malc_edward Posted June 9, 2007 Share Posted June 9, 2007 i have been meaning to post this problem for a while i have seen other postings about poor service from brownhills i took develery of a new compass advantgarde from brownhills in may 05 a few small faults had been missed in the pdi nothing major the first problem i had is when it came to its first service took to local peougot dealer and had to pay for it when i was told it was free even in the service book it had free voucher i was told by peougot that it was not sold by them so it did not count. next major problem was while touring in feb 07 the motorhome would not start next morning (it has even got a battery device from cak tanks that charges the starter batery when the leisure battery is fully charged) i had to jump start each time (faulty starter batterysmelled of rotton eggs while trying to turn engine over) contacted peougot to bee told that even though it is covered by a 2 year warantee roadside assastance is only 12 months i would have to bring the motorhome to a peougot garage at my cost. contacted my dealer(brownhills) and was told that the battery problem was with peougot (about as much help as a chocolate teapot) i contacted a legal friend of mine who told me that the sale of goods act lies with the dealer that sold you the vechile to sort the problem. after many phone calls to brownhills they said they would replace the battery if i picked one up from them at cannock,i send a friend to pick it up he came back with a leisure battery even though i had repeatedly told tem it was the starter battery after many more phone calls and promises for them to call me back they eventually sent out some one with a battery and fitted it i was at work at the time when i returned home and had a look the battery fitted was almost half the A/H rating of what it should have been and forgot to replace the battery clamp which if i had of drove the motorhome the battery could of either fell off the battery tray or moved backwards where the live terminal post could have come into contact with the brake pipes comming from the brake servo resulting in a major short circuit possibly blowing a hole and or melting the brake pipe resulting in brake failuire. after more phone calls i was told that that was the only battery they stocked i find it strange that they could not of obtained the correct battery. eventually they aggred to if i got the correct battery they would reinburst the cost of a battery,not very good customer service when in the end you have to d.i.y. i am thinking of changing my motorhome soon and guess what dealer i WILL NOT BE GOING BACK TO i think that the company has grown to big to care for customers as this is not the first posting about poor customer service I know brownhills read these postings replay to this one i dare you! :-( :-( :-( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
robertandjean Posted June 9, 2007 Share Posted June 9, 2007 Hi, It does seem that there are always problems with new vans, from which ever dealer. Our Lunar, new March, has over 15 faults still to be seen to by yes Brownhills. This is after they have repaired a gas leak, re-built the adjustment on the drivers seat and soon to deal with the faulty fridge. But to be fair we have always found that they do, in the end sort the job out and the staff are friendly and happy to help. The great plus, for us, is being able to stay overnight, make use of pool, have a meal in resturant, or pop in to Newark whilst work is done. No other dealer offers this. And if you think Brownhills need to improve then they are way ahead of our previous dealer who was off the end of the scale. We were glad to go back to Brownhills. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted June 9, 2007 Share Posted June 9, 2007 Having read this, I'm afraid I think the standard advice to "always read the manual" might have helped avoid some of the apparent misunderstandings. It is necessary to fully read such things as service vouchers to see who issued them, and the operative conditions. It is necessary to read the base vehice manufacturer's, and motorhome converter's, manuals and warranties to see what is covered/excluded, and by whom. Batteries are often not covered, or have only 12 months cover. Also, I do just wonder whether Brownhills, Compass, Peugeot, or possibly Malc, fitted the CAK tanks charger unit, and why? However, what you got, eventually, appears to have been a replacement starter battery after nearly two years of use, with Brownhills reimbursing the full cost. You may have had a bit of a struggle to get it, but you seem in the end to have done quite well, and Brownhills to have provided two incorrect batteries at their expense before the correct one was found and fitted. Error prone service, yes. But where is the poor service, apart from in the mistakes?I just have a sneaky feeling that if Brownhills had read the small print in their own, and Peugeot's, warranties, they may have discovered that the starter battery was not under either warranty after 12 months. If I'm right (and it is pure conjecture on my part, not having read either warranty), they could quite reasonably have denied liability on the grounds that the battery must have been abused during the 21 months or so it had been in use before the problem was found. Starter batteries are generally good for 5 years or more, or they are dud from the off. Was this CAK charger fitted bacause the starter battery had gone flat before, I wonder? It just seems odd to have fitted it for no reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chas Posted June 9, 2007 Share Posted June 9, 2007 Brian -I think you will find that the CAK unit