It would seem from the postings on here I am not alone. But my Bailey Pegasus S2 Ancona showed 90% damp readings on its 3yr anniversary service. Since new, the following problems: damp board warped in front seating and replaced, bunk curtain failed and replaced, failed again 3 months later bailey wouldn't replace it again, both towel rails in bathroom brackets broke, bailey sent wrong one to replace it. heater failed on electric only, had to use gas all winter on seasonal pitch until caravan first service, side dinette fixing inadequate to hold table and breaks repeatedly, external locker catches failed and two replaced and now the bathroom is 90% damp!
Also the heating is ridiculous. The blown air heating at night leaves the three bunks at tropical temperatures so the kids are begging me to turn off the heating (bunks are right next to heater unit) but with me in the bed at the the front of the caravan the heat never reaches me, just a warm dog under the bed I have to use a fan heater so I don't freeze.
I have given up now. Dealer was great (Reads of Blackburn) but the quality of the caravan is just disappointing. I have traded it in for a Sterling. Never again Bailey, just full of cheap and nasty fittings and badly thought out design. Looks good,but that's about it.
I had an old bailey ranger and I mistakenly thought buying a brand new bailey with a 10 yr warranty meant the caravan would give me 10 years holidays and peace of mind. Instead it was a 10yr sentence of endless trips to the dealer for repairs.
Sorry to hear of your problems. Our first Bailey had damp problems and we eventually got our money back from the dealer. The second Bailey was much better but still had a few issues.
We then traded it in for an Adria and have never looked back.
I hope you have many trouble free years with your Sterling.
Have to say we had one of the first Pegasus models to come out of the factory and we had no problems with it. However we have sold it as we have changed layout. ONly reason we didn't have a new Bailey was the awful central windows they have. (just our opinion of course)
Difference between buying a new caravan & an old one. A new one should be perfect & having to be without it while at dealers for repairs only compounds the dissatisfaction. They will do as little warranty work as possible because the work is loss of profit which just leads to more problems with caravan.
Or buy an old one for cheap, expect to do work on it & have the satisfaction that your own work has added value to caravan.
So 2 totally different entities that cannot be compared. Ironically in a few yrs time the op's faulty caravan might be bought at bargain price by somebody prepared to do a bit of work on it & they will be as happy as Lobey....
I have to say I agree. The difference in quality of my old and new bailey was substantial. I only bought a new one because my kids had grown into long legged teens and no longer fit in the beds. The old caravan was much much better build quality than the new one. There were many many other simple design faults too - a shower door the catch didn't stop from swinging around in transit, bed runners that leapt out of the rail every time you pulled them out, windows dripping with condensation if you used it in the winter, so bad you couldn't see through the windows of a morning, removable water tank which needed refilling when half full because of the design, and in any event was such a nightmare to situate you wished you hadn't bothered, removable carpets that were in one piece in such a humongous length you needed another caravan just to store the carpet in, when I stop to think about it I am amazed I had so many fun holidays in it! I do have to say it tows well though, it went to South of France and back and to Annecy and back twice, and lots of Scottish and welsh trips up hill and down vale. I hope bailey sort themselves out because the vans look so good you just have no idea what poor quality everything inside it is!
Och I fully agree with you Fixings, but only up to a point.
The thing is that the older caravan that is worth doing "a bit of work on" will not have had major problems within it's first few years of life.
It is a dammed shame that I keep seeing folks on here spending mega bucks on new caravans only to find them rubbish within a very short time.
I may contribute to the "Crappy Old Caravans" Topic, but, for the most part these have been well built, have not caused their previous owners any problems and are still fairly dry. With some TLC, they will remain so and useable for many years to come.
By the time I have spent £5000 on my van (inc purchase price, servicing and consumables)I will have had a seasons use out of it and it will be as modern and roadworthy as any new van and the basis for many years of caravanning to come.
So while we are in a position to spend the money on a brand new caravan, we cannot, in all honesty, take the gamble on buying what may turn out to be a Pig in a Poke.
