Bessacar buyers beware

[Philip_374232078]

I took delivery of a new Bessacar 625GL in April this year. It was to be our dream caravan and was eagerly anticipated of course. We purchased it from Stewart Longton in Chorley as they had the exact model and specification we required.

When we collected the new van we were very impressed with the thoroughness of the handover and explanations of the systems on board and all seemed ok until we tried to put some heating on that evening.

When it didn't work I quickly found that a fuse was missing from the Alde boiler. We were now on site, near our home in the Midlands and a return journey to Chorley was not an option. Phone calls were made and I ended up spending half the Sunday sourcing a replacement fuse. The system now worked and all seemed ok until we tried to use hot water alone when further problems were encountered.

We ended up getting an engineer out from Alde last month, who found that during construction a staple had been put through a cable causing a dangerous short and the boiler had been 'hot wired' to allow it to work! The fuse was apparently also removed to avoid a dangerous situation.

So in summary, a 'top of the range' caravan had left Swift in a dangerous condition which was then allowed to pass Stewart Longton's pre delivery inspection!

Bessacar's boast of individually styled and beautifully built has been forever tarnished in my estimation along with their claims of accuracy in construction and build quality.

Swift have now offered to share the cost of the caravans first service in compensation and closed communication on the issue.

Moral of this tale is to insist on thorough testing of ALL systems in the caravan you are purchasing before you take it away from the dealership.

 

[David.O]

Philip

On our Cl at this moment is a 3 year old Bessacar that has let water from the outside into the bed locker making the carpet damp. the carpet is covering cables that supply the external water pump which stopped working. It took 2 days to find the fault cost well over

 

[Wendy-Norfolk]

We have also got the Bessacarr 625GL which we bought new in January this year.

This is the third Bessacarr, and are very pleased with it, as we were with the others. We didn't experience any problems with water ingress on the older models, and have not had any problems with the one we have at the moment.

As with all caravans, you are bound to get one with teething problems, this IMO shouldn't put potential buyers off.

 

[RogerL]

"As with all caravans, you're bound to get one with teething problems"

Not with production quality systems and proper pre-delivery inspections.

The caravan industry displays all the worst aspects of '60s British manufacturing. By accepting this situation as "normal" things won't ever get any better.

Philip, get in touch with Trading Standards. You're too late now to reject the caravan but they'll advise on all the steps necessary to get the dealer to rectify all the problems. Just remember your legal relationship is with the dealer, not the manufacturer, despite their obvious failigs.

 

[Val & Frank]

Our Bessacarr 645 is six months old now and no problems !!! so I don't quite understand why buyers of Bessacarrs should beware. Buyers of all caravans, carpets, fridges, TVs,houses clothes etc etc, should be aware that they may have problems. Our carpets are loose I checked the wiring, I have a certificate to say all the wiring was correct when I bought the Van. The dealer had the Hot Water and Central Heating running when we went for the handover. So it looks like a poor dealer check and handover rather than an inherent Bessacarr problem I hope.

Val & Frank

Val & Frank

 

[RogerL]

I don't think "dangerous shorts" and "hot wiring" is down to poor dealer check.

 

[Damian]

When we bought our Abbey GTS Vogue, everything was shown to us working, and we left the dealer quite happy with everything.

On the second outing, the electric hot water stopped working, but was OK on gas.

Upon investigation I found that whoever fitted the heater and wired it in has fired a staple through the mains cable, which had not caused a short, so the heater worked for a short time, but on extended use, the heat generated by flowing electricity had caused the staple to heat up, and melt the insulation between Line and Earth, causing the problem.

Now,unless the dealer had checked every single inch of the wiring, he could not have known, or be expected to know what had happened.

It is, in my view , bad quality control and disinterested workers assembling the vans that is the problem.

This kind of thing can, as had been said, be applied to any item you buy from any source

 

[coljac]

Philip /David Thank you for naming and shaming the caravan maker and the dealer .the problem with the UK caravan industry is the same problems that destroyed the UK car industry .

There is no excuse for a caravan to leave a factory in the condition your van was in .There is also no excuse for the fault not being picked up by the dealer at the predelivery inspection .

The only way to bring the industry up to speed is to name and shame them then loss of business may make them more diligent

Coljac

 

[Val & Frank]

With all due respect David does not even own one of the vans in question !! He has taken it upon himself to name and shame the maker.

Does David know the history of the owner or the van that let in water ?? Does he have a grudge with Bessacarr. Are we dealing in Fact ?? I just don't know.

Val & Frank

 

[RogerL]

With all due respect David does not even own one of the vans in question !! He has taken it upon himself to name and shame the maker.

Does David know the history of the owner or the van that let in water ?? Does he have a grudge with Bessacarr. Are we dealing in Fact ?? I just don't know.

Val & Frank

David's post is straightforward. Evidence is available without being an owner!

 

[Steven_374224300]

With all due respect David does not even own one of the vans in question !! He has taken it upon himself to name and shame the maker.

Does David know the history of the owner or the van that let in water ?? Does he have a grudge with Bessacarr. Are we dealing in Fact ?? I just don't know.

Val & Frank

We have a Bessacarr Cameo manufactured in Aug 2000. Being the second owners of the unit, I can say we are well pleased with it.

Build quality is excellent and it would still pass as 6 months old with the way it has been looked after.

I did find a fault with it though.

We found a rubber hose to the boiler/water heater had not been secured by the spring clip, the rubber hose in effect was only pushed on to the outlet pipe, the spring clip not securing the hose to the pipe.

Consequently the hose had been weeping for the last 5 1/2 years.