was fitted because on EHU only the liesure battery gets charged and the unit then trickle charges the starter battery. This is normaly done because this method is not fitted as standard on many vans, including mine, thats why it was one of the first things I attended to when I relized this, no thanks to my dealer. Thats the only reason surely why Malc had it fitted. It would appear Brownhills come under a lot of adverse comments, and would guess 7 out off 10 customers threaten never to use them again. How can a company exist with this kind of customer service? It beats me. chas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patr Posted June 9, 2007 Share Posted June 9, 2007 Chas Beats me too but I have read posts from people who have had the most horrendous problems, swear never to darken their doorsteps again and then a few months down the line post that they have bought another van from guess who! What does surprise me though is the number of people who purchase Swift vans. People gladly hand over £50k plus despite forums being full of tales of lousy quality, lousy customer service by the Manufacturer and pages of faults. Nowt so queer as folk! springs to mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted June 9, 2007 Share Posted June 9, 2007 chas - 2007-06-09 4:30 PM Brian -I think you will find that the CAK unit was fitted because on EHU only the liesure battery gets charged and the unit then trickle charges the starter battery. This is normaly done because this method is not fitted as standard on many vans, including mine, thats why it was one of the first things I attended to when I relized this, no thanks to my dealer. Thats the only reason surely why Malc had it fitted. It would appear Brownhills come under a lot of adverse comments, and would guess 7 out off 10 customers threaten never to use them again. How can a company exist with this kind of customer service? It beats me. chas Chas - Re the battery, I agree. That was why I asked, because if Malc found out the hard way, and flattened his starter battery a few times in the process, it might explain its early demise. Batteries don't like being allowed to go flat. I suspect the on board charger doesn't, in fact, trickle charge the starter battery at all. If it did, all should be well. (At least ours always has been!) Whether the dealer needs to point this out I wonder. Doesn't the famous manual say what gets charged?Re Brownhills, I think if the dissatisfaction rate was as high as 70%, they'd long since be bankrupt! I think it is only the unhappy ones who post, creating an impression of widespread dissatisfaction. The others just go happily on their way, and are possibly a bit put off saying they were well served, in case they are shouted down.They claim to be UK's biggest dealer, and they must sell a huge number of vans every year. Within that many sales, it would be surprising if they didn't have a few dud vans, a few awkward customers, and a few lazy and incompetent sales (and other) staff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malc_edward Posted June 10, 2007 Author Share Posted June 10, 2007 the cak charger system was fitted to keep the starter battery fully charged as the alarm system and tracker system run off the starter battery it was fitted as a safe guard to prevent the starter battery going flat when parked up as it is always connected to the mains Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chas Posted June 10, 2007 Share Posted June 10, 2007 Brian- My starter battery went dead when I thought it was being charged via the EHU connection. It did it no real harm after it was recharged and I believe vehicle starter batterys are completly different in their way of recycling compared to leisure batterys, where of cause they if completly run down never fully recover. As regards the manuals given with the new motorhomes, mine at least never mentioned that it would not charge the starter battery, neither was I told this on what I thought was a very comprehensive handover. As stated I have now rectified this problem. The CAK unit was also fitted for the same reasons as the above post. Regards chas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted June 10, 2007 Share Posted June 10, 2007 OK, just wondered. Might be worth chacking the CAK unit is working as it should, and reducing the charge as the battery approaches full charge. Might also be worth checking if the charger can adequately "read" the battery state with alarm etc connected. These must be permanently taking some of the available charging power and I just wonder of they fool the charger into "thinking" the battery hasn't reached a full charge, when in fact it has, and continuing to charge it at the full rate. That might boil the electrolyte to a very low level, so causing the problem. If it does, it will do the same to the new battery! