Fancy a laugh ?

[Icaru5]

Friday afternoon, car and van all gleaming and we were ready to set off to the lakes for the weekend. Final check to make sure all windows, lockers and doors are shut and locked and to decided for convenience as I sometimes do, to place the motor mover remote and red activation key inside the battery box before double checking that it’s shut and locked.

Off we went ...

Headed down the local dual carriageway, down to the roundabout to join the M6, and as I glanced into the offside mirror, I could see something flapping ...

Noooooo. ... It looks like the battery box flap. Can’t be !

We pulled onto the petrol station and sure enough it was and fortunately, the red key was still inside, but no sign of the mover remote hmy:

So, leaving wife and daughter in the car, blocking half of the forecourt, our 14 year old son and I set of running the wrong way up the dual carriageway into oncoming traffic (yes, on a Friday afternoon), me in my shorts and crocs, both with eyes peeled for anything remote control shaped !

After running the half a mile or so to the top, we came across this little pile ...

We gathered the pieces together, ran back down the dual carriageway and rejoined the rest of the family.

Whether or not it was repairable at this point was irrelevant. We needed a new mover remote ASAP and any cost. Of course we could manage on-site, but without one, there’s no way we would get the van back up the driveway after returning home.

My wife made a call to Powrtouch (Truma) and after a couple of minutes, we had a replacement remote en-route to our site for a Saturday AM delivery.

After arriving on-site, I managed to reverse the van up into position with the minimum of fuss, but the BBQ on Saturday evening wasn’t quite the same with additional flavours of a light dusting of fine clutch powder which was still lingering in the air ! :evil:

Real credit to Truma. It arrived as promised, and pairing was a doddle. All forgotten about now, except of course for the £135 bill

Joking aside, I didn’t begrudge this at all, as it was completely my fault. It was never going to be particularly cheap, and we just needed a new one ASAP, and I wasn’t going to spend time trawling around on eBay trying to find a possibly dodgy second hand or ‘ahem’ refurbished one.

I did spend a few minutes re-soldering the severed connections on the old one and playing about with it when we returned home on Sunday evening, but no joy. I may return to that if/when I ever find some time.

I hope my little story raises a few smiles ... it just reminded us of how much we really do depend on the mover

Edit: Oh, and also never to leave anything in the battery box again, even after triple checking that it’s locked !

 

[Craigyoung]

Regarding your last posting Lc' not even going to quote that but , how unfortunate that has happened to you mate but you were lucky enough to find it but my isolation key is also in the battery box but is cable tied to the cable with enough slack to let me use it but as for the motor control that always goes in the glove box as I would think yours will now

Hats off to truma for gettin a new controller to you pity about the cost but I bet it doesn't happen again !!

I remember the first night we were about to leave for France and as I rolled the caravan forward I ran over the cable and snagged it in the battery box and yanked the door of the lock and had to go up to the garage 10 mile away to get a new battery isolation box lock and fit that before setting off a few hours beforehand !

Accidents happen !

 

[Icaru5]

What was it about my last posting Craig ?

 

[otherclive]

A good response by Truma. It reminds me of the time I left my wallet and mobile phone on the car roof on leaving Lydford. Never to be seen again except some weeks later a letter arrived from a local farmer who’d found and enclosed the remnants of my old paper driving licence about five miles from Lydford. Must have been driving quite steadily that day. What a palaver sorting out my “wallet and phone life”

 

[Raywood]

Unlucky, I did keep the remote in the car door pocket and lost it somewhere as a result. Never did find it but as we had already agreed to trade it in the dealer replaced it.

 

[otherclive]

What was it about my last posting Craig ?

I think he wasn’t going to quote it to save space, as post is AOK.

 

[Niall_McIntosh]

Ouch! After having been shown how to use the motor mover on the day we picked up our first caravan, I made the classic newbie error of leaving the remote on the A Frame. After we had driven a few miles from the dealers, I started having a niggling doubt about where the remote was. I called the dealers and was told it had it had fallen off the A Frame as we went around a roundabout next to the dealership and, fortunately for us, one of their customers had seen this happen and had picked up the remote and brought it into the dealership. No damage done, but I did take the precaution of buying a spare one off eBay which is kept safely separate from the main one.

 

[chrisn7]

Our mover key has a length of bright red ribbon tied on, so it hangs below the battery locker even if the door is shut, to remind me the key is still in place. Also have a spare with the vans spare keys too.
Also picked up a second hand remote for the mover that lives in the van as a spare - just in case the original gets run over....

 

[Craigyoung]

What was it about my last posting Craig ?

I think he wasn’t going to quote it to save space, as post is AOK.

Sorry , that's exactly what i meant .

 

[Hutch]

The motor mover key is tied to the inside of the battery box and the hand set is on a one of those extending cables you can get for keys,which clips to my jeans /shorts( if the weather is ever good enough) then lives in a bag with all the other security stuff for the van.

 

[Gafferbill]

...........I'm not laughing

I lost a fridge vent grill and its fly screen last trip out......stupid flimsy design only held in place by small plastic sliders.
Now all replaced but for £36.....both now fitted with retaining screws to prevent same thing happening again.
Vents readily obtainable at a Swift dealers.....so must happen quite regularly and be a nice little earner

 

[Raywood]

The motor mover key is tied to the inside of the battery box and the hand set is on a one of those extending cables you can get for keys,which clips to my jeans /shorts( if the weather is ever good enough) then lives in a bag with all the other security stuff for the van.

Sounds too sensible for me!

