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Quote: Originally posted by Pickled Onion on 21/3/2009

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Thats good news old chap. I suppose this fix is much cheaper to do than a complete panel change. Was it a solution that they had worked out themselves locally or did the salesman suggest that it was the industry wide standard cure? Any more insight as to what is involved with the "cold welding", is this a very specialist technique?

Sorry to hear of your plight too Natalie, it must be extremely worrying especially as the original manufacturer is unable to help or advise you. Have you a caravan cover you can use to keep the amount of water damage to a minimum?

Dave.

Quote: Originally posted by Pickled Onion on 21/3/2009

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Sorry to hear of your plight too Natalie, it must be extremely worrying especially as the original manufacturer is unable to help or advise you. Have you a caravan cover you can use to keep the amount of water damage to a minimum?

Dave.

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Quote: Originally posted by The Woofs on 22/3/2009

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Quote: Originally posted by Pickled Onion on 21/3/2009

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....to pick this Rialto up for a cracking price after Avondale folded.   

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That a deliberate pun?! LOL

Anyway, tens of thousands of different make caravans are produced using ABS panels from one source, only a percentage of them crack, dare I say very small percentage?

To my mind then the problem is not ABS nor particularly it's fitting, there has to be a common denominator that ties some regardless of it's origins together.

Fitting could be a factor but we have the same crews fitting them, only different crews at different factories, so if it was the main cause there would be a far greater percentage and easily removed by retraining.

To float the panel on rubber suggests they have moved past blaming the fitting and are now attempting to isolate the panel from the main structure, much the same as internal water pumps sit on rubber feet for the same reason.

This strongly suggests to me that vibration is the real culprit, a van that does not move will not vibrate, on the move the only source of varying vibration is the wheels but no manufacturer, (to my knowledge), balances those wheels!!

This to my mind then this is the common denominator and explains why only a small percentage of the total crack, the reason being individual new tyres vary in how out of balance they are and one to four bad ones will easily produce the random selection of cracked panels we see, regardless of manufacturer or to a great extent fitting

Quote: Originally posted by arc systems on 22/3/2009

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Quote: Originally posted by The Woofs on 22/3/2009

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Quote: Originally posted by Pickled Onion on 21/3/2009

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....to pick this Rialto up for a cracking price after Avondale folded.   

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That a deliberate pun?! LOL

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Shamefully it wasn't deliberate! 

A well thought out reply by the way.  Thanks for that.Natalie

A good point well made Gary. I can't see any reason for not balancing caravan tyres, we do it without question now on all our car tyres. Whether it is the sole or main culprit I'm not sure, I would imagine it would be a relatively simple thing for a manufacturer to investigate.

Dave.

Quote: Originally posted by arc systems on 22/3/2009

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    ]Anyway, tens of thousands of different make caravans are produced using ABS panels from one source, only a percentage of them crack, dare I say very small percentage?

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Quote: Originally posted by Pickled Onion on 19/3/2009

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The company in Hull of which you speak is no more, were they the sole or main supplier to the industry and who is making them now?

Dave.

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There have been a series of buy-outs this being the latest. I quote from the Yorkshire Post article of 25th Feb 2009 :-

"Redspar has purchased from around one half to two-thirds of the machinery. Mr Escott said the new firm was effectively the remains of three defunct businesses".

I seriously hope they do make a success of it and stabalise this part of the industry, however I have heard that some of the major players have bought their moulds from the old business and are making their panels in-house. Not sure if it is the complete range of each manufacturer's range or just the latest models, does anybody know?

Dave.

Hi all. Dont forget that there is more to it than the manufacturers of the panels. ABS is a commodity polymer (which stands for Acrylonitrile, Butadiene,Styrene) and is manufactured worldwide by a few different chemical companies. I used to work for  Bayer the large German chemical company, who were one of the pioneers of ABS. Their branded stuff called Pocan, was and is still used to make Lego bricks. In fact we used to bag it and test it where I used to work. As is the case in todays climate, a lot of cheaper chinese stuff is available, that maybe does not have the quality of the older and more expensive European stuff. Even the older manufacturers are turning to cheaper raw materials to make the ABS. The ABS polymer can be modified by adding Plasticisers to make it more pliable, and impact modifiers (again which we used to make) to give it a certain amount of bounce back (mainly used for car bumpers). So you see, there are too many variables to tie it down to poor quality maufactue of the panels or the caravans.

Jon

hi all " cracks in front & rear panels" are only covered under warranty for ONE year,

if you have a caravan less than a year old,have a good look for any cracks at the joins 

andy

i think its totally wrong that these panels are not covered when there are know faults with them my has just cracked the caravan is 5 years old the cost of this repair is over £2600 .the caravan as been looked after since brandnew and is very close to this now .

when manufactures know this is a big problem even in new caravans being shiped  off the production line right now .as i know of some one  with a 2010 model and in a short time as had 4 cracks in the panel ,people spend alot of money on these caravans and looking at what i have read in here we are being short changed .

for the Grp /Abs panels not to be covered
as this is a persistent problem and i would very worried in buying a new caravan with this cloud above it and not knowing if you have a caravan that as been built correctly or has been built with a possibility of this failing over a few years time .i think manufactures are far from stupid may be someone with a knowledge should approach  BBC Watchdog to find out the true scale of these problems in the uk once this as been on the tv something will be finally done because its one thing a  company  don't like its there products getting on live tv .because its ok for them to protect there incomes made of  the sale of these caravans .so it should be no different for the buyer to be protecting there investment having a national percentage  on this i think it would be very alarming indeed

i think this forum should do a topic just on these issuses to find out how may  as this done .or fixed or replaced or have been refused a repair under warranty and how many new caravans have had this problem in the first few years .

very angry indeed .

Quote: Originally posted by andycapp on 01/4/2009

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hi all " cracks in front & rear panels" are only covered under warranty for ONE year,

andy

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Oops, pressed the wrong button!

Can you expand on this Andy? What about the 6 year water ingress warranty many people, me included think we have?

Dave

this is my opinion i would never buy a brand new caravan ever now  and  it would be there loss not mine .this will be my last caravan because i have had nothing but stress trying to get this sorted i have a crack in mine to and its not funny its £2600 worth or repairs.

I am a very Angry caravanner .

Quote: Originally posted by andycapp on 01/4/2009

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hi all " cracks in front & rear panels" are only covered under warranty for ONE year,

if you have a caravan less than a year old,have a good look for any cracks at the joins 

andy

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