Welcome to UKCS. Many people have the Argente, it's proved to be one of their most popular 'vans. We have a Rialto 555/4. We love the layout, but the 'van suffers a bit from shoddy build quality in my opinion. For the money though, they're not as good as the Baileys. At the end of the day it's your choice who you spend your brass with, and you should expect, no, demand a decent product for your money!
We had the Argente 530/5 which we used for 2 years before swapping it. It had the Lux pack so was pretty well spec'd, it was a great van and served us well, everything was still in as new condition when we sold it.
Only niggle we had was the now infamous cracks to the front panel, which you should look out for before you hand over your cash for that van. We had the panel replaced under warranty and everything was fine after that, although we've since swapped the van purely for a different layout.
I'd certainly have another Avondale in the future.
we have a avondale 556/6 we had it new in 2004 it is a great van but has had all the avondale problems, we had cracks in the back and front panels we had to have the whole of the back panel replaced and the front panel repaired, the whole of the floor had delaminated and had to be repaired i thought this was a one of but if you look under the name avondale on this site you will see the problems that people are having with avondales we have now bought a coachman which has far better build quality hope this helps
Hi - we also love the layout of the Avondale Argente 650 but are being put off reading these reports of stess cracks. What is the next best caravan with similar layout as we really love the layout in the Argente. Thanks!
Hi Tisso - the way we have decide to look at it is that cracks can appear in any van so we are going ahead and buying one as this is the only van that we have seen with this layout and it is so ideal for the kids.
we have the 640/6 and absolutely love it did have the 2005 model that was nothing but trouble,now have the 2006 model and not had a single problem,as said before not another caravan out there that we liked as much except fot the bailey carolina but it was only the bathroom that we really liked in it.
There are a lot of vans with the same layout as the 640/6 (side bunks), but the only one I've seen with a similar layout to the 650/6 is a Fleetwood in Mendip recently. That had wraparound seating and instead of large cupboard and tv shelf, there was a big fridge/freezer and microwave. So you'd have to put the tele on a flap down shelf at the end of the seating.
I looked into the panel problems for ages before taking the plunge and they seem to have been worse between 2002 and 2004. I'm hoping that the problems have all been sorted, which is one reason we bought a 2007 model, but I'll be keeping an eye out for the cracks! We don't tow so at least it won't have so much wear and tear. The other reason for getting a new model was a slight change in spec - the new one has a locker for a microwave. I wish it had come with an omnivent as standard though, I don't know whether to fork out to get one installed during the service in October.
We bought ours in October 2006 and have only used it a few times, opening it up on 17th March . This layout is the best for my kids (6 and 8), they have theyre own bedroom at the back. We can't hear them with the door shut!
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Topic: avondale argente
. This layout is the best for my kids (6 and 8), they have theyre own bedroom at the back. We can't hear them with the door shut!