Upon enquiring to the original owner, he told me that there had been a re-call with the Primus boiler/water heater, thus it had been fitted with a modified unit.

Fitting the spring clip correctly has cured the problem and the unit had not suffered any damage.

 

[Icemaker]

seems to be a bit of a pattern appearing here, every single fault i had with my 2005 swift built ace celebration twin axle, and theire where a lot of faults where all down to poor attention to detail and even poorer build quality. seems bessacar are starting to show the same faults plus more and swift need to address these faults quickly. We got rid of our ace as it was such a poor van even though it was just 1 year old, i will never ever buy or recommend any swift product again.

 

[Rioja]

I agree with Roger 100% on this one.There is simply no excuse for that lack of attention to detail. It appears a couple of Bessacar owners have taken this as an attack on their choice.I also think that Swift are not alone, so isolating the problem with them is off the mark too.( Hence I agree with Roger, if we accept this as the norm how will things ever improve)My lunar Clubman was delivered with the wrong fuse in the mains box so it blew when we had heating and extractor fan on.(You wouldn't necessarily test both at once in a dealer forecourt) and worse still, and far more dangerous, the spotlights were fitted with the wrong wattage bulbs so, after a longer use, they melted the fittings and dropped out( again, something that would not necessarily come to light on a dealer test.)which could have resulted in a fire.

I think that some of the problems affecting the caravan manufacturing industry are too many models and too many annual changes to encourage owners to trade in to a new model.

No doubt the assembly line is swopping and changing continually and there is never any consistency of where and how things are put together.

So many new buyers complain they don't have a proper handbook for their new van... it's hardly suprising that all you get now is a very large pack of consumer leaflets for the component parts of the van.It's simply not economical to producew proper handbooks for such limited numbers.

When you consider the build quality of a car compared to a van there is no comparison.Cars are built in much larger numbers hence the price difference and the consistency of quality.

 

[Val & Frank]

I agree build quality is the issue, and yes I did take it as a little personal. It's like being told " You dumbo bought a Bessacarr, ha ha ha ". In the two examples offered. Was it Bessacarrs staple ? or the Dealers ?? Who removed the fuse and hot wired the system ??

The leaking locker, has the caravan been driven over speed bumps causing flexing of the body??.

I don't know the answers to these questions. What I do know is that I have a pretty good van at this moment in time. But only time will tell. I'm certainly not going to dash out and get rid of it.

Frank

Val & Frank

 

[David.O]

Frank

No way would I want to call anyone names who owns a Bessy I owned several over the years and would have one now but was warned of them after Swift started making them for just the reasons that have been found. To put staples through cables is poor workmanship, we all can make mistakes thats only human but to keep making the mistake thats bad practice and then to disown the problem . I was given my intial info by an inderpendant caravan repairer, who has no axe to grind just clears up the mess we caravaners make when we or others take on more than the vans can stand, and this includes a great deal of work such as we have seen on this forum.

David from Suffolk

 

[PeterT]

I agree with Roger 100% on this one.There is simply no excuse for that lack of attention to detail. It appears a couple of Bessacar owners have taken this as an attack on their choice.I also think that Swift are not alone, so isolating the problem with them is off the mark too.( Hence I agree with Roger, if we accept this as the norm how will things ever improve)My lunar Clubman was delivered with the wrong fuse in the mains box so it blew when we had heating and extractor fan on.(You wouldn't necessarily test both at once in a dealer forecourt) and worse still, and far more dangerous, the spotlights were fitted with the wrong wattage bulbs so, after a longer use, they melted the fittings and dropped out( again, something that would not necessarily come to light on a dealer test.)which could have resulted in a fire.

I think that some of the problems affecting the caravan manufacturing industry are too many models and too many annual changes to encourage owners to trade in to a new model.

No doubt the assembly line is swopping and changing continually and there is never any consistency of where and how things are put together.

So many new buyers complain they don't have a proper handbook for their new van... it's hardly suprising that all you get now is a very large pack of consumer leaflets for the component parts of the van.It's simply not economical to producew proper handbooks for such limited numbers.

When you consider the build quality of a car compared to a van there is no comparison.Cars are built in much larger numbers hence the price difference and the consistency of quality.

A "non-Bessacar" comment. My present, and my last, Avondales have had very good handbooks, as well as the bagfull of manufacturers' pamphlets.

 

[Daniel_374232344]

We had new Abbey Spetrum this year from Stewart Longtons at Chorley to replace year 2000 Spectrum from same people. There is no doubt our new van is far better built and finished than the older one. Very few niggles with new van, had quite a long list when we first bought the old one. Paul the service manager is a good bloke.

 

[Wendy-Norfolk]

I agree build quality is the issue, and yes I did take it as a little personal. It's like being told " You dumbo bought a Bessacarr, ha ha ha ". In the two examples offered. Was it Bessacarrs staple ? or the Dealers ?? Who removed the fuse and hot wired the system ??

The leaking locker, has the caravan been driven over speed bumps causing flexing of the body??.

I don't know the answers to these questions. What I do know is that I have a pretty good van at this moment in time. But only time will tell. I'm certainly not going to dash out and get rid of it.

Frank

Val & Frank

I assume I was the other "culprit"- and no, I will not be changing my 'van either. :O)

 

[Bazz1]

Yes unfortunately, it the way of the world as we know it, we bought an Omega 505 in 03 and was very pleased to give it back to the dealer in06 and picked up a Coachman C/van. What a differance in quality and everything works. The Omega went back and forth to the dealer for warranty work nearly every other month, when we first picked it upn it had 24+ faults, and one of them is still outstanding. The tails we have heard from dealers its not surprizing we had problems. Best of luck, Bazz.