Disappointment with Bailey Pegasus Palermo

[carl1411]

After attending the caravan show in Manchester earlier this year and looking at all of the available new models for this year my wife and I decided that the Bailey Pegasus Palermo had without a doubt the best layout for us and our two young children.

With this in mind we went to a local dealer and purchased a new caravan.

I cannot express how disappointed we have been with the finish of the caravan. Within the first weeks of use we had to take it back to the dealer because the bracket holding the table leg fell off with all of the screws coming out of it, the down light above the side unit next to the door did not work, this had not even been wired up. The window seals on the inside of two of the front windows were not fitted correctly, the fly screen across the door was bowed and did not fully close, the joints in the ceiling were not finished all the way across with silicone but every other surface inside the caravan seemed to have silicone upon it.

Now the large interior trim above the large front window has come off where the bonding of the trim clips has come away from the panel, the trim along the side of the draw unit between the seats is coming off and the nearside seating when made into a bed creaks and groans each time anyone moves when attempting to sleep on it. The ladder and rail to the top bunk also creaks and groans when in use. The toilet is a complete waste of time because when you move it to a place suitable for use either the sink unit is in the way or it is in such a position that the lid will not stay up.

If I could give this van back and start again I would do and will definitely not be recommending it to anyone else, as I feel that the caravan that I traded against this one was a far better van even though it was an 8 year old van.

 

[colin-yorkshire]

hi, you would be better taking up your complaints with bailey on their own forum, as you may get some constructive answers, instead of this one that has no links to bailey in any way.

FYI, my last van was a bailey and remained faultless for all the 11 years we had it. nuff said.

 

[Robtel]

hi, you would be better taking up your complaints with bailey on their own forum, as you may get some constructive answers, instead of this one that has no links to bailey in any way.

FYI, my last van was a bailey and remained faultless for all the 11 years we had it. nuff said.

Hi Colin, I didn't know Bailey had their own forum, know Swift has one but not Bailey. Have you got a link to it please.
With reference to the original post ( and your comment about your own Bailey experience Colin) . I have had several Bailey vans over the last 20 years or so and have been happy with them all. I have experienced some minor problems but fortunately my local dealership is very good and sorts things out promptly. However, earlier this year I bought a new Cadiz and must admit to not being impressed with the quality of the internal finish. A lot of it is minor, such as fittings not on straight, a few minutes with a screw driver sorts that out. There also was one of the 12v down lighters which wasn't working, thought it just needed a replacement fitting but a closer look revealed it wasn't wired up correctly. Now works fine. Same problem as OP regards creaky seating, tried padding strategic places with thin piece of cloth, tried dusting with talc ( read that online somewhere).its better but still not completely gone. After one outing both the baffle boards behind the front seating have pulled away from the wall, now awaiting replacements being sent from Bailey.
In general I don't think build quality is as good as it used to be. I have fond memories of my old Bailey Senator, much better build quality and finish.

 

[emmerson]

And still people buy them.......................................

 

[paws]

and for some strange reason seem to hand over many thousands of pounds without even bothering to spend a few hundred extra pounds with an experienced Caravan technician/engineer to provide an independent view of the new caravan.

An experienced caravan technician/engineer will not be able to find all the potential faults in a new van as "dismantling" things is generally not carried out, however it may save a great deal of grief, not to mention time and inconvenience, to have some faults identified and correctly by the vendor prior to taking delivery and acceptance of it.

Folks often have a used or pre-owned caravan thoroughly inspected prior to acceptance/delivery but oftentimes don't think its necessary with a new van....I reckon its just as important with a new van, as it is an older one!

If the vendor knows that a pre acceptance inspection is to be carried out by a professional it may just tend to concentrate the minds of those responsible for the PDI at the vendors!
As always
Happy Caravanning
paws

 

[Gagakev]

and for some strange reason seem to hand over many thousands of pounds without even bothering to spend a few hundred extra pounds with an experienced Caravan technician/engineer to provide an independent view of the new caravan.

An experienced caravan technician/engineer will not be able to find all the potential faults in a new van as "dismantling" things is generally not carried out, however it may save a great deal of grief, not to mention time and inconvenience, to have some faults identified and correctly by the vendor prior to taking delivery and acceptance of it.

Folks often have a used or pre-owned caravan thoroughly inspected prior to acceptance/delivery but oftentimes don't think its necessary with a new van....I reckon its just as important with a new van, as it is an older one!

If the vendor knows that a pre acceptance inspection is to be carried out by a professional it may just tend to concentrate the minds of those responsible for the PDI at the vendors!
As always
Happy Caravanning
paws

Oh dear Paws, I have never had the opportunity to purchase a new van but if and when i do get the opportunity I certainly wouldnt want to be spending an extra few hundred quid on something that should be manufactured to a high quality build standard in the first place, the manufacture should get it right from the off. And what with the PDI as well it should be right, no if's no buts.
Hence no need to engage a third party.

