Broken roof blind

[Hidagard]

We have a two year old Adria Coral and the roof blind has broken, tension string. Have rung around local domestic blind companies they are not interested. We have been quoted £900 approx from an Adria dealer, saying the whole unit needs to be replaced.

Has anyone any comments,ideas please

[Keithl]

Do you know the make of the blind? It may be on the blind or rooflight itself.

[Geeco]

I have just had my hab Flyscreen door replaced under warranty due to a broken cord. It seems this is a common problem with any blind or Flyscreen that uses the cord type system. On my previous Autotrail (same Flyscreen door) I replaced the cord with sail cloth stiching thread. It is time consuming however if you have the time you can fix the blind for a lot less than the price of a new unit. Cheers,

[scotjimland]

Identify your blind, then look here for spares, if not in stock they will source for you 

https://www.leisureshopdirect.com/ventilation/caravan-roof-vent

[webby1]

We have an Adria Coral and the blind cord also snapped.

I removed the bottom half of the skylight.......depending on the type it might just flip off.

Luckily I was able to reroute the cord which had just broken a guide pin.Otherwise I was going to replace with sail cord or perhaps fishing line. I think the routing might be quite complex from scratch. But for £900 ???

Also cleaned the runners and sprayed with some silicone furniture polish. We now slide it along more gently than before

[Derek Uzzell]

2020 Adria Coral motorhomes will have had several roof-windows fitted with blinds, but I'm guessing that Hidagard is referring to a blind on what Adria calls "Sky-lounge" and "Sky-roof" windows (as indicated on the following image).

Such roof-windows are double-glazed acrylic, may be fixed or openable, and are often 'bespoke' to a specification provided by the the motorhome manufacturer. As mentioned above there will normally be a maker's mark somewhere on the acrylic 'glass' (my 2015 Rapido's overcab openable roof-window - if I remember correctly - was a Polyplastic product).

The snag with these types of roof-window is that they are often 'permanently' installed, seemingly on the premise that a problem with them will never be encountered. So even a very simple issue - like a broken guide-string - can involve a considerable amount of time and effort to put right.

This May 2019 MotorHomeFun forum thread referred to a broken string on an Adria Matrix's panoramic roof blind.

https://www.motorhomefun.co.uk/forum/threads/panoramic-roof-blind-on-adria-matrix-broken-string-cable.197467/

An Adria dealership's quote for fixing this was £600-£800, with the task taking two days to complete. The dealership explained to the motorhome's owner that the reason for the high cost and time needed was because the surrounding 'fascia'  on the motorhome's ceiling would need to be removed to gain the necessary access. (Images of the ceiling of 2020 Adria Corals should make it plain where the problem lies.)

[Den]

Ours broke @ 3 years old. The second one broke 2 weeks after the first one. 
while at the Birmingham MH show I popped along to the Dometic stand and they talked me through a repair. 
but after a few mins they offered to send 2 new cartridges to the supplying company ( Goeuropean) whom sent onto me. 
mat 2 years old I would certainly mention to the supplier of the motorhome and or the manufacture of the MH or the blind. 
doing this at a show is a superb time. 
 

[colin]

12 hours ago, webby1 said:

We have an Adria Coral and the blind cord also snapped.

I removed the bottom half of the skylight.......depending on the type it might just flip off.

Luckily I was able to reroute the cord which had just broken a guide pin.Otherwise I was going to replace with sail cord or perhaps fishing line. I think the routing might be quite complex from scratch. But for £900 ???

Also cleaned the runners and sprayed with some silicone furniture polish. We now slide it along more gently than before

Sounds similar to ours, the 'guide' was a slot in plastic, dreadful design, fitted a small keyring to run the cord through, it broke again last week, I guess the other side so will repair that side as well using another keyring.

