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Having agreed sale of our FC tonight, we are now looking to move into the world of caravans! Looking round a new vans, I see that some dealers further afield are selling vans with a 'screen price' signifcantly less than our local dealer. My question is therefore if I buy say a Sprite van, if it then requires any work under warranty work, can I take it to any Sprite dealer, or does it have to go back to the supplying dealer?

Thanks for the advice,

Paul

Generally in the caravan world if you buy it from a dealer then you need to take it back there for work to be done, very few dealers will accept warranty work from another dealer.

Your local dealership will be Dickinsons - ours too!  As far as we're concerned, they are 'one of the good guys' and we've had excellent service, and advice, from them in the past even though we didn't buy our van there.  We bought a brand new Swift from the people who are now Discover Leisure - and after our first outing with it discovered a major, and potentially very serious fault.  We rang 'DL' who were not at all interested, even when we explained the nature of the problem, and tried to persuade us that everything was OK. 

In desperation we towed it from the storage site to Dickinsons, who to their credit were first class.  Firstly they identified the problem with the axle, knew what it needed, rang DL to update them on the seriousness of the problem, and what was required, and were able to get on with the work so ordered the parts from Alko.  This was replaced - only to find that the replacement part had the same problem as the intial one.

Dickinsons called Swift, who came out and inspected the replacement axle, and called out Alko. The caravan was put on to a low loader, and taken down to the Alko workshop in the midlands, where the offending part was replaced again, the van put back on the low loader, and brought back to us in time for our holiday on the Friday!!!

Now, I'm not sure that this is at all typical, but I do know we still get our van serviced at Dickinsons and buy all our 'goodies' there - and there's no problem at all with the fact that we didn't buy it from them in the first place.  We're now looking to replace our van, however, and the Sterling model we want we can obtain from a dealership in Lincolnshire for more than £3,250 less than in Bradford - and this is such a huge saving!  The thing is, that you can't go to your local dealer and ask 'If I buy this, at wherever, for thousands less than you're selling it, will you still look after it for me'. 

Quote: Originally posted by Mr Brittass on 06/2/2009

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Hi, if its like cars which are my area of work you can take it to any authorised service agent.
regards

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Unfortunately it aint like cars. Caravan aftersales service has got a long way to go before it becomes like car service. I think it took EU law to improve the standard of car service & warranties & the same is needed for caravans.

Thanks all for your comments - we actually live about 2 miles from Dickinsons! Trouble is like you say they aren't always the cheapest... I guess though it's like everything, you get what you pay for!

Paul

Hi paul

Like you we moved from a FC to a caravan. Hope you enjoy the extra comforts the tintents bring us. I don't quite understand how the warranties work. If there is warranty work to be carried out the surely the dealers will claim back the cost of these works from the manufacterers. In our case Bailey. If Bailey offer the warranty as part of the 'deal' then they should meet the cost of such works not the dealer. If this is the case then any Bailey dealer should be glad of the work irrespective of whether the 'van was originally purchased from them or not, as the costs would be bourne by Bailey?????? The only thing I can think of is that maybe the dealers are restricted by standard pricing structure for warranty works which deem this type of work not particularly profitable. Obviously the selling dealer has an obligation to carry out these works but the non selling dealer can choose not to take on the work. In our case we have a Bailey dealer within 1&1/2 miles from our home but have to take the van up to Darlington which is a good 80minute drive there and back! Anyone out there know how the system works????

davie