I know its easy to knock uk manufactures and I only wish there could be more praise, but reading time and time again the really ridiculous, repetitious faults that regularly appear in this forum and even the manufactures own forum, you can understand the frustration.
I can only speak from my own personal experiences and the extensive knowledge gained over the past 12 months with our window delamination website.
I have been a regular contributor on this subject and there have been some excellent discussions. Within this forum alone, there is a wealth of experience and from other posts we know that the manufacturers read them and sometimes comment.
Not so long ago, Britain mass produced cars, I guess through lack of investment and complacency, we have lost this for good….take the original Mini, possibly one of the most successful products of Morris/Austin/British Leyland…designed by an Italian, obviously they got that bit right!…….the mini was dogged with 2 major problems throughout its long, production run, a transfer gear made from a plain bearing, which failed prematurely on most cars and subframes which corroded in less than 4 years.
Surely no big deal to galvanize the subframes and use a roller bearing instead of a plain bearing……..I actually ran a business remanufacturing the transfer housing.
These problems were well known throughout the industry, but nothing was ever done.
I hate Jeremy Clarkson and everything he stands for, but you have to give it to him, on this weeks Top Gear, the British sports car parody hit the nail on the head and illustrates why the new mini is produced by a German company.
Even dear old Fiat, not known for good quality, have finally got the message and are giving the competition a hard time with the Punto and the 500.
This country will not dig its self out of this massive hole, if we fail to take on board the clear message, right first time, not second or third time.
Which brings me on to UK caravan/motorhome manufacturers and this thread…..If UK manufactures are aware of quality issues, why do they ignore them? Again if you read the threads on this forum and others, it seems that the British public almost consider it inevitable that their caravan/motorhome will have to go back for fault rectification, the dealer often without sufficient back up, or training from the manufacturer, often denies there is a problem, or worst still, embarks on a lengthy dialogue between customer and manufacturer trying to get new parts and credit notes, this sometimes takes months…read some of the threads on the manufacturers own forum, often it takes more than one attempt to resolve known issues.
Not so long ago, foreign, meaning not UK manufactured caravans, were a bit of a rarity in Blighty, but even that bastion of British ness the Caravan Club published a review on the Adria Adora 532 in June, with an overall rating score, very hard to beat…one reviewer pointedly made the remark that his caravan was screwed together, not stapled…...possibly this is true of UK manufacturers……….
bin the staplers, before its too late!
Andrew
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