A week or so ago I went to view a caravan (2010 Swift Charisma 550) at the same reputable dealer where we bought our current van from.
I took a damp meter and checked in all the usual places - didn't find any high readings. Spotted a couple of repairs that needed doing to the blinds but apart from that it seemed fine.
I was offered a good price for our current van in part-ex, a 12 month warranty & service and a 2nd hand powrtouch mover with a 12 month warranty as part of the deal, so i paid my deposit and arranged to collect the van on 2nd July.
On Saturday - my wife suggested we go back and have a look at van just in case i'd missed anything that needed doing. We arrived to find the van outside the service bay, hooked up to the mains with the blown air pipe in the bathroom disconnected and pointing up to the rear corner of the van.
The salesman assured us that the damp reading was only just above 20% and that they re-seal as a matter of course. He also showed us that quite a lot of the used stock had outstanding work that needed doing before they could give a 12 month warranty on them.
He said that we should book the van in for a service just before the 12 month warranty is up and if there are any signs of damp then they will repair it under warranty.
I trust the dealership as they've always been good with us in the past - but it was still a shock to see what I thought was a 'perfect' van being treated for slight water ingress.
I guess if anyone else is thinking of buying a used van from a large dealership - it's worth asking if they know of any work that will need doing prior to sale.
What is the point in re-sealing if they do no strip it altogether? The wood underneath may be dry but also rotten.
We had a similar issue and though the issue was supposedly resolved, the aluminium skin started bubbling. The cause was the staples rusting and then reacting with the aluminium causing the bubbling? Luckily our caravan was under warranty.
If you go ahead, shortly after purchase pay an AWS engineer the £65 to do a thorough damp test plus check and do it within 30 days.
I am assuming the caravan is over 6 years old otherwise you can normally transfer the manufacturers warranty if the caravan was serviced regularly.
Brand new vans can be affected too like our van where they put on a side then seemed to push it forward to fit which caused the paper on the wall board to wrinkie.Needless to say they took a bit off the price.
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Topic: New Caravan
