I'm with emmerson on this one...
Although my van is practically "brand new" compared with his, (mine is only a mere 20 years old) it was designed properly, of reasonably good quality materials and put together by folks who knew their stuff and had a reasonable system of quality/workmanship checking.
Nothing has gone wrong with it, it doesn't leak and everything works just as it should, the seating/beds are still very comfortable and plumptious and like its owners, scrubs up quite well when necessary!
Some might say that we have the caravan industry we deserve, many folks buy new caravans spend many thousands of pounds and often don't even bother to have them professionally inspected by a good caravan engineer/technician prior to completing the purchase......... The dealers or manufacturers can't really be blamed for producing goods that the buyers seem quite willing to buy.... with the faults, leak, cracks and other nasty things, that then have to be fixed, often at some inconvenience to the purchase either under guarantee or consumer statutory protection legislation.
There are many experienced and talented caravan engineers/technicians around the country who for a few hundred pounds ( peanuts often in comparison to the purchase price of a new van) would be able to identify some of the shortcomings in new vans as they are presented, and provide the opportunity for the purchaser to have them fixed prior to completing on the deal.
If folks followed this procedure (and insisted upon it as part of the terms of sale) there would probably be hostility and a refusal on the part of dealers to accept the new" strange" terms, but after 6 months or so of Zero sales there would be a fairly comprehensive review of" quality standards" both at the factory and at the dealers resulting in a much improved product.
The message is clear.... if folks want a satisfactory product, then a method of bringing it about is the "inspection before completion" referred to above, if however folks are happy to accept that there will be numerous faults with some caravans, don't want to bother with inspections and are still happy to have them fixed under guarantee or statutory protections then it's easy.... they can just carry on as before!
Happy caravanning
paws