Polyplastic Front Windows

[Lord Braykewynde]

I was talking to our caravan mechanic the other day and asked him if he'd had many front windows to replace. He informed me he had had a lot and he showed me two on his van that he had to replace that day.

What did surprise me was the cost, something around £240. He also had to pay up front for the windows and only when he'd parcelled and sent the old one back did he receive his money back for the window plus £13 for fitting it.

 

[Dustydog]

LB

A sign of the untrusting times I am afraid.

I had the same issue with Hartel over the defective door lock. Rather than tow to my dealer I did the job myself.

Hartel took

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

I understand that Dustydog, if they get members of the public to pay up front, but this chap is accredited by the NCC, Bailey, Swift etc. to do their warranty work.

There's also his time driving to the various places to replace the windows plus his time of packing up the old windows and organising the despatch of them back to the factory.

 

[Jo-AnneFairway5402010]

alan my door lock is also faulty but i dont have a spare

 

[Jo-AnneFairway5402010]

i need my front middle big window replacing. at some point the double glazing has touched eachother and now has marks inside it looks like mould. the service centre put a request in for it but ive heard nothing i mite chase it up tomorrow tho aswell. any views on this?.

jo

 

[DeliDave]

M surprised to read about the Hartal locks dealt with Richard Toon on here and he just posted me complete new lock and didnt want the old one back,arrived in a couple of days.

 

[Jo-AnneFairway5402010]

i might have to send a post to richard toons me thinks i hope you dont mind.

jo

 

[DeliDave]

He is MD of Miriad,think his email is rtoon@miriad.com I'll have alook for you.

Best of luck

Dave

 

[Jo-AnneFairway5402010]

thanks dave and ive just put a post on your annex thingy and ill look for my old isabella annex posts and if i find them ill bump them up for you

jo x

 

[DeliDave]

Hi Jo-Anne

Try rtoon@miriad-products.com

thanks for your efforts for the annex we have til April til we have to pay full price(two arms and a leg)

 

[ProfJohnL]

The process of manufacturers charging for spare parts and only refunding on the return of faulty parts is quite wide spread and I might add well founded.

Do not forget that your warranty rests with the seller, not the manufacturer, so legally the manufacture can charge for all spare parts.

But there is a practical side to this as well to prevent fraud. It would be all too easy for an unprofessional dealer to request loads of free of charge parts for warranty jobs, and then to sell them on as if they were their own stock to sell.

Equally important, if the parts were issued FOC in advance of a job, there is no incentive for the dealer to return the faulty parts to the manufacturer.

Whilst that might seem rather boring, the fact is that a responsible manufacture will actually evaluate the returned items to see if there are any lessons to be learnt from them.

It might also be the case that the so called faulty item is not faulty at all. the symptom the customer may be suffering could be due to another problem altogether. - why should a manufacture pay for someone else's problems?

In today's world there is less skill and emphasis on a logical approach fault finding, its more down to "if it doesn't work keep changing things until it does" Rarely is an original part put back, when changing it has not cured the fault.

 

[Lord Braykewynde]

I see what you're trying to say John L but my post was about the front windows. Surely it is obvious whether the window needs changing under warranty and I cannot see the mechanic risking his business where he's accredited by the NCC, Bailey, Swift etc. to carry out their work. They could still have to return the window whether they've paid up front or not.

The other point I was making is the large amount of money they have to pay up front when months down the line they get the princely sum of

 

[Jo-AnneFairway5402010]

well i have sent the md an email lets see what happends.

 

[Jo-AnneFairway5402010]

gonna ring me serice centre tomoz to find out if my window is gonna be replaced before it totally goes. ill keep you all posted.

jo

 

[readcaravans]

in a lot of cases the warranty with windows lies with miriad. when ordering a window under warranty all dealers or repairers have to pay up front for the window and will then be credited back once the faulty window is returned and inspected.

there is nothing new here and everyone invloved is informed of this process before they agree to undertake the warranty repairs.

so im affraid this is just the way it is, whether we like it or not.

 

[Andrew_374383565]

It would be easier to understand the attitude of the Dealers and manufacturers if faults like window replacement were caused by misuse or accidental damage.

The problem that Jo is experiencing is a proven design and manufacturing fault.

There have been a number of reports in this forum and we have had dozens reported to us.

I am not sure why at this stage, but there appears a certain arrogance from a number of the companies concerned..hopefully your problem will be sorted out....if not please consider registering with us at

www.caravanandmotorhomewindowproblems.co.uk Andrew

 

[Andrew_374383565]

gonna ring me serice centre tomoz to find out if my window is gonna be replaced before it totally goes. ill keep you all posted.

jo

It would be easier to understand the attitude of the Dealers and manufacturers if faults like window replacement were caused by misuse or accidental damage.

