Family Travel Centre Adria & Sun Living Dealer Bristol Ceased Trading?

Wombles

Wombles

LIFE MEMBER
Joined
Oct 28, 2013
Posts
11,163
Likes collected
12,025
Location
SW England
Funster No
28,783
MH
Van Conversion
Exp
A few years now
Hope this doesn't affect any Funsters but all over Facebook that it looks like the Family Travel Centre in Brislington Bristol have ceased trading - tried calling them to check this before posting but all calls go to answerphone & understand that this has been the case for some time.
Many are concerned as they have motorhomes on order plus the warranties that they & Adria / Sun Living offered customers may not be supported.
We were considering buying from them a while ago - they were award winning & appeared to be one of the better ones so quite a shock.
 
Taken from a Facebook post. Not good.
"Family Travel Centre Bristol Gone Bust and Adria Warranties don't appear to be worth any thing. Just to let People know that an Adria Warranty could not be worth a lot. (chocolate Fireguard springs to mind ) Rang Adria UK and they said speak to other Dealers. Spoke to a couple of Dealers and they said if not sold by them, then they are not interested!!!!. Rang Adria UK back and they said there is not a lot they can do. They try to incentive the dealers but it is up to to a dealer to decide to do warranty work. Will try another few dealers but at this rate it could be Hundreds of Miles away for a service Warranty Habitation Check.!!!!!! If any one will do it at all. So Bottom line a Warrenty appears to be worthless. We bought our Van Oct 2017 and the 10Year Damp warranty was a selling point. !!!!! SPREAD The Word. ALSO check other dealers will do warrenty work on your van if where you buy it from goes bust or was the cheapest"
 
Anyone let down might consider giving Gavin Cox at Geoff Cox a call as he can probably give an update or advice as to what the next stage is.

Gavin married the daughter of the people who used to own Adria so he may be able to bring some influence on Adria themselves.
 
Last edited:
Quite a small dealer with premises in a hard to reach city location, miles away from 'the strip' between Bristol, Highbridge and beyond...
Parking always difficult and a workshop that didn't offer many services.
Having said that, they did turnover stock and were always helpful, so there must be a fair few owners who have purchased from them.
Hope it works out for all concerned, never nice when a business goes under :(
 
Family Travel Centre were Adria Motorhome Dealer of the Year in 2017 so looked like a safe choice if ordering a new motorhome & they were selling well at the October NEC Motorhome Show so hope Adria look after those customers.

Subscribers  do not see these advertisements

 
Posted on Facebook 3 hours ago by Matt Sim:

A sad day for my friends at Family Travel Centre in Bristol who have ceased trading Today. Many great memories starting the business and building it into a fantastic place.

I believe Matt was a founding director of the Family Travel Centre, but then left and established the Motorhome Holiday Company separately. And now Belmont Leisure also.

https://www.motorhomeholidaycompany.com/

https://www.belmontleisure.com/ (which is an interesting concept - motorhome timeshare!)

Very sorry to hear of the demise of the Family Travel Centre - had visited a few times.
 
Last edited:
Wow, i feel sad and lucky in one way, i bought a motorhome from them on 15th December, paid them a 25k deposit and the balance 10 days before collecting, it wasn't an Adria and a trade in, so the warranty i got was a after market one, which now is a good thing, down side was a door frame needed replacing and they were going to do this themselves, now looks like i need to find someone to carry out this work, but i could have lost a lot of money if they went through during my deposit and completing the sale.
 
ross northcott said:
Wow, i feel sad and lucky in one way, i bought a motorhome from them on 15th December, paid them a 25k deposit and the balance 10 days before collecting.
Click to expand...
You were very lucky. You should never put down a deposit that is more than you are prepared to loose and pay the balance on collection.
I've bought 3 new Hymers only ever put down 1k deposit.
 
Shame to see them go down, had an e mail from them today advising that they had ceased trading. Bought our van from them and can only say that they were excellent.
 
Lenny HB said:
You were very lucky. You should never put down a deposit that is more than you are prepared to loose and pay the balance on collection.
I've bought 3 new Hymers only ever put down 1k deposit.
Click to expand...

The deposit was a 1k down payment, then i gave them 5k in cash and traded in my motorhome, which they gave me 19k against new one, but they took my old van weeks before i got my new one, they sold it within 3 days as a trade sale, so don't know where i would have stood with regards to my old van?

Subscribers  do not see these advertisements

 
Lenny HB said:
You were very lucky. You should never put down a deposit that is more than you are prepared to loose and pay the balance on collection.
I've bought 3 new Hymers only ever put down 1k deposit.
Click to expand...

