Disappointed with New Motorhome Quality Standards (17 Viewers)

[enark]

I have an interesting story on build quality... going up the motorway last year to the Lincoln show our front electric windscreen shutter gave a bang and dropped down to its emergency stop points.... gave us a hell of a fright... the motor still whirred when the switch was pressed but nothing happened... so contacted our sole dealership in Newark and said it needed repair, only to be told....
"Sorry Sir they are not a repair item we will have to order you in a whole new shutter/blind assembly".. "Oh OK i said but surely it might be something simple"... "No sorry Sir we don't repair that equipment.. I will have to order a complete unit from Germany... that we be approx £1600 to get for you.
So being really cheesed off at that and not willing to give in to that sheer exploitation I felt, I spent two days dismantling all the panels and surrounds to get at the unit and operating mechanism, and what did i find?

When the van was built and the electric roller mechanism was installed the ends had to be located in square brackets fixed to the side of the van.. they should be fixed/held in place by split pins... lo and behold some bright spark had neglected to fit the split pin in the motor end .. the mechanism had worked loose over time and it had dropped out with a bang creating the whole problem..
I replaced the missing 20p split pin, put everything back together and its worked perfectly ever since.
I have since always wondered if the dealership would have found and admitted this and only charged me for the 20p repair or just pulled it all out and charged me the £1600 for the new unit..

Well done you.

I too have carried out small low cost repairs that a dealer would certainly have made a meal of…and charged. Recently a failed auxilery belt on a car, dealer wanted £200 to recover, then £500 to replace, Euro Car parts sold be one for £20 which took an hour to fit.

The satisfaction is well worth it.

My view is its part of the motorhoming hobby - light maintenance and repairs.

Oil changes is another, i am never really convinced garages actually bother, but know when i do it, its done correctly….and saves a £100 +

 

[HugoBNB]

The most annoying creak we have is the one across the entirety of the front of the windscreen. Nipping the screws made a big difference, but it has stopped it. I think the only way I am going to sort it is to strip our the entire bit between the Mercedes dash and the front windscreen. This will involve removing the vertical windscreen blind. If there are any learned folk on here who have done this, I would welcome their comments.
Safe and happy travels.

I stripped out the top of the dashboard today. More loose screws, and two missing! The black plastic trim that bridges the Sprinter dashboard and runs under the Dometic blind, follows the same contours as the metal carcase below. The squeaks there were from the plastic rubbing against the metal when on uneven roads. So, I removed the securing screws and packed out the gap with sound absorption pads. Then, I cut more sound absorption into strips and placed it between the plastic and the metal where the securing screws are located before refixing them. Finally, before refitting the black plastic top dash and speaker grille, I put more sound absorption in there.i took it out for a run and, no noises from there, but there is still what now sounds like loose cables still rattling at the drivers side. That could have neen from when the dealer installed the alarm. This looks a bit more challenging to get into, so I am going do a bit more research into how it is put together. While I was on, I checked as many of the furniture fixings I could get at in the front habitation area. I was able to pinch up nearly all of them. Five of them have completely stripped the base they were drilled into. This was done during assembly for sure. I am going to revisit this and experiment using a cavity type fixing, along with adhesive, to gain better purchase into the PU that forms the floor sandwich. Onwards and upwards!