Split Hose who should pay!

[Paul M]

We have a Rapido 7087F (not quite two years old) with the boiler under ithe kitchen unit, a "pig" to get at and as i have heard and agree on other threads gets very hot in the confined space.

 

The cold water filler pipe which fills the tank passes the boiler in that confined space, what has happened is that the hose has become very brittle due to heat and has split in several places.

 

Is this a design fault ?and as the legal bods state "is it fit for the purpose"

surely this should last more than 20+ months. It seems to replace the complete hose it will mean removing the water tank which is under the settee, about a days work

 

What do you think and what action should I take? Have of course contacted Brownhills Swindon (100 miles away) and sent them a small piece of the pipe for there perusal. I will await with interest their reply if I get one!!!!!!!

 

Any suggestions most welcome.

 

Paul M

[Derek Uzzell]

Paul:

 

I'm not really sure what useful response you expect to get on this from a motorhome forum. However, here goes...

 

Assuming that the conversion part of your Rapido is still under warranty, and you've complied with any stipulations Rapido might have insisted on regarding obligatory inspections and the like, then I can't see why a Rapido agent (eg. Brownhills) should quibble over fixing the water-pipe problem within the warranty terms and conditions.

 

Clearly it's irking that, to replace a bit of plastic pipe, is going to involve the time, inconvenience and diesel-fuel of a 200-mile round trip to Swindon, but that's the price one pays for choosing a motorhome marque with no nearby dealership.

 

Logically, when I replaced my motorhome 3 years ago, I should have purchased an Auto-Sleepers as there's a dealership close to my home and the A-S factory at Willersley is not much further away. Instead I chose to buy a Hobby from Germany and, when it turned out that the Hobby factory had screwed up the installation of the heating system big-time, I chose to correct the problem myself - about £50 for parts and God knows how many Uzzell-hours of labour.

 

Much as I curse Hobby for a) doing a p**s-poor job, b) designing a heating system that clearly included the potential for the type of fault that occurred and c) also including within the design the impossibility of a straightforward fix, I fully accept that buying 'long distance' was my own responsibility and the consequences predictable if the motorhome later proved to be imperfect. (Dumping the thing on to Brownhills under Hobby's pan-European warranty would, of course, have been an option, but I couldn't see someone else rectifying the fault to my pernickety satisfaction.)

 

When a Truma C6002 6kW appliance is shoe-horned into a box in the corner of an L-shaped kitchen, it's hardly surprising that everything near the heater is going to get very warm indeed no matter what token attempts at insulation are made. As far as I'm aware, no heat-resistance claims are made for the type of pipe used for filling leisure-vehicle water tanks. If Rapido has run the filler-pipe through (or by) the heater enclosure without taking the heat into consideration and the pipe has become brittle and split, then Rapido must be considered guilty of lack of foresight. There might be mitigating circumstances if Rapido fitted the filler-pipe believing it to be capable of withstanding the expected heat, but they probably just employed the same stuff used on the rest of the Rapido range and never even considered it would degrade when exposed to high temperatures. Like a chocolate tea-pot, a non-heat-resistant product used when exposure to high heat levels is inevitable must surely qualify as "not fit for purpose".

 

You say you've already discussed this with Brownhills, so, as far as I can see, realistically all you can do at this point is maintain pressure on Brownhills so that your Rapido's fault is rectified without delay. Warranties normally exclude refund of incidental expenses (eg. the cost to the owner of taking the vehicle to the repairer), but you could always explore this with Brownhills or see if they will collect your motorhome from you and return it after it's been fixed. Might be worth having a word with Trading Standards just to confirm where you stand, but I can't see them getting hyped up over a split filler-pipe on a motorhome. One thing's certain, if your present strategy includes the possibility that Brownhills will ignore your problem, then you shouldn't be surprised if they do. Phone them up, make sure they've received the sample piece of pipe, ask them what they are going to do next, etc. etc. We are now entering the period when motorcaravanners whose vehicles will have been in hibernation will suddenly discover that all sorts of gremlins have bred during the winter months and need to be evicted before the motorhome becomes usable. This places a heavy load on dealership repair facilities and, if your water-pipe problem needs a full day to rectify, fitting the motorhome into Brownhills' workshop schedule in the near future may not be easy.

