Can I please just ask your advice on a repairs/warranty matter... Myself and my husband bought our first caravan in 2011 (an 8 year old Elddis Avante) to see if caravanning was for us. We soon fell in love with it and, in 2013, splashed out and bought ourselves a brand new Elddis Buccaneer Schooner. We did the deal at the Caravan & Motorhome show at the NEC and collected our new pride and joy a few months later once it rolled out of the factory in May 2013. Fast forward to September 2014. We're on holiday in the caravan in France when hubby notices a feint discolouration around the front rooflight. Not damp to touch or anything, just a very slight mark that I would never have noticed had it not been pointed out. Upon our return to the UK a week later hubby reported this to an Elddis approved dealer/service centre. After checking it out they told us that the discolouration was from a small leak on the rooflight and they'd need to order new parts. They said they'd call us when it was delivered. We promptly take the caravan away and put it back into storage. Fast forward 4 months(!!) to January 2015. We get a call from the caravan service centre saying that the new skylight had arrived and to take the caravan back to them. We get to them, open up the caravan and find it sopping wet throughout and covered in thick green mould (I could have cried!). We leave it with the service centre and tell them to do their best. It turns out that BOTH skylights were faulty and needed replacing, which was done under the warranty. At first the service centre said that they would replace the mattress and upholstery as they were ruined but would not clean the mould-infested caravan. However, after kicking up a fuss they agreed to a 3 hour clean. We are still waiting for the mattress and upholstery and have been told that it's going to be roughly another 3 weeks but possibly longer. So, my question to you (and sorry it's taken me an age to get to this bit!) is do you think it's fair for me to expect some sort of compensation from Elddis? We have been unable to use the caravan since September, and are still unable to use it for another few weeks. I've told the service centre that we have a holiday booked for 20th March, to which they said they'd hope we could have it back by then but there are no promises. Part of me feels that, when we buy a brand new (and top-of-the-range) caravan which then leaks and is unable to be used for at least 5 months, Elddis should offer us another caravan instead as surely that time frame is unacceptable and makes a mockery of their 'water ingress guarantee'. My husband is in the forces and so we can't just book time off work when we fancy it. We have already been unable to use the caravan for his 10 day October leave and 2 week Christmas leave. If we miss the 2 week Easter leave as well we'll be gutted. I've also got the issue of the bedding that was in the caravan that all got ruined. Who pays to replace that? The service centre said that we should have emptied the caravan if we knew it was leaking. I said that it wasn't leaking 5 months ago when we reported the problem, it was just a mark, and we had no idea it would get this bad. Sorry, this has turned into a rant! I just don't know whether the service centre are trying their luck with us. Any words of wisdom and other people's viewpoints would be appreciated, even if it's just to say "that's the way the cookie crumbles, deal with it!". Many thanks and sorry again for the long post!! Sarah :)
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Topic: Am I being unreasonable?!
