Buying from Dealer a distance away from Home. Should I worry?

I live in Fife but purchased a new motorhome from Preston Caravans and Motorhomes last April. The trade in deal was much better than I was offered in Scotland so it was worth traveling the 250 miles. I have had one minor problem since, requiring warranty work, but the Glasgow Motorhome Repair Centre dealt with it for me very professionally and competently. They're also a "one stop shop" so will do the Peugeot service and habitation check at the same time, when due in April.
 
We used a local dealer after buying miles away. No problems doing that. We have subsequently used the local dealer for 6 years service so win win.
 
Hi
Thanks again - loads of opportunities! We love Scotland and visit regularly so another excuse to visit wouldnt be a problem!
Think I have sorted somebody local, but always good to have options!
 
We had a choice between buying a brand new van from a dealer 30 miles away or another one 110 miles away. Thankfully we went for the closer one. The van is now in their workshop for the second time after only two short trips. Since they sold it there is no question about them fixing it and I can get to/from home on a bus when I have to leave it with them.
 
All three vans we have bought new have been from Belgium.
Makes a nice break going over if we need anything doing. Over the 3 vans saved nearly £50k on UK prices easy pays for a few trips.

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Interesting two views, decided not to worry about distance have checked out local dealers and nobody can get near the offer price.
We love Devon so a trip down isn’t a disaster
Thanks for the input though - we aren’t talking a few pounds difference in price either
 
Steve Thompson said:
Interesting two views, decided not to worry about distance have checked out local dealers and nobody can get near the offer price.
We love Devon so a trip down isn’t a disaster
Thanks for the input though - we aren’t talking a few pounds difference in price either
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We did the same, we bought a new Chausson from down south which saved us over £3,000 as no-where else could touch the PX they were giving us.
 
We bought new from a dealer 220km away. Not worried in the slightest about that. We've had to go back for an intermittent prob with the reversing camera, but just scheduled it in with a couple of days away over that way.
 
There really should be no reason why a local approved dealership flying the flag for the manufactured Motorhome you have choosen should not carry out any warranty work and simply put a claim into the manufacture. It is an incredibly simple process however I know by personal experience this isnt the case and yes the dealer response can be “ if it wasn’t purchased by us then we can not help”. Complete rubbish!

Luckily this isnt always the case and we often carry out work for customers in our local area.

As a prime example, whilst writing this I am currently sat on a train for 4 hours to collect to one of our good customers Motorhomes for some minor warranty work because he is suffering from a bad back problem and approached his local dealer to avoid the travelling which will not help him at all!!
You just can’t get the service these days!! :D
 
Fantastic service - long way from East Sussex to Southport - but you would get a good brew!!!
All sorted for us - nice trip South if things go wrong - fingers crossed! Habitation checks sorted locally so all is good!
Thanks gain for everyones input - it was invaluable!

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It is the nature of things that you will almost certainly have to take your shiny new van back to the supplying dealer for snagging and/or other more significant work. Vans just aren't perfect and the degree of technical complexity means that things will go wrong. We used to have a Hymer which we bought in Preston the main/only Hymer dealer in the UK at the time. Despite the lofty reputation of Hymer our van was not trouble free.
"A problem sir don't worry just pop it back and we will fix it"
Well not a problem for them but a 700 mile round trip with more than a tank of diesel and two days off work for me so not straightforward. Hymer would not pay for a local dealer in the warranty period but in a couple of cases did sent me replacement parts for me to fit myself.
And one problem was so bad that (out of warranty) I took the vehicle back the Hymer garage at the factory in Bad Waldsee (Bavaria) where they were superb and not that expensive.
I think it's just a fact of life which you should accept and live with.

I do hope your new van is excellent and reliable. You buy it to enjoy it so don't fret too much about the inevitable.
 
