At the moment looking for a lightweight van (under 1300 kg fully laden) and have seen some Avondale makes we like the look of (2008 fixed bed models Dart and Mayfair). However, a dealer told us that he would never touch an Avondale due to problems with cracking. Any comments please? Any experience of Avondales gratefully received.
We have owned a 2005 Dart 556/6 for 9 years and not a crack in sight and have not heard of any problems with cracking on these models before.
Avondales are not made anymore so there may be some problems getting some body parts and trim but all the things like fridges ,fires and similar parts are used on many other vans.
The van is lightweight and some doors and panels can be a bit flimsy and we have had to repair and re-enforce a few panels as they can be pushed in easily.
We love our Dart(actually its a Mayfair with a few updated bits on it)and not had any major problems and it tows very well.
sure avondale had a problem with cracking but this was over a short period of time a year or two but cant remember the exact years. i have an avandale rialto 2001 and its great little van dry as a bone no cracks find out the years there was a problem and believe you should be ok.i am sure there is a post on here somewhere as we looked on here before buying ours
I have known Avondale panels to have cracks from 2001 up to 2005 it is usually on the abs panels where pilot holes were not drilled to except the screws.
The awning rails generally hide the cracks until they work there way out.
removing the rail to repair the cracks then resealing usually
does the trick.
Hi ya we too have an Avondale Rialto and love it ...
Very light to tow and we certainly don't have signs of any cracking.
Just like Taylor56 ours also suffers from slightly flimsy Panels but nothing that a couple of panel pins didn't fix.
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Topic: Avondale advice 2008 model