Same here Lenny - £1k deposit balance on collection :)
 
ross northcott said:
The deposit was a 1k down payment, then i gave them 5k in cash and traded in my motorhome, which they gave me 19k against new one, but they took my old van weeks before i got my new one, they sold it within 3 days as a trade sale, so don't know where i would have stood with regards to my old van?
Click to expand...
Possibly in trouble as an unsecured creditor!
As the guys have said, pay a minimal deposit up to a maximum of what you can "afford" to lose.
 
ross northcott said:
Wow, i feel sad and lucky in one way, i bought a motorhome from them on 15th December, paid them a 25k deposit and the balance 10 days before collecting, it wasn't an Adria and a trade in, so the warranty i got was a after market one, which now is a good thing, down side was a door frame needed replacing and they were going to do this themselves, now looks like i need to find someone to carry out this work, but i could have lost a lot of money if they went through during my deposit and completing the sale.
Click to expand...
My understanding is that body works were outsourced to http://www.caravanrepairs-sw.co.uk/ and not carried out in house.
We have used them (as recommended by Family Travel Centre) but can’t really recommend them ourselves as we’ve had mixed experiences...
 
ross northcott said:
The deposit was a 1k down payment, then i gave them 5k in cash and traded in my motorhome, which they gave me 19k against new one, but they took my old van weeks before i got my new one, they sold it within 3 days as a trade sale, so don't know where i would have stood with regards to my old van?
Click to expand...
I think you would have lost the lot.
Had a friend who some years ago before online transfers were norm, sent dealer a cheque on Monday going to pick us his van on Friday, dealer went into liquidation on Thursday.

Subscribers  do not see these advertisements

 
The Family Travel Centre website suggests they had about 35 new and used vans in stock - one at £114k and another at £102k; the cheapest at £30k.

Company accounts to 30 June 2017: Broken Link Removed
 
Last edited:
I went in 9 days ago, and they had a serious amount of stock, especially as most were brand new
 
Kind of ironic i guess lol
Looking after me for the coming months and years, more like days
 

Attachments

Bad for the customers staff and owners on our last van paid £1000 deposit on credit card sounds like it was a good move we also paid the balance on collection by debit card so no real chance of losing out if they went bust. I wonder if there is any comeback on the credit card companies if there is a big warranty problem not sure. I would have thought if there is enough bad publicity Adria will do something for warranty issues it won't be a very good advert to prospective buyers if they just do nothing.
 
The Wino said:
Bad for the customers staff and owners on our last van paid £1000 deposit on credit card sounds like it was a good move we also paid the balance on collection by debit card so no real chance of losing out if they went bust. I wonder if there is any comeback on the credit card companies if there is a big warranty problem not sure. I would have thought if there is enough bad publicity Adria will do something for warranty issues it won't be a very good advert to prospective buyers if they just do nothing.
Click to expand...
No advantage paying the deposit with a credit card if the total purchase price is over 30k, does not give any protection.

Subscribers  do not see these advertisements

 
I went there last month to get something from their accessory shop which is inside the showroom. They had lots of new and used MH stock but it was deathly quiet. I agree about limited parking, which is why we parked in the nearby retail park and walked over. A sales guy practically ran towards us. In most MH dealers the sales guys seem chained to their desks with better things to do than approach a potential customer.
 
Puddleduck said:
Anyone let down might consider giving Gavin Cox at Geoff Cox a call as he can probably give an update or advice as to what the next stage is.

Gavin married the daughter of the people who used to own Adria so he may be able to bring some influence on Adria themselves.
Click to expand...

Has she got a sister? Xx
 
ross northcott said:
live and learn i guess, will not pay any more than a 1k in future thats for sure
Click to expand...

Best way - no reputable dealer should need more than £1k to hold as a deposit - unless of course you are having accessories fitted then pay for them up front - as to giving your old van in PX before you collect the new one - that would be an absolute no go area for me!
 
That's very sad news. I wonder who will liquidate the stock.
 
I feel for the poor people who part exchanged there van and pay a big deposit:eek:

Subscribers  do not see these advertisements

 
Very sad news for everyone involved. We went there on Friday and again on Monday to look at a van, guessed that something was wrong as it was all shut up. They were always very friendly and helpful and did some repairs on our old motorhome.
 
When we ordered our new van the dealer refused to take the p/ex until hand over. We paid a small deposit and everything else was done at hand over. He said he would not get involved with "part performed contracts". That gave me a lot of confidence and we have not been let down.

Sad when good dealers go under though.
 
Think might stay away from Adria stand a NEC gonna be a lot of unhappy people.......
Hearing mixed reviews on FB on how Adria are responding to outstanding orders and issues.......:rolleyes:
 
Jagtazman said:
I would imagine would got to another trader.if not gonna be some bargains to be had.........
Click to expand...
When RDH Nottingham went bust strangely there was no stock owned by RDH Just one transit on the books valued at £800

Subscribers  do not see these advertisements

 

Join us or log in to post a reply.

To join in you must be a member of MotorhomeFun

Join MotorhomeFun

Join us, it quick and easy!

Join us

Log in

Already a member? Log in here.

Latest journal entries

Back
Top