Message Forums

right heres a rant so be warned

we bought a new sprite in june went out in it first night charger dies ok so its a new van things go wrong.  picked it up from dealers put in storage no probs

2 weeks ago pick van up drive 5 hours get to site alls good (first time since repair we been out).... 3 hours later burning smell and no 12 volts again but this time we have no fridge no nothing as it is worse than just the charger!!!!!

calls dealer today for update god damn factories are closed for 3-4 weeks so they are not expecting new part till may be august late ...

heres my dilema only have 2 more bookings 1 for 7 th and of course the bhols ........

so i will have a new van parked in dealers for the only times i can go away ......

any ideas on what i should do i feel like telling them i want a different make of new van or is that me being unreasonable????

 after all i paid 13k and now have lost 1 week off work with no hols and afer the 2 planned outings van be back in storage untill next year due to work commitments .

am i being silly or should i just bite my tounge and have no holidays this year????? what do you think?

ps after seeing advice on here i took  some finance out with the van so they have an interest in it as well

thanks for listening simom

I would get on to the dealers who can at least lend you a replacement for your holiday I would imagine!

I hope you get it sorted.

If your van is new, and has now failed twice i would be demanding a replacement rather than repair, as the Van was "not of merchantable quality"   If your dealer has the one you want, then that should be a lot quicker than waiting for a part.

Alternatively invite them to remove the required bits from one of their shiny showroom vans.

You should not be disadvantaged by the shoddy quality of your new van.

Do not be fobbed off with excuses about what is happening at the factory.   Your contract is with the dealer, not them.   The problems at the factory are the dealers, and not yours.

Hope you manage to get away

MW

thanks jennifer i will be calling the dealer tomorrow and i will also call swift first as the dealer have told me that swift have had so many returns they have none left to send out so i can smell that one from here i am very worried though as the smoke was coming from the back of the fuse box not the charger and they are not close toghether so wasnt one passing to the other .

we also can not steal the one from there shiny new van as that is the one we took last time and i went straight to the van and check it is still missing .

i can see a long drawn out battle but no shouting ahead thanks every one for all your advice so far

i agreee jennifer last time the charger went i just popped out and put a car charger on and 12v still worked fine but this time nothing works even the panel to check voltages was just flickering but my battery was fine as i moved van next day with mover ... the fridge is one of those new thetford i think and is all digital and when 12v goes off display goes off we could cope with every thing ie no water but no fride with a week away is hard pushed and no lights n middle of van for kids we have only 2 240 lights that work above the settees at the bar end no lights in broom all 12 volts.

again thanks for your support i just had to get help b4 i jumped in car and got arrested at the dealers!!! lol

Quote: Originally posted by jennifernn on 29/7/2009

---

Keep us updated, hope it gets sorted in time for your holiday.

The burning smell bit sounds bad, and lack of fridge.

Losing just a charger is not so bad, that happened twice on our old van, we carry a separate charger as a back up, also a spare pump and a small fan heater in case of heating problems. And of course a good supply of fuses,light bulbs etc.

Problem is, vans are getting more and more complicated. Luckily my OH is very good with electrics, we always travel with a full tool kit, so there isn't much he can't fix.

---

Sorry I have to disagree, I used to design these things many years ago, and these circuits are designed for thousands of hours of use - something like a minimum of 5 years continuous use in a confined cabinet. If they fail in a caravan in normal usage then they are of a very poor design. Complain, do not just accept it.