New rear pannel

[FrintonMike]

I mentioned before Christmas that my 2006 Swift Charisma 590 needed a new rear pannel due to accident damage. The dealer has just phoned to say that Swift can no longer supply body parts for that year of caravan but he can get a pattern part.
This is ok by me but how long do Swift or other manufactures supply body parts ? . If a part could not have been sourced the caravan would have to be written off.

 

[otherclive]

Mike not sure how long a maker will supply body parts for, but a colleague of mine had bad damage to the lower corner of the rear panel and a side gouge repaired by Caravan Medic. He told me it was considerably less than replacing panels as he did not wish to involve his insurer re self- inflicted wounds. He was very pleased with what he said was a virtually invisible repair to what was only a young van (<4yrs). For future reference it might be worth looking at the Caravan Medic website which seems to show some quite complex repairs having been carried out.

 

[FrintonMike]

Clive, thanks for your reply
I have now been advised that the existing rear is grp and the replacement will be aluminium. I think I have this the right way round.
Does any one know how, or if, this will affect the MIRO and MPTLM. Will it affect the handling of the caravan when being towed ?

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Mike,
The change in material of the end panel is very likely to have a different weight to the original as you appreciate. How much difference there will be is difficult to predict. It will be down to how the repair is carried out and the materials they use. My gut feeling is that an aluminium replacement could actually be slightly lighter than the GRP original - you will need to weigh it to find out. Over all the difference is likely to be relatively small perhaps no more than 10kg.

What ever the difference is it will affect the caravans MIRO but it will have no change to the caravans MTPLM, so if the repair is lighter, you will gain some load capacity, but the converse is also true.

I'm not sure how you would go about getting the official MIRO figure for your caravans changed, but I seriously doubt its worth the effort.

 

[Clive-Cardiff]

I had a millitary lorry run into the rear of my van on the way to the PC rally last year. There was no chance of getting a Fleetwood ABS panel for the van so I maaged to source a company that reverse engineered a new grp panel for me. It's all fitted now and as good as new, and the MOD insurance eventually agreed to pay up.