Hi

Yes all accepted and not fretting anymore! Devon is a lovely part of the Country so if it has to go back so be it!
Not long before we collect so looking forward to getting back on the road again!
Cheers
 
Steve Thompson said:
Hi

Yes all accepted and not fretting anymore! Devon is a lovely part of the Country so if it has to go back so be it!
Not long before we collect so looking forward to getting back on the road again!
Cheers
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It's always a risk Steve but if you are saving a fortune and prepared to travel then it's in your favour to opt for the distance purchase. We saved £10K buying from a dealer 150-miles away (2 vans ago) but it did mean that this happened.

1. Gas boiler failure - I report the symptoms to dealer.

2. I get an inspection slot and allocate 12-hours of my time to travel the 300-mile round trip.

3. Dealer inspects gas system and said my symptoms were correct - and then informs me to come back in 4-weeks to have the faulty part replaced (no dealer carries spare parts it seems).

4. 4-weeks later I'm off to do it all again.

This is called the 'real price' of getting a good deal :D:D
 
Just a thought on this subject, of which I know little as I have only bought one MH secondhand.

I hear of people buying stand-alone warranties. Are these not valid anywhere?

Are there other problems with them - e.g. parts supplies/costs?

I do not know the costs of these warranties but if one has saved 10K on the price is it not feasible?

Geoff
 
A bit off topic here, but you should worry more about your insurance premium than the manufacturers warranty and taking it back to the dealer. Your premium will be horrendous and may frighten you to death. Insurers don't like taking on your risk if you when you declare that you've already had a motorhome stolen and it will all be on an insurance data base of stolen motorhomes and caravans. I was speaking to a lady who had her motorhome stolen last year. The insurance paid out in full 42k, but she could hardly get any company to take her on for the new van she was buying and her premium went up six fold and she was paying over £2,200 when she did. Also her excesses were enormous!! Off topic but surely something to think about.

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It is certainly my experience having bought my first ever Motorhome at he Romsey show from a dealer from Gloucester with a warranty my two local dealers would not do any warranty work or even service it because I had not purchased it from them. It is certainly a consideration should I buy another one although they might not give you the best deal. I have found a couple of really good Mobile Service engineers who have been brilliant
 
Having read the experiences of some on this forum it would worry me but that's just me.
On our current van I had a couple of issues that I think were the responsibility of the supplying dealer: camera and radio failure which were both replaced by the dealer. I may be wrong.
 
From experience, yes. Unless it’s something very rare and unique.

We bought a Frankia from Dudley’s of Oxfordshire some 160 miles from us (took us 6 hours one way one day). We had to then leave the motorhome with them and get transport home.

On one occasion, they only took it to their local MERCEDES dealer and had it over 10 days.

In total, it was with them more than 6 weeks in one year.
 
When making a purchase decision I would take into consideration the fact that I would have to take my m/h back to the supplying dealer (whether that's 'fair' or not) for warranty work.
Obviously, if you're choosing on the basis of getting a bargain or that you MUST have a specific brand of new m/h your choice of supplier will be limited, but yer pays yer money .......... so forth.
TBH I wouldn't be bothered to take two days off work and drive 150 miles for warranty work costing less than £150. I'd take it to someone local and pay myself (out of the money I saved on the purchase price). A round trip of 300 miles would cost me say £70 in diesel plus two single train tickets (£100?).
If I was a dealer selling to someone 150 miles away I'd be more than likely (quite reasonably) to offer a better deal or offer 'free' accessories or new battery etc. than if it was a fairly local buyer on the assumption that they would be coming back 150 miles for relatively minor warranty repairs - which don't produce any profit for the dealer even if refunded by the manufacturer.
Life's too short........... and never has been fair.
 
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At least one of the NEC dealers on the Auto Trail stand indicated they had a relationship with a network of other dealers around the country. If something were to need attention, the idea was to contact the original seller who would put you in touch with the local dealer. They suggested that worked for most minor stuff, but they'd normally hope customers would bring the van back to base for the major annual servicing work.

