Van Dealers and Manufacturers - a joke

Parksy

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Nov 12, 2009
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Hi Just thought you might like to read of my experience with both dealer and manufacturer this winter!
I had a couple of problems with my Bailey Senator that required fixing under warranty. The first was a paint problem that meant the van had to go back to Bailey. The others were a window that rubbed on the alloy frame whei it was opened and the edging strip coming off of the seat end panel by the door. Well, I was told by the dealer that they needed my van on 13th dec ready to be returned to Bailey. I duly took the van there and they said they would fix the windo and trim problem and leave the paint repair to Bailey. I heard nothing further until mid January when I recieved a call from Tracker to say my van was registering unauthorised movement. I calle Bailey to be told that I had nothing to worry about as their compounds were fully secure. not overly happy with this reply I thought I would call the dealer as if it was stolen and I had not reacted to the tracker call my insurance may refuse to pay. Well, the dealer told me that the van had just been collected by Bailey and the alarm must be on. I called tracker and told them this and they marked the incident as accidental alarm set. (nice to know Tracker system worked though). After about 4 weeks I recieved a call from my dealer to say the van was back with them and ready for collection. Having travelled the 30 miles to collect the van I inspected it and found the original fault with the paint fixed but another introduced, very obvious and should have been noted by the dealer. Thus I rejected the repair and it had to go back again to Bailey. I did notice that the window appeared to have been fixed and that there was tape holding down the trim, left after re-gluing it. I mentioned this to the dealer and he said it's fine and would be removed.
Well another 4 weeks passed and no sign of the return of my van. After several calls to the dealer was finally told it's back. We went to collect it on Monday 28th and this time the paintwork was fine. On inspecting the other repairs I found the end panel trim to still be unstuck. However, when looking closer I noticied that the 'craftsman' had not only removed the afore said tape but also a chunk of veneer! "Oh" the service manager exclaimed, we will have to get you a new one but it is unlikely that it will be here when you have your service in 3 weeks time. That means another couple of journeys @ 60 miles round trip! I mean, they have only had 4 months to repair and quality control the job!!!Customer Service and quality are definately foreign words in the van industry.
 
Aug 2, 2006
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Sorry to hear about your problems - very frustrating when you get let down like this - particularly as the season is just getting underway

Hope it is sorted soon
 

Parksy

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It hasn't been deleted, for some reason it seems to have vanished
I copied the post from our edit suite, removed the HTML, removed the original and pasted in the copy, I hope that it works
smiley-surprised.gif
 
Jul 11, 2006
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Well I can now read this and reply!
I have just picked my caravan up from the dealers after 2 weeks to have some little jobs done, which they said would be plenty of time, so out of 6 jobs they have done 2 ! One of them was just resticking some trim, the answer was " oh the body shop was going to do that, we will do it when you bring it back for the other bits!" Why oh why do we have to put up with this sort of thing, and this is from a dealer that has won Regional dealer of the year. The manufactures dont help when they send the wrong bits. I could have done all the jobs in one day but dont see why I should on a new van.
The only good thing is the actual service from the dealers regarding booking it in and saying they will do all the faults with out any question but oh why does it have to take so long.
 
Mar 14, 2005
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Here is an interesting thought.

If you leave your caravan with a dealer with an agreed list of jobs to be carried out either for collection at a pre arranged time, or for the dealer to advise when its ready, then a contract has been established, even if no money is to change hands.

If when you collect the caravan you find that one or more of the jobs has not been done, then the dealer is in breach of contract.

If it subsequently requires the caravan to be returned at a later date for the work to be carried out, then you have a legitimate case to claim for mileage and time for the extra journeys.

I would suggest that it you may wish to consider if the dealers failure is genuinely beyond their control or not before pursuing such a course.
 
Oct 30, 2009
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hi all
Yes it is disappointing when things go wrong with a new van and problems dont seem to get sorted satisfactoraly, I do feel for anyone who has problems. with either dealer or manufacturer hopefully this is not the "norm" however from regular posts this would seem so.
We usually hear when things go wrong but very few post when everything is fine, perhaps there is something wrong with the quality control of british vans from all the complaints but it would be nice to read now and again when customers where happy.
smiley-smile.gif
 
Mar 10, 2006
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Top Cat said:
Hi Just thought you might like to read of my experience with both dealer and manufacturer this winter!
I had a couple of problems with my Bailey Senator that required fixing under warranty. The first was a paint problem that meant the van had to go back to Bailey. The others were a window that rubbed on the alloy frame whei it was opened and the edging strip coming off of the seat end panel by the door.
Well, I was told by the dealer that they needed my van on 13th dec ready to be returned to Bailey. I duly took the van there and they said they would fix the windo and trim problem and leave the paint repair to Bailey. I heard nothing further until mid January when I recieved a call from Tracker to say my van was registering unauthorised movement. I calle Bailey to be told that I had nothing to worry about as their compounds were fully secure. not overly happy with this reply I thought I would call the dealer as if it was stolen and I had not reacted to the tracker call my insurance may refuse to pay. Well, the dealer told me that the van had just been collected by Bailey and the alarm must be on. I called tracker and told them this and they marked the incident as accidental alarm set. (nice to know Tracker system worked though). After about 4 weeks I recieved a call from my dealer to say the van was back with them and ready for collection. Having travelled the 30 miles to collect the van I inspected it and found the original fault with the paint fixed but another introduced, very obvious and should have been noted by the dealer. Thus I rejected the repair and it had to go back again to Bailey. I did notice that the window appeared to have been fixed and that there was tape holding down the trim, left after re-gluing it. I mentioned this to the dealer and he said it's fine and would be removed. Well another 4 weeks passed and no sign of the return of my van. After several calls to the dealer was finally told it's back. We went to collect it on Monday 28th and this time the paintwork was fine. On inspecting the other repairs I found the end panel trim to still be unstuck. However, when looking closer I noticied that the 'craftsman' had not only removed the afore said tape but also a chunk of veneer! "Oh" the service manager exclaimed, we will have to get you a new one but it is unlikely that it will be here when you have your service in 3 weeks time. That means another couple of journeys @ 60 miles round trip! I mean, they have only had 4 months to repair and quality control the job!!!Customer Service and quality are definately foreign words in the van industry.

I have had no end of problems with our new Bailey Valencia, i won't bore everyone with the details.
So i understand your frustration, the latest repair was a water leak near the ALDE boiler to the cold water supply.

It look like a bodge it and scarper job, at lest now the dealer has replaced three of the plumbing parts and sorted it.
Now i have noticed the wardrobe doors are warped!

We are away shortly so ill wait for the expected list to grow before we take the van back.
 
Mar 14, 2005
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Hello colin,

Yes I agree, but it does not surprise me, as its not human nature to to applaude when we get what we expect, (after all we pay for perfect goods not faulty ones) so its only when something exceptional happens either good or bad, that we feel the need to let other know. Thats one reason why looking at forums like this to guage the pro and cons orf any product or service will always give a negatively biased and distorted view of reality.
As you may well have read, I am all in favour of the caravan industry sorting out some of their design and manufacturing issues, as ther does seem to be too many recuring themes reported, but putting into context, for every fault reported in the forum, ther will be several hundred if not thousands of customer without that particular fault, However the manufactures and dealers should not use the relatively small number of occurences from diluting their support for the customer who do suffer these problems. They shod lpull out all teh stops to get the customer up and running again,
Subsequently and even better would be to design out flaws to prevent them from happening again.
 

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