The problem that Jo is experiencing is a proven design and manufacturing fault.

There have been a number of reports in this forum and we have had dozens reported to us.

I am not sure why at this stage, but there appears a certain arrogance from a number of the companies concerned..hopefully your problem will be sorted out....if not please consider registering with us at

www.caravanandmotorhomewindowproblems.co.uk Andrew

 

[Wayne_5133334]

Just paid my local dealer

 

[Andrew_374383565]

Hi Wayne........no surprises there! this company has little interest in quality..the problem when you have a monopoly...glad to see you had better luck with your alarm.......hopefully our website will bring together all the owners getting a raw deal from the caravan dealers and manufacturers........

 

[ValA.]

Try here EECo - http://www.go-e2.co.uk/eeco/. Apparently our local caravan dealers have their replacement windows made up by this company. They'll make a replacement window 'made to measure' and colour matched to your existing windows.

 

[Andrew_374383565]

Mid November update.......to date 715 owners have now registered with www.caravanandmotorhomewindowproblems.co.uk....in recent weeks we have received replies from 22 Swift owners who are now reporting de-lamination....more about this in the December newsletter......the replacement window company mentioned by Val is offering window replacements at the same price as Polyplastic, although Polyplastics prices are stated as having a 60% discount.....more about this in the December Newsletter.....thankyou for everyones input on this problem...I believe we are beginning to make some sense of the scale of this fault and those owners who are being affected.......Thankyou once again.....

 

[Jo-AnneFairway5402010]

update. i spoke to richard toon myself. my service centre have done the paperwork and faxed it over to him last monday evening with the info he wanted on it. he said no problem to me before the fax so lets see if it gets accepted or refused.

dont forget if you type in google sales of goods act quick facts the windows and locks both have an inherant fault. the fault was there at the time of sale but only noticed once you started to use it and the more you use it the worse it gets.

ill keep you posted

jo

 

[Heethers]

Joanne l as you know l had the second window fitted by Miriad in October, the fitter (Mark Adams) assured me that this window a MKll was the correct one for my AceFirestar with a an increase of 6mm, due to the fact the Ace window is not has big has the swifts, about 40mm shorter top to bottom.

I have not been able to take the van out yet and wont be until Feb due to the wife losing her treasured Horse, so l won't know if this MKII window has solved the problem of it flexing, causing the marks internally.

What's worrying is seeing these reports of windows delaminating is this a new problem that's appeared and what are Swift and the other manufacturers doing about it.

One thing l must say Miriad were brilliant with the second replacement window, reported the fault to Andy of Swift, Miriad replaced the window within one week that's even after fetching a MKIII window that wouldn't fit (see above) 2 days later they turned up with the correct one so well pleased with Miriad, not so sure about Polyplastics seems theirs one fault after another.

Would you advise me to register the faults l had with the two windows or wait and see if the fault has been corrected, the last time l heard from you and GrandadBazza your window fault had been resolved.

Regards

NigelH

 

[Dustydog]

Jo-anne

I appreciate you live a long way from Chipping Sodbury Caravans but it is worth noting that had you been able to go to them they would have replaced the window with no issues. I believe they send them back to Bailey who deal with Miriad direct.

Depending how old the caravan is, the terms of the warranty and the reasonbleness of the dealer resolutions can be achieved in a variety of ways.

LB's op merely stated that his caravan mechanic had to pay "up front" for the replacement windows and then seek a refund later.

John L too, made some valid points. Strictly speaking there should be some uniformity in handling these matters . Yet again it demonstrates to me the importance of having a good dealer.

Equally those outside the dealwership network shouldn't be penalised if they are using a recognised approved caravan engineer .

Cheers

Dustydog

 

[Heethers]

Dustydog, discover changed my first widow which failed, Andy of Swift then got involved and instructed Miriad to replace with the correct type, l agree with you that a good dealer is needed and the way to go.

In my case it was not Discover Chorley's fault.

Polyplastics sent the same type window that was fitted to the original van without the 6mm increase hence the failure again, l believe all windows produced by Polyplastics from August 09 will be the modified types, 20mm increase in depth for MIII windows and 6mm increase in depth for MII widows.

I am more concerned now about the delamination of these windows, my van is an 08 van and at the moment don't seem to have this problem, that's not to say in the future it won't happen, hopefully it won't.

Regards

NigelH