 

[paws]

Oh dear! I must disagree with your your comment about :
"no need to engage a third party"

However I do strongly agree with your comments that:

"should be manufactured to a high quality build standard in the first place, the manufacture should get it right from the off. And what with the PDI as well it should be right, no if's no buts".

The fact is that regrettably new caravans are still being sold with significant faults and failure to achieve the high standards mentioned in your post, and for this reason obtaining an inspection by an experienced technician/engineer is well worth considering....

You are right it should not be necessary, but alas some times the quality of inspection and quality control both at the factory and the vendor make it a wise move.
Regards and of course
Happy Caravanning
paws

 

[Dustydog]

IMO all new caravans should be supplied with a set of screwdrivers and a detailed video how to fix the careless builders errors
I've always found most faults are poor fit and more quickly fixed at home.
Not good enough but as we like know the caravan press will never question the QA of the manufacturers.
Sadly Emmo the Royale is no longer made .

 

[ProfJohnL]

This thread has started to explore the differences between the ideal and the reality. Taking the concept of quality control to production, it's the process of confirming conformance after a product has been produced. In the context of caravanning, this is what the manufacturers would have us believe is what happens. The dealer's PDI, is part of their contractual process and in theory is the manufacturers final inspection. Sadly very few customers will tell you they have received a totally fault free caravan, which proves the manufacturers systems are not up to scratch, and there are some very obvious reasons for it.

Quality control is an expensive process, because it doesn't prevent faulty products being made, it rather like bolting the gate after the horse has got out. The most successful quality systems now employ the principal of Quality Assurance, which looks at a product from its design, through to its delivery to customer, and tries to design out any process that can lead to faults being introduced.
It works on the basis, if you know the parts you are using are fault free, and your assembly process cannot allow a fault to pass to the next stage, then the out put from the production process will be fault free. The logical extension to this is the dealer would not need to do a Presentation Delivery Inspection, but only a Presentation Delivery Preparation which is only removing transit covers ready for customer hand over.

There are sometimes legal requirements for a post production inspection and test for things like gas and electrics, but provide QA has been correctly employed, yhe legal inspections should be completed without problems.

 

[KeefySher]

The most appropriate legal term applicable to caravan purchase is 'caveat emptor' or in english 'buyer beware'. Take off those rose tinted glasses and see reality before handing over the money.

Total Quality Management, Supplier Development and Quality, Cost of Quality, Right First Time are far more pertinent contemporary lingo for manufacturers of caravans to begin to learn and apply.

However, I contend, the buyers of caravans over decades who have accepted poor quality are the primary reason for the inconsistent state of new caravans. Buyers of several caravans that have all had problems and have not been rejected as under the buyers rights. Perhaps it is a typically British thing to not complain or reject something you have paid an awful lot of money for, have excitedly awaited delivery and booked your holidays around you don't want to have the audacity to upset that awfully nice dealer and inconvenience them in rejecting a heap of junk. One particular individual proudly told me he had problems with 5 consecutive caravans from the same manufacturer over his caravanning life, and had not rejected a single one, madness

There must be far too much fat in the price of caravans for the manufacturers to continue to deliver poor quality, until the financials start to suffer through customer rejection, nothing will change.

We were invited by the dealer to inspect the caravan prior to the PDI, found 3 minor things, insisted they were rectified (which they were) before we accepted the caravan.

As we have found when we had a problem on site, the manufacturer didn't give a flying fig. Fortunately their supplier did and sorted the replacement of parts in concert with the dealer.

 

[Raywood]

I am afraid all the UK manufacturers turn out a few problem caravans and yours is by no means the worst I have seen on the forums. If they turned out better made products in the first place then the savings on guarantee claims should be reduced and their reputations would be far better. At the same time some of these should have been picked up at the PDI and it makes you wonder if it was done at all.

 

[ProfJohnL]

...As we have found when we had a problem on site, the manufacturer didn't give a flying fig. Fortunately their supplier did and sorted the replacement of parts in concert with the dealer.

Where a product is sold by a dealer, the manufacture has no legal responsibility to the customer . Your contract is with the seller

Morally manufacturers should take a keen interest in customers problems, and use that information to improve the design.

 

[colin-yorkshire]

I think from some of the previous comments there is a misconception of what a PDI is. is not about the authorised vendor finding and rectifying faults that have occurred during manufacture, mainly it is a inspection of compliance to the customer requirements, it is not the same thing.
like a car, some items are optional extras, could be alloy wheels tow bar ect, that are not fitted to all models of the same type, these are fitted at the dealers from a stock of factory parts and accessories supplied for this purpose.

when a model run comes to an end, dealers often add these parts to a basic model add a fancy stripe and call it a dealer special. caravans are just the same in this respect the engineer will run through a check list against the customers copy and do any work required, like fitting number plates changing the hitch to a winterhoff if requested it is just a final inspection of the finished product. and by no means a quality check for poor manufacture.

it is a shame this country does not have lemon laws where the manufacturer is made to account for poor quality. as the prof said your contract as the end user is with the dealer, and while this continues the major design faults in some caravans will never be eliminated.

but having said that it often does go right, and the customer is very happy the problem is you hardly ever hear about these on a general forum just things that go wrong, as with the OP at the start of this topic.

