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Carpyone,

I fully agree with you avondale have taken their eye of quality & appear to build them to a price . Our Dart- from new had a fridge that was leaking gas ( so badly my wife was ill from fume inhalation) a cooker that wouldnt stay lit ( faulty thermocouples) & numerous other reoccuring faults . The centre panel on the bathroom door fell out (staples were only 1mm deep - fixed with liquid nails) . The sliding door regularly derailed (  fixed by glueing a piece of cork behind it)

Finding the floor delaminated after 3 1/2 years was the final straw . Avondale have only recently extended their warranty to 5 years so mine was out of warranty. I've switched to an Abbey now & hopefully have put my troubles behind me .Even my previous van a budget ABI sprinter was better put together. Hopefully i wont be needing my much used tube of liquid nails for a while !

Rd57chad,

The floor delamination was just one of a long list of faults which included incorrect assembly of the Bowden brake cables (potential brake failure), faulty water pump control unit, faulty road lights, crack A-frame cover, faulty light switch on remote sensor, faulty grey plug, gas leaks, bed slats held together with fresh air(no staples) the list seems to go on and on. Two questions arise in my mind,do companies like Avondale have a quality inspection control system on their production line and secondly what does a supplying dealer do at the Pre delivery inspection ??

it seems to me that the industry has reached the stage like, the motor industry in the 60/70's, that as demand outstrips supply the don't seem to care. Last summer I visited Davan Caravan Company in Weston-super-mare and looked round all their new vans, many had obvious faults and some were made of poor quality flimsy material. How long will it take for Caravan Manufactures take to sort themselves out. The next time I look for a new van I will look carefully at German manufacturers as reports on this forum seem to speak highly of them.

Basically you average dealer will charge you upto £450 on the road charges on the price of your new van . For this sum of money he will arrange to pick it up from the factory & if your very lucky he may briefly look it over . I assume thats what happens as my brand new Abbey Aventura had a jockey wheel that was bent like a banana & laminate edging strip damaged on the fixed bunk safety rail that had passed its PDI check .I think the PDI man at the dealers must have had the day off or been too busy reading his newspaper ! I should have got the sales reps to check it over as they found loads of faults on our trade in caravan .........

I would have considered buying a German manufactured caravan as suggested by 'carpyone' above but these are unfortunately rapidly getting recognised in the press as being 'Gypo' vans ( no offence intended ) . My secure storage compound owner also said he doesnt like them on his storage facility as it draws unwanted attention from the travelling community , especially the twin axle ones ...

rd57chad

 sadly i can only agree with what has allready been said above. we to have just changed van, we really liked our rialto 640/6, no problems with the floor as far as i know, but every time we went away with it i had to glue it back together again when we got back home! nearly every cupboard door middle came out at one time or another. i put the vans manual book in the front middle draw, went to close it and pushed the middle of the draw out. taps came loose. water pump packed up, there was no end of problems. when you have paid over £12 grand you do expect a quality van. just got a new elddis cruisader superstorm, all the doors are solid wood so no problems as yet,(touch wood) just very heavy over 1900kgs fully ladened..

Hi rd57chad, and sorry to hear about the floor problems. 

Just to pick up on a comment above,

Can anyone explain why everyone seems to accept that German vans are better built, and yet we all keep propping up the uk manufacturers, buying their stapled vans built "down to a price" and leaving the german ones to be owned by the people who use them all year round?  Surely that in itself is a good advert for one? 

What would the UK industry do if we all insisted that they made vans that didn't rot inside 2 years?  

It seems that everyone accepts that damp will happen in an old van, and  now the new ones are going the same way.  Can't we do something to persuade the manufacturers that damp-free vans should be the norm now?

*** apologies:  rant over ***

Cheers,

Candlefish