JezzerB said:... You can't blame the manufacturers for third party parts and those suppliers are VERY few! Caravans are essentailly a kit of parts assembled by a maker-the shell is really all they do!
Sorry but I have to disagree. I worked for an OEM who also supplied caravan manufacturers. I know that our products were fully functional as they left our production, because their serial number could only be produced when the appliance had successfully completed a series of legally required tests. This was all operated under the control of a BS EN ISO 9001 QA system (edit or its predecessors). Part of that QA process also verified products as they reached the customer to also prove the delivery system which was our own transport.
We had no control once the product was handed over to the caravan manufacturer's. From that point on we regularly received back product which was claimed to be "faulty as supplied", but after investigation was found to have been poorly stored evidenced by stillages covered in dust, or partly filled with water. Products with essential parts missing (they could not have passed our final tests with these bits missing) Products physically bent some with fork lift truck wheel marks. Some with rectangular fork truck blade holes pushed all the the way through, Other manufacturers products bodged onto ours... need I say more? Well to be fair this was over 20 years ago, but have things changed? I doubt it.
Frankly it's quite amazing that any caravans get manufactured without apparent faults. What about the faults you can't see that may cause the product to deteriorate before its time.
I sincerely hope that caravan manufacturers do try harder and the numbers of totally satisfied buyers do get zero defect caravans. If they can do it once, they should be able to do it every time.