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malc_edward Posted June 11, 2007 Author Share Posted June 11, 2007 the onboard charger keeps the leisure battery and the starter battery at 13.8 volts (fully charged) the voltage never goes over this value thus preventing gassing of the battery even when the solar panal is giving output the original battery failed on one cell,had never been discharged to a point where it would not turn the engine over one day it was fine next morning would not start once started would start the van every time next morning flat even when connected to hook up! new battery has been fitted for a while no more probs strange thing with faulty battery turned key on digital dash displayed Flat Batt nerver seen this before Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mel B Posted June 11, 2007 Share Posted June 11, 2007 Brian Kirby - 2007-06-09 5:43 PMp>Re Brownhills, I think if the dissatisfaction rate was as high as 70%, they'd long since be bankrupt! I think it is only the unhappy ones who post, creating an impression of widespread dissatisfaction. The others just go happily on their way, and are possibly a bit put off saying they were well served, in case they are shouted down.They claim to be UK's biggest dealer, and they must sell a huge number of vans every year. Within that many sales, it would be surprising if they didn't have a few dud vans, a few awkward customers, and a few lazy and incompetent sales (and other) staff.Gee, thanks Brian! I was one of the awkward ones then???? Only kidding. You obviously haven't ever been in the Newark branch's 'Club Brownhills' members facilties then and got chatting to people in there? I've never met anyone who hasn't had a problem of some sort, usually quite major. Not saying that the battery problem was their fault though, there are limitations to some items where it is difficult to tell why there is a fault and it could be by unintentioned misuse, not saying it was this though, just don't know in this case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Kirby Posted June 12, 2007 Share Posted June 12, 2007 No, Mel, you're right, I haven't been into "Club Brownhills" and chatted. I've had no need to, I've bought nothing from them!However, had I done so, I don't think I'd be all that surprised that many of the disgruntled were there. First, why are people in Club Brownhills? For a fun day out, or because they are awaiting some attention from Brownhills? It seems to me the latter is the more likely, and that being the (supposed) case, it is likely to be some problem that will have taken them there. Second, why have Brownhills developed this facility, if not partially as a sop to their unhappy customers? The others, presumably the happily served ones, I would just presume are far too busy out and about in their motorhomes to bother going to Club Brownhills!I'd add this. Despite all the unhappy postings on this forum it seems Brownhills do, eventually, sort out people's problems. Some have posted in a bit of a panic; some before they have even approached Brownhills. Some of the posts have been clear, some far from clear, and I have at times wondered what Brownhills staff were expected to understand the problem to be. However, many, to their great credit, have subsequently posted saying the problem was resolved, albeit often rather slowly.My impression has been that a number of these people, while they have had perfectly justifiable grievances, have simply failed to identify the responsible person at Brownhills, and so continued banging their head against an unresponsive brick wall. That is a shortcoming on Brownhills' part, that they do need to address, but it also seems that once the right person is engaged, and the problem clearly stated, action is taken. Lesson 1, it seems, as ever, is to identify the responsible individual, and then write to them, in measured terms, clearly stating the problem. It ain't rocket science, but it helps!Finally, although British law places the onus on the retailer, which is the "best worst" solution to such problems, I think we should not be blind to the underlying issue, which is that most of these problems arrive at Brownhills (and other dealers) direct from the motorhome manufacturers. If the manufacturers just did their job with a bit - nay a lot - more attention to quality, we should all be far better served. Brownhills undoubtedly have their faults, and I do not seek to defend them, but I still have the impression that too many manufacturers are leaving retailers excessively challenged in their game of "spot the defect", before vans are finally delivered to the unsuspecting buyer. That, for me, is where the true defects lie. End of sermon!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thai Bry Posted June 12, 2007 Share Posted June 12, 2007 Brian Kirby - 2007-06-09 5:43 PM Re Brownhills, I think if the dissatisfaction rate was as high as 70%, they'd long since be bankrupt! I think it is only the unhappy ones who post, creating an impression of widespread dissatisfaction. The others just go happily on their way, and are possibly a bit put off saying they were well served, in case they are shouted down.They claim to be UK's biggest dealer, and they must sell a huge number of vans every year. Within that many sales, it would be surprising if they didn't have a few dud vans, a few awkward customers, and a few lazy and incompetent sales (and other) staff. BrianMay I make an observation here please, I also think that some of the problems do arise because they( Brownhills) have now become " Europe's Largest motorhome dealer" - according to their own blurb!! This raises the old adage - "Jack of all trades , master of none."Whilst I appreciate that there is a lot of commonality with parts added to M/homes, i.e fridges, heaters, toilets ect.ect.ect....there must come a time when having that many different brands to sell and support it just leads to standards slipping elsewhere, mainly customer service. They are even looking at having sales managers for certain brands and sectorising their teams to address these issues.That should tell us all something. Maybe it's a case that they've now got so large they can dictate terms to the end user rather than the old addage - The customer is king.Yes we have just bought a brand new van from their Preston branch, but were very succinct in and during the handover. Once bitten twice shy.!!Thai Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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