dealer for repair and repeat the trip to collect it when it left the factory defective. We gave it a shakedown trip before we left for France, and have been motorhoming for many years so are not novices.

The faults only became apparent during further use, i.e. when parking the van with the fridge side facing the wind only then did the fumes from the fridge enter the van, when driving in the mountains through snow did the hole in the floor that let the snow spray from the road enter the van, and when in the warm weather the chrome trims inside the peeled off, not the sort of things you find out parked on an english campsite.

[maggyd]

Im sorry to hear of your troubles wt, and its rather worrying to people like us that are travelling hundreds of miles looking for a new van :-S you certainly have given us food for thought!! I only wish we knew which vans to avoid as a lot out there that we have never heard of are looking very tempting especially the European ones that are more reasonably priced.

 

Good luck to you I hope your Van gets fixed to your satisfaction very soon.

[Tony Jones]

maggyd - 2012-08-12 11:27 AM

 

Im sorry to hear of your troubles wt, and its rather worrying to people like us that are travelling hundreds of miles looking for a new van :-S you certainly have given us food for thought!! I only wish we knew which vans to avoid as a lot out there that we have never heard of are looking very tempting especially the European ones that are more reasonably priced.

 

Good luck to you I hope your Van gets fixed to your satisfaction very soon.

 

It's not so much "which vans" Maggie, as a rule-of-thumb: "Only buy from somewhere you're happy to go back to for rectification/warranty work."

Unlike the car trade, and whatever MH manufacturers' warranties say, there really ISN'T a "network" of dealers to take on this responsbility, even for the well-known converters. So ALWAYS assume you'll need to go back to the selling dealer sometimes, and restrict your search accordingly.

[Brian Kirby]

weldted - 2012-08-12 10:30 AM

 

Thank you for your post Brian. It is the maker who has arranged the repairs not the dealer, and having dealt with the firm that is carring out the repairs I can assure you that they are working hard to sort it out. When buying the van I was told a network of agents would be able to address any problems without having to return to the suppling dealer otherwise we would not have bought it from them. this has not been the case and why should I have to drive 300 miles followed by my wife in the car to leave it with the suppling dealer for repair and repeat the trip to collect it when it left the factory defective. We gave it a shakedown trip before we left for France, and have been motorhoming for many years so are not novices.

The faults only became apparent during further use, i.e. when parking the van with the fridge side facing the wind only then did the fumes from the fridge enter the van, when driving in the mountains through snow did the hole in the floor that let the snow spray from the road enter the van, and when in the warm weather the chrome trims inside the peeled off, not the sort of things you find out parked on an english campsite.

Well, you seem to have made up your mind what to do, which is not to go back to the supplying dealer, which leaves me at a bit of a loss as to why you asked.

 

It seems you have already decided to put up with whatever rate of repairs the present dealer can achieve. All you can do beyond that, is endlessly badger the manufacturer's warranty department over why the repairs are so drawn out.

 

You asked why you should have to do otherwise, and I think the answer is fairly clear. It is to achieve what you seem to want to achieve, which I take to be a fully repaired van in the shortest possible time. In the end, you just have to establish which route will work best to that end, and take it, or grin and bear it.

[Derek Uzzell]

Regarding the fridge fumes, historically the gas-flue of Dometic/Electrolux 3-way fridges was extended to a connection on the fridge's upper ventilation grille. Even if the fridge had not been properly sealed from the leisure vehicle's interior and howling draughts entered the motorhome during windy weather, this method of connecting the gas-flue to the ventilation grille did tend to reduce the likelihood of smelly gas fumes being forced into the motorhome's habitationarea.

 

Current methodology (at least for Dometic's larger fridges) is to have the gas-flue exhausting directly into the void behind the upper ventialtion grille, with no connection between flue and grille. This increases the chance of fumes entering the motorhome's interiior.

 

Unfortunately, although it's always been emphasised how important it is to hermetically seal a 3-way fridge from a leisure-vehicle's habitation area, actually doing this is another matter.

 

My Hobby has a large Dometic fridge/freezer and very large ventilation grilles. Hobby made a reasonable fist of sealing the fridge when my motorhome was built and, when it became evident that gas fumes would enter the vehicle in windy conditions, I did my best to counter this by adding additional sealing. But, in windy weather, if the Hobby's fridge ventilation grilles face the wind, I can still smell the gas exhaust. I've now grudgingly accepted this and, if it's very windy and I'm going to operate the fridge on gas, I deliberately park the Hobby so that the fridge ventilation grilles face away from the wind.

 

If it's found that gas fumes can be smelled within a motorhome during windy weather, it's as well to be aware that it may prove extremely difficult (approaching impossible) to combat this unwelcome characteristic successfully.