[Derek Uzzell]

If the roof-window mentioned by Den has a curved profile and Dometic were involved, it is likely to a "SKYVIEW" window (mentioned here)

https://forums.outandaboutlive.co.uk/topic/52699-auto-trail-skylight-cassette-blind/#comment-691276

I'm pretty sure that the Sky roof-lights of Hidagard's 2020 Adria Nexxo are not Dometic/Seitz Skyview windows, but the primary problem where replacing the broken string is concerned is that the Nexxo's roof-lights are 'embedded' in the motorhome's ceiling and this seriously restricts access to the roof-light itself.

I'm doubtful that the complete window would need replacing just to deal with a broken string, but it's apparent that a lot of preparatory work would be needed and that there's a real risk of cosmetic damage being caused.

[Den]

Your correct Derek 

ours is not curved and the cassette containing the blind is easily removed. 
I did replace the broken part of plastic that caused the problem on one of them and kept the second as a spare. 
I would still contact both the manufacturer of the sun roof and the supplying garage. 
Dometic were honest in saying the tension was incorrectly set which causes failure. 
Den

[phalange]

I repaired mine myself on my Adria coral roof blind over the cab. It is fiddly and you have to have patience but it is doable. The whole blind and plastic surround comes down with the lights in situ. There are eight screws to lower the surround and then a multi plug behind to disconnect the lights. That’s the easy bit, I followed this video on YouTube to understand the route of the string better 

 

The hardest bit I found was retensioning the spring in the fly screen bit (you need 3 hands) to hold the fly screen in place and put the roller back in its slot.

I found it easier to find the end of the broken string tie the new string to that and gently pull the new string through the correct way.

it can be frustrating but doable, it took me about 2 hours which is better than £900.

good luck

[Derek Uzzell]

2 hours ago, phalange said:

I repaired mine myself on my Adria coral roof blind over the cab...

Adria has produced motorhomes bearing the "Coral" name from 2004 to the present day.

You haven't provided any details of which model of Coral you own, but I think it is 2013-vintage.

Recent (2020-onwards) Corals have the roof-light arrangement shown in an image on my 1st posting above. It may well be that repairing a broken blind-string is relatively simple for the (Dometic/Seitz "Heki" ?) roof-lights that Adria chose for earlier Coral like yours, and where the roof-light's interior frame can easily be detached. However (as Hidagard has been told and as mentioned on the MHFun forum) the task is clearly much less straightforward for recent Coral models.

This 2019 MHFun thread relates to a broken guide-string on a Burstner Nexxo's roof-light

https://www.motorhomefun.co.uk/forum/threads/skyroof-skylight-roman-shade-string-detachment.194581/

and - as the poster observes - to gain access to the roof-light to repair it would require removal of the ceiling lining.

The same sort of difficulty applies to recent Adria Corals.

[webby1]

Yes ours is a 2009 Coral..................... so forget all I said about it being relatively easy to flip off the cover and repair.

Of course that's why manufacturers keep on "improving" their products

[derek500]

That YouTube video worked for us.  Just had to buy a set of trim removal tools on Ebay for a couple of quid.

[Derek Uzzell]

I get the impression that it is not fully appreciated why an Adria dealership might quote such a high price for replacing a broken blind-string on the roof-light of a 2020 Adria Coral motorhome.

The image below is of a 2020 Coral's interior looking up at the two roof-lights, and it should be plain that access is far more difficult than to (say) a Dometic/Seitz "Heki" product where it's a relatively easy matter to remove the complete inner frame on to which the blinds are mounted.

 

From the 2019 forum thread I mentioned earlier (and based on the above image) there seems to be no alternative but to remove the ceiling 'trim' that masks the edges of the roof-lights and - if that trim has been attached with adhesive - there's a high risk of damage to the trim ensuing.

It's not easy to know from Hidagard's original posting what the Adria dealer was advising - whether the major cost would result from needing to replace the ceiling trim, or whether the dealer was saying that the complete roof-light had to replaced. Either way, it looks like a DIY task that few owners of a near-new motorhome would like to take on.

(It would be worth Hidagard contacting another Adria dealership about this. If it is generally recognised that fixing this type of 'simple' fault on Corals with this roof-light arrangement will be difficult/expensive, then so be it. But if a dealer has been faced with the same issue in the past and found a cheaper solution, it would be good to know that.)