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Kannon Fodda said:
At least one of the NEC dealers on the Auto Trail stand indicated they had a relationship with a network of other dealers around the country. If something were to need attention, the idea was to contact the original seller who would put you in touch with the local dealer. They suggested that worked for most minor stuff, but they'd normally hope customers would bring the van back to base for the major annual servicing work.
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Having a 'relationship' doesn't mean another dealer will do the stuff for you even if the original selling one puts you in touch ... wish it did.
 
Steve Thompson said:
We have just ordered a new Motorhome at the NEC having had ours stolen.
Got a really good deal but somebody just mentioned that if I have a problem I will have to take it back to the original Dealer rather than somebody local as other dealers are reluctant to carry out warranty work? Obvioulsy hoping that it wont be the case but............... I have had new cars and company cars supplied from all over the place and never had a problem with servicing and warranty work, but realise a motorhome is different!
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You can get any warranty work done on the base vehicle i.e.Fiat/Pugeot/
vow/Mercedes at any dealership but this doesn’t apply to the habitation/ caravan side of it, you would normally have to return to the supplying dealer, unless you can arrange with supplying dealer to authorise another like dealership to Carry out warranty work on your van, and they would then have to pay that dealer for the work done, something to bear in mind if the dealership happens to be a 300 mile round trip away, and you can bet that you’re bound to have one or to warranty issues, sod’s law.
 
Spriddler said:
When making a purchase decision I would take into consideration the fact that I would have to take my m/h back to the supplying dealer (whether that's 'fair' or not) for warranty work.
Obviously, if you're choosing on the basis of getting a bargain or that you MUST have a specific brand of new m/h your choice of supplier will be limited, but yer pays yer money .......... so forth.
TBH I wouldn't be bothered to take two days off work and drive 150 miles for warranty work costing less than £150. I'd take it to someone local and pay myself (out of the money I saved on the purchase price). A round trip of 300 miles would cost me say £70 in diesel plus two single train tickets (£100?).
If I was a dealer selling to someone 150 miles away I'd be more than likely (quite reasonably) to offer a better deal or offer 'free' accessories or new battery etc. than if it was a fairly local buyer on the assumption that they would be coming back 150 miles for relatively minor warranty repairs - which don't produce any profit for the dealer even if refunded by the manufacturer.
Life's too short........... and never has been fair.
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EDIT - Should read ' on the assumption that they wouldn't be coming back 150 miles.......
 
gwyntaxi said:
You can get any warranty work done on the base vehicle i.e.Fiat/Pugeot/
vow/Mercedes at any dealership but this doesn’t apply to the habitation/ caravan side of it, you would normally have to return to the supplying dealer, unless you can arrange with supplying dealer to authorise another like dealership to Carry out warranty work on your van, and they would then have to pay that dealer for the work done, something to bear in mind if the dealership happens to be a 300 mile round trip away, and you can bet that you’re bound to have one or to warranty issues, sod’s law.
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That's incorrect i'm afraid on a new motorhome when the motorhome is under the manufactures warranty.

If the dealership carrying out any repair has an active support account with the manufacture then they would simply open a warranty portal and claim direct from the manufacture. The supplying original dealer would not need to be involved as this is the exact process they would follow on a warranty return repair.

As I posted previously we often support customers in our local area that didn't purchase new from us.

To note it works exactly the same if we sell a motorhome pre-owned with an existing supporting Manufactures Warranty.

The only thing you need to bare in mind is if the local dealer is prepared to carry out any work to a motorhome if it wasn't originally supplied by themselves, as they are not required to undertake any work if not. It comes down to their discretion, so that would be the question I would ask..

Yes you are completely correct with regards to the base vehicle manufactures warranty, you can take your motorhome to any Fiat/Peugeot etc approved specialist.
 
James

Keep plugging the message. I presume you have Peter's support for your educational posts.

It would be interesting to hear from our Continental cousins on the Dealers' attitudes over there to carrying out warranty work on vehicles they have not sold. Maybe the owners are better aware of their rights, so dealers do not 'try it on'.