Given the choice of having "a crappy old van" sitting in my workshop ready to roll whenever we fancy, or having a brand new van sitting in a Dealers Workshop awaiting repairs to equipment that should have been built correctly first time round, well I don't think it requires an answer.
However, I am lucky in that I am retired and I have a workshop big enough and equipped enough to take on an older Bailey and work on it.
Not everyone is so fortunate and so there will always be a market for new vans, dealers workshops and storage compounds.
Were older caravans that well built though? I have a mid 80s Monza that I have just to tow down to southern France in the summer. Its probably has been damp in the past but it ain't now because for the price of a cartridge of PU sealant I sealed up the outside seams without removing anything & patched the floor with P40. 4yrs on from £300 off ebay now & its still going, I have spent money on tyres & the running gear though so it tows like new.
It don't look well built in the slightest but I suppose its survived because theres not much to it, no water heaters or showers etc. Plenty of 20yr old caravans still about, folk buy them off ebay & then complain on here that they are riddled with damp but I guess most of them get patched up & carry on for a few more yrs.
& so it is with the new ones that are also faulty, they don't just get thrown away. Even those that are rejected & taken back will get auctioned & put back on the road. Anybody with a bit of practical skill can patch up a caravan, but for the first few yrs nobody should have to, obviously.
I too am an advocate of PU sealant and don't take anything apart unless I have to.
But, as the OP says, at 3 years old it is showing 90% damp, I doubt if his van will be in any state to do up within a few years and no amount of PU will fix that problem.
With the older van you know where to expect damp and the possible readings you can expect to find there and any excess readings or damp in other places and you can walk away.
With newer vans damp is a bigger issue.
Apart from general maintenance, I have fitted a new motor mover, 3 new tyres, a new PSU and an underslung spare wheel carrier.
Next year I will be fitting an ATC unit.
Peanuts compared to the extra 10,000 quid that it would cost me for a new van.
I stand to be corrected but isn't the Pegasus s2 an alutec caravan?
The wall boards on alutec vans is GRP, it is impervious to water and therefore impossible to get a damp meter reading
if as andy states above its grp and impervious to water ,could it be that the dealer is just trying to get unneeded work on a out of warranty van ,unfortunately unless your totally clued up on these things you normally have to take there word for it ,and reading your post again you have traded it in anyway .
in my book i would suggest this was just a ploy to get the p.x price they gave you right down .i would suggest a phone call to bailey to verify the grp walls first ,then if you were offered a low low p.x because of it a call to trading standards and or the fraud squad .
it might also help if you got a friend to view the van with a view to buying it and see if the alleged damp is mentioned .makes my blood boil when you re-read these oh to common posts and realise how people are being ripped off time and time again
The exterior panels are composite & impervious to water but that doesn't stop the joints leaking & I think this has been the main problem. There have in the past on here been complaints about wet floors which I think is still the usual wood structure.
Hi there, I had toyed with the idea of a trade in before it's service and I didn't mention a new van until after I got the service report. I got full book price trade in for the van. Although I could be wrong, I doubt Bailey would authorise warranty work if it wasn't actually damp? If a dealer was claiming moisture reading same it was impossible to get a reading on those boards, I presume Bailey would tell them to take a long walk off a short pier?But then the point about the grp is interesting...
Either way, what's done is done and the Stirling is sitting pretty of the drive awaiting a trip to Annecy in a few weeks. Never towed a double axle before...and it's a long way!
The build quality and initial design is absolute sh1te. some fixes have been made by the dealer (Ropers of Catterick: they've been good and patient with me) but bits keep falling off the van, or stop working. This includes the rear light cluster connections which are placed ina special corrosion pocket behind the back wheel, the kitchen sink drain is positioned so that you push the drain pipe out everytime you put the dining table away and the worktops are made from plasticine, lightly toasted.
I can't list he faults I've had/got with the 'van, and am disgusted with the attitude of Bailey who never told me my series of 'vans was prototypical
However, 10yr water ingress warranty is 10 water ingress warranty. If the dealer says it has damp, then the dealer should fix under warranty.
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Topic: 3yr old Pegasus damp. Bye bye Bailey