 

[mealsonwheels]

We really do sympathise, as we too have had more than our share of manufacturing problems after purchasing a new caravan (not a Bailey) and were backwards and forwards to the supplying dealer over many months, for various work to be rectified, some of it quite major and as the result of recalls. You get to the stage when you are wondering what on earth could be next. Touch wood, everything is ok with ours now, but we do know how exasperating it makes you feel. A lot of our problems came to light in the first months after we started using the caravan and couldn't have been seen at the initial thorough inspection, for example the first thing we encountered, after a long haul on the motorways and arriving at Bunree, in Scotland, was when we found the tell tale white marks on the front windows, where the two panes had flexed and touched each other. A Swift Conqueror on the site had experienced the same problem and it was soon obvious it was happening on a large scale and was a manufacturers recall to replace the windows.

 

[KeefySher]

...As we have found when we had a problem on site, the manufacturer didn't give a flying fig. Fortunately their supplier did and sorted the replacement of parts in concert with the dealer.

Where a product is sold by a dealer, the manufacture has no legal responsibility to the customer . Your contract is with the seller

Morally manufacturers should take a keen interest in customers problems, and use that information to improve the design.

At the time we contracted with the seller your assertion is correct. However, since then things have moved on. Hence owners of recent poorly built caravans should exercise their legal rights to reject poor quality caravans immediately, no ifs no buts, reject at first point of finding faults.

A commercial organisation faced with mounting product rejections and reputational damage will soon take a non contractual, non legalistic and pragmatic approach to improve their product. It just takes customers to stand up.

The design is invariably not the root cause of the poor quality, it is poor assembly, care and attention to detail. Common parts are employed across the different manufacturers. Common poor assembly and lack of attention to detail appears to also be across manufacturers. Design for Manufacture is an alien concept to the technical director of the manufacturer of our particular caravan, as is design for maintenance.

Have you encountered poor quality issues with a caravan?

 

[ProfJohnL]

The design is invariably not the root cause of the poor quality, it is poor assembly, care and attention to detail. Common parts are employed across the different manufacturers. Common poor assembly and lack of attention to detail appears to also be across manufacturers. Design for Manufacture is an alien concept to the technical director of the manufacturer of our particular caravan, as is design for maintenance.

Have you encountered poor quality issues with a caravan?

I'm sorry but I have to disagree with this part your post.

The quality of a product is not just the responsibility of the assembly line. Quality ethics should pervade every aspect of a business, and in the context of a manufacturer, quality has to be designed in to the product right from the conceptual stage. A well designed product will have thought built into its design to ensure it cannot be assembled incorrectly. Where a product will need maintenance at some point in its life, again the design should encompass the need for access to the consumable parts. The design of parts should take into account the normal wear and tear usage to ensure durability, Failure modes should be considered to maintain safety and minimise the inconvenience to the owner or user. Production facilities should be designed to ensure product is handles correctly, and that assembly takes place in the correct order. As well as ensuring that any process that relies on human judgment has the necessary systems in place to check the process has been carried out correctly.

In all the above instances its down to the directors to understand the issues and to have the skills and resources to design and implement procedures, train personnel and have the necessary information gathering process to enable all failure issues to be revisited and lessons re integrated into the business model including design and production processes to reduce future error and non conformances.

This ethic has to encompass the business and can only be effectively implemented provided the whole organisation from Chairman to Janitor are on board.

As one MD I worked for said:- "If you can't change the people, change the people" it's about time the caravan manufacturers reviewed all their processes for efficacy, and especially those that have simply been perpetuated becasue it's been "traditional"

Relying on traditions is a poor excuse for not looking the real needs from a logical perspective. That does not mean throwing out a tradition just because it's a tradition, but if after a proper review the traditional way is still the best then continue, but don't forget to review it periodically.

 

[emmerson]

I've never owned a new caravan, nor am I ever likely to, nor have I ever visited a mainstream manufacturers factory.
But the Royale Owner's Club were recently invited to visit the Vanmaster works, and I must admit to being impressed with the way these high quality vans are put together. The fact that most of the staff had been with the company longer than the present owner showed up in their interest in the product as a whole, and not just their little bit of it, as most of them seemed to do what was required, rather than just have a specific part of the build to deal with.
Nothing was hidden from us, we were free to wander as we wished, and all of the staff appeared to take a genuine pride in the finished van.
Had they been contemporaries Vanmaster would have been a worthy competitor for Royale. They would also be in a similar price bracket; the current Vanmaster starts at an eye watering £71,000, and my Royale was £12,700 in 1979................................!.

 

[Raywood]

Having found the form the dealer is supposed to fill in when doing the PDI you might be surprised how long and detailed it is. The faults or most of those listed should have been found.