It does not take many years of reading the forums to realise who are the trustworthy dealers/repairers/suppliers/fitters.

When you left Dad's well-respected company I was so pleased that you went to another one.

Peter has always been willing to give impartial advice on forums, where the rules allow. Chris near Chichester was always the same, but a bit quiet since he moved company. Now you are continuing the tradition. Keep it up.

Thanks

Geoff

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GSD said:
It is the nature of things that you will almost certainly have to take your shiny new van back to the supplying dealer for snagging and/or other more significant work. Vans just aren't perfect and the degree of technical complexity means that things will go wrong. We used to have a Hymer which we bought in Preston the main/only Hymer dealer in the UK at the time. Despite the lofty reputation of Hymer our van was not trouble free.
"A problem sir don't worry just pop it back and we will fix it"
Well not a problem for them but a 700 mile round trip with more than a tank of diesel and two days off work for me so not straightforward. Hymer would not pay for a local dealer in the warranty period but in a couple of cases did sent me replacement parts for me to fit myself.
And one problem was so bad that (out of warranty) I took the vehicle back the Hymer garage at the factory in Bad Waldsee (Bavaria) where they were superb and not that expensive.
I think it's just a fact of life which you should accept and live with.

I do hope your new van is excellent and reliable. You buy it to enjoy it so don't fret too much about the inevitable.
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must admit surprise by all this acceptance of snagging etc on a new purchase. I used to build new narrowboats, about 5 a year for 12 years, first 3 months I went to them for anything minor, after that they came back to me unless we agreed to local repair. I can honestly say that in all that time we only dealt with a handful of faults, and they were mainly failure of new components. We made sure we did it right first time, then no problems!
 
In a way I agree with you but realistically for minor faults what option does a customer have. Legally you can't reject a vehicle on the grounds of minor faults but you do want to get them fixed. I am always amazed at the statistics contained in vehicle road tests "build quality 75% etc". In my past life and career accuracy less than 100% had severe implications and potential disaster. if a train driver drove 75% correctly would he be going through 1 in four red signals.
But in my past two vans (both the same model and converter) 99.9% of the issues have been component related. Oh and narrowboats are not quite as mobile or fast as a camper van.:):)
 
GSD said:
It is the nature of things that you will almost certainly have to take your shiny new van back to the supplying dealer for snagging and/or other more significant work. Vans just aren't perfect and the degree of technical complexity means that things will go wrong. We used to have a Hymer which we bought in Preston the main/only Hymer dealer in the UK at the time. Despite the lofty reputation of Hymer our van was not trouble free.
"A problem sir don't worry just pop it back and we will fix it"
Well not a problem for them but a 700 mile round trip with more than a tank of diesel and two days off work for me so not straightforward. Hymer would not pay for a local dealer in the warranty period but in a couple of cases did sent me replacement parts for me to fit myself.
And one problem was so bad that (out of warranty) I took the vehicle back the Hymer garage at the factory in Bad Waldsee (Bavaria) where they were superb and not that expensive.
I think it's just a fact of life which you should accept and live with.

I do hope your new van is excellent and reliable. You buy it to enjoy it so don't fret too much about the inevitable.
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I do not believe you do as long as it’s a main dealer of the brand you bought. We have done for the warranty period.
 
pandas said:
I do not believe you do as long as it’s a main dealer of the brand you bought. We have done for the warranty period.
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I have no wish to be confrontational and I am probably being dim but I can't understand what it is you are trying to say. It may help me to understand if you could please express your thoughts in a different way
 
If the motorhome is under the manufactures warranty, ie 2 years or with damp 6 years for example with Hymer, you can ask any Hymer dealer to carry out the warranty work.
For example If you bought a Mercedes in Edinburgh and subsequently moved to Devon you can still have the manufacturers warranty carried out in Devon. Hopefully that is slightly clearer. I do not know if a ‘dealer’ warranty is transferable, I am just referring to a manufacturers warranty.

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