 

[SamandRose]

Ouch sorry to hear of your experience Icaru5. Easily done though.

I still remember with frightening clarity the time I locked our caravan door at a site in Harrogate, but somehow forgot to take the key out of the lock before hitching up and driving away. I noticed only after stopping for fuel somewhere near Derby. How the hell the key had stayed in the lock all that time is something I'll never know, but maybe I sometimes have more luck than anyone's entitled to expect.

 

[Craigyoung]

Now you've come to mention keys when we were in Holland year before last , we went on one of those big trains that they have coming from one of the city's and as we got off as it had an upstairs that's how big it was and walking along the platform I realises Id left the shopping bags on the train , I was frantic ,of I started running after the train panicking like mad thinking that the car keys and the caravan keys were in the bag - only for my wife to come and say she had them in her handbag , phew !! It was all the make up and trinklets we had just spent money on that i had left on the train , I wasn't in the good books for the rest of that day to say the least !! :huh:

 

[Anseo]

Now you've come to mention keys when we were in Holland year before last , we went on one of those big trains that they have coming from one of the city's and as we got off as it had an upstairs that's how big it was and walking along the platform I realises Id left the shopping bags on the train , I was frantic ,of I started running after the train panicking like mad thinking that the car keys and the caravan keys were in the bag - only for my wife to come and say she had them in her handbag , phew !! It was all the make up and trinklets we had just spent money on that i had left on the train , I wasn't in the good books for the rest of that day to say the least !! :huh:

Nice one Craig, and very well done, exceptional indeed.

Yup, you are a Woosie B)

 

[DaveA1]

Got everything ready for an early morning departure for the Lakes, caravan loaded and hitched to the car on the drive, all I needed to do was to remove the wheel Clamp. In the morning I couldn't find my set of car keys, hunted high and low for them, nowhere to be found. I had to use the wife set, needless to say we lost most of our planed early start. We had a good week, including some lovely weather.
Come morning of our departure home, I start my usual checks before starting off, lifted the bonnet to check the oil ect. And there they were, the keys, on top of the air filter, held in position by the sound insulation, must have put them there when I checked the levels the night before the start of the holiday. They had travelled all the way to the Lakes and our journeys around the area, without moving. Was I relieved----- phew..

 

[CustardAvenger]

All forgotten about now, except of course for the £135 bill

I already knew how much those remotes were! I asked the Powrtouch rep at the NEC show how much I'd nearly cost myself after I took a short-cut over the hitch when leaving a site last year. My shorts got caught on the raised jockey wheel winder and I rotated about the a-frame, head-first towards the ground... nearly breaking my wrist along with the mover remote which was in my hand. It now bears some battle scars, but remains functional. hmy:

The isolator key is on a chain of zip ties in the battery box to prevent me "putting it somewhere safe".

 

[Craigyoung]

DaveA1 ,

I think you've been very lucky that the keys havn't dropped into a moving part in the engine whilst driving ! :huh:

 

[DaveA1]

DaveA1 ,

I think you've been very lucky that the keys havn't dropped into a moving part in the engine whilst driving ! :huh:

It could have been my excellent driving, very smooth always. B) Or it could have been. I had Cavalier then. with a big dish shaped air filter on top of the engine and the keys were held there by the bonnet insulation.
Which one do I think it was....... The former of course.

 

[Hutch]

The motor mover key is tied to the inside of the battery box and the hand set is on a one of those extending cables you can get for keys,which clips to my jeans /shorts( if the weather is ever good enough) then lives in a bag with all the other security stuff for the van.

Sounds too sensible for me!

£1.50 for the strechy thing, where as before I would be looking for the controller, only to find SWMBO put it back in the car glove pocket, when she used to control the caravan. . The boss now gets the beer and wine ready after levelling the van.

 

[Raywood]

Probably the funniest mistake was on one site when we had hitched up and I took a final walk round the outfit before setting off. I rounded the car and caravan coming back up the offside. At the car I got it wrong getting in the back door, not the drivers. A woman walking past came up with "should have gone to Specsavers".

 

[Hutch]

Off to Houghton Mill tomorrow for three nights, thunderstorms expected Tuesday . I have decided to give our 3/4 size carbon lite awning an airing, hasn't been out of the bag for about three years, just ran through the poles in the back garden and they all seem to be there. And to remind myself how they all fit.

It should put a smile on someone's faces tomorrow afternoon.

 

[Raywood]

Got the caravan back from its service yesterday and put it back in storage. Set it up and thought I was ready to leave but felt something was wrong. Another walk round showed the legs were still up..
At least the caravan got a clean bill of health.

 

[Parksy]

We bought our Abbey 620 new in 2007, and although there are some beautiful shiny new models around we are not tempted to part ex ours because up to a couple of weeks ago it's never given us any real problems, it's dry and we like the layout and haven't seen anything that we'd like better.
Unfortunately our onboard pump packed up and also the toilet flush on a recent weekend away, so most of that weekend was spent carrying bottles of water and my toilet flush tank filling watering can to flush the loo.
I felt like Gunga Din before we went home
Our helpful mobile engineer Mobile Caravan Services based near to Kidderminster fitted us in for repairs at very short notice and replaced both the onboard water pump and the toilet flush pump (which had become gummed up with flush chemicals over the past 12 years.
I can't really complain after all this time with no other major expense and we're off on holiday in the morning, but over £300 lighter in the wallet department :blink:

 

[Gabsgrandad]

Not feeling 'flush' then Parksy?