[Brian Kirby]

I agree with Derek: presumably a vehicle of this age is still under warranty and should be repaired by the dealer free of charge. 

However, I am intrigued that the "wild" heat from the heater has been sufficient to make the water filler pipe brittle over such a relatively short period.  Unless you use your van heavily, and out of season at that, I would have thought the actual temperature in the heater cupboard shouldn't be that high. 

This makes me wonder whether your heater may have been one of those subject to the recent recall, and has possibly not been rectified? 

In normal use they certainly get warm, but not much more than warm.  The water jacket only gets to around 60C, hotter would risk scalds, and it is insulated.  I have never found ours to be more than warm to the touch.  The space heater unit is inside the water jacket so, with water present and the water temperature trimmed at 60C as above, so surface temperatures should be as when the unit is heating water only, whereas with no water present the heater element is surrounded by an airspace (the empty water jacket) and its surface temperature should be lower than when it is heating water. 

It seems to me that the external surfaces of your heater may be getting abnormally hot, and you may have a displaced heating duct that is directing hot air onto the filler pipe instead of into the van, or the exhaust duct has come adrift.

I think I'd be inclined to have a word with Truma's technical department, to see if they can give you any information on the expected surface temperatures of these heaters, and then work from there in establishing why this pipe is getting so hot.

Hope this helps.

[Paul M]

Thanks everybody for your help and advise. Yes I have been using the van qite heavy, in fact we have been living in it while building our new house which is all most finished. As soon as we move in next month we are off IN OUR VAN for a holiday, heading for Morocco.

Will let you know how I get on with this problem.

 

Paul

 

:-D

[Robinhood]

Brian Kirby - 2008-02-11 7:00 PM

 

....and you may have a displaced heating duct that is directing hot air onto the filler pipe instead of into the van

 

 

I would certainly check this. I have a Rapido 983F, and two of the ducts in particular have had a habit of detaching themselves from the Truma unit allowing it to provide central heating to the 'void'. (they are simply a push fit, with a set of serrations on the boiler supposed to engage with the duct - this is not a very positive engagement).

 

I spent this last weekend replacing a couple of the sets of ducting, since I discovered they were being crushed at the back of one of the drawers. Once I took the drawers out, it was obvious that the routing was very poor, and that the path the duct had to follow was always going to provide the wrong leverage for positive engagement with the boiler. (Effectively, because of the way they bent there was a permanent spring-like action attempting to disengage).

 

There were alternate cut-outs already there which provided much better routing, and I bought a couple of Truma duct clips for more security as they essentiall clamp the duct in place.

 

My 'van is not much out of warranty, but I preferred to do the job myself anyway - though the replacement duct was bought from Browhills.

 

There are four outlets to check, and depending on your particular installation, they aren't all easy to see (though I can check two from the kitchen - removing the cupboard back and insulation - and one from the external access, by sight. The fourth is a grope.

 

[Mel B]

Your Rapido should have at least a 2 year warranty on it. I believe from around 2004 they came with it as standard on the 'caravan' bit, so there shouldn't be a problem with Brownhills actually doing the work under warranty but I know from experience that it's a pain in the bum having to get a van to them. It might be an idea to check if they do a free pick-up service, the certainly do from the Newark branch and I suspect they do this for all of their branches as they have 'drivers' located all over the place just for this purpose. It does mean that you'll have to let someone else drive your pride and joy but at least it means that you aren't having to put yourself out (they'll usually put fuel in as well!).

 

My only piece of advice so as not to muddy the waters with Brownhills though is be careful what you tell them about your 'living' in the van, some dealers get a bit silly claiming that vans are not meant to be 'lived' in constantly and therefore try to wriggle out of covering work under warranty.

 

Generally when fixing bits and bobs - if there are placed/items you can't see try using a digital camera to 'see' the one you can't see! I did this when we had a Swift a good few years back and couldn't see the broken blown air assembly behind the convector heater properly, but managed to take some really good photos of it to send to Brownhils to prove there was a fault that needed sorting.

[tonyishuk]

Ifyou are southward bound and can live with the problem awhile, it might be worth contacting the Rapido factory and paying them a visit. (MAYENNE FRANCE ?)

 

Rgds