Hi all,
Just would like people's opinion, looking at maybe buying a new van from a dealer who is an hour and halfs drive away.
My main concern is if the van needs repair work through the warranty for whatever reason, do need to keep taking it back to the dealer I bought it from?
The dealer says that the warranty work can be carried out at any NCC approved workshop. I'm not so sure another dealer/workshop would want someone's else's problem.
Has anyone got any advice or had a similar problem.
We asked our dealer this and he said he can do warranty work but is so busy with their own customers he puts them first! Basically they wouldn't bother with it as they have enough work of their own.
Yes, most if not all of the dealers we have asked , said that their customers would come first too, the last thing we need is a van that requires warranty work doing and having to keep taking it back to the dealer who is 50/60 miles away... But that's worst case and the chance you take for a van you want.
there is a guy who has a workshop near where i store my caravan. he is NCC approved and has done a lot of repair work for dealers as far away as Scotland (i am in the west midlands).
are you buying a brand new van?
i know your problem though. if buying second hand there is very little on sale near where i live. the local dealers only seem to be selling smaller vans than i want or if they are large enough they don't have the layout i want. open up the search radius though and there seem to be plenty on offer particularly in Yorkshire and Lancashire.
any vans with a the correct layout even within 1h of where i live seem to be sold already when the ads are placed in the Auto-trader etc..
We travelled to a good dealer about 45 miles from us to buy the van with the service we wanted under warranty. Now that it's no longer in warranty we get a local mobile engineer to do the routine servicing. If it needed bodywork done I would probably take it to the original one who supplied it new as they have the facility to do big jobs, hope it never needs any tho.
Dave
------------- Never argue with an idiot, they will drag you down to their level and beat you on experience.
Mark Twain.
Our dealer is about an hour from us, we try when ever possible to arrange any warranty or service work to be carried out when we are travelling to or from a holiday location as they are based close to the A1 and A66, our main routes. We have in the past tried to have work carried out at local dealers but always found them to be "too busy at the moment". As others have said, own customers first.
Yes,'looking at a brand new van, I'm happy that the service work , as long as it a NCC approved engineer is carried out locally , it's just if it needs to go back and forth to the dealer for any warranty work.
Quote: Originally posted by clbewi on 02/12/2015
We asked our dealer this and he said he can do warranty work but is so busy with their own customers he puts them first! Basically they wouldn't bother with it as they have enough work of their own.
What a sad indictment of the caravan industry if dealers have so much warranty work they cannot take on any customer who did not originally purchase from them. If only our vans were better built in the first place there would be fewer warranty repairs required. Does this leave anyone who buys a nearly-new used van from a private seller completely without support or could they go back to the original supplying dealer?
Trouble is, the manufacturers don't want to/cannot slow down production and improve quality without affecting either the sale price or the number of units they can get out of the door.
Given that we cannot all afford VanMasters (and I think they only make a dozen or so a year) what is the way forward? Is it non-wood construction such as the methods Swift seem to be adopting, or something else?
Nuneaton isn't too far from Venture in Daventry,(approx 30 miles)if your buying a new van from them and your a member of the CC,they're offering the first three years servicing for free(their valuation £700)they are 60 miles from us,but well worth the effort of travelling there and back,and as someone has already said,try to work it in with your holidays.
The dealer is Granthams off the A1, don't mean to sound thick but how can you fit your warranty work in with your holidays, if your vans being repaired?
I doubt it is because dealers have too much warranty work, it's more likely that hourly workshop rates paid by manufacturers to dealers for warranty work are so poor that dealers see that work more as 'customer service' to owners of 'vans supplied by them so taking on 'outside' warranty work is not profitable.
Caravan manufacturers appear to have little control over their franchise holders & cannot/will not 'force' them to do warranty work on 'vans not supplied to them.
In the UK caravans are 'over serviced' imho, annual service at standard pay rates is what makes profits for workshops, not poorly paid warranty work with charges manufacturer may well dispute anyway. They should be serviced more on a mileage/time basis than just time. On the continent, a 2yr service is the norm.
Even in Germany where caravans are mot & gas tested every 2yrs by law, the test & service is done at same time on a 2yrly basis.
We bought ours new from a dealer just over an hour away because it was a good deal. There is a local agent for the manufacturer who could do the work but we prefer to go back to dealer we bought from so can be no chance of one blaming the other. We tie it in with trips to that area which works for us.
------------- Jean
Sometimes a little rain must fall before you reach a rainbow.
The work will wait while you show the child the rainbow, but the rainbow won't wait while you finish the work.
Amazing family weekend with old steam engines, classic car displays, market stalls, and full catering and bar. And camping on site - Save £25 by booking in advance.
Topic: Far, far away
