Worrying times???

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Ray,

Its good to hear a positive word, but even so you wrote "and never had a serious problem" So I take it from that you have had some problems, and that just shows how the companies have managed to bamboozle customers into thinking they've had a good experience, even though they have had problems!

With the exception of one manufacture the same basic design and construction techniques have been in use for nigh on 35 years yet the fact is, a caravan is not a high tech cutting edge product, and , and they still can't get it right first time every time.

What the manufactures call quality control, clearly is not working. In reality 100% perfect production is not possible, but many industries now look to produce less than 0.1% faults. Sadly it is not possible to get to the number of caravans that genuinely fault free (because of commercial confidences), but I'll wager its less than 10% meaning that at least 90% of new caravans have one or more manufacturing faults that requires some form of rectification, and that is with both the manufacturers "quality control", and the dealers PDI!

So whilst your caravan may be good in your eyes, the fact that it has had faults just adds to the engineering perspective that the caravan industry has a long-long-long way to go before customers can have the confidence to believe their new caravan will be fault free.
Other industries of a similar or smaller scale get much closer to zero defects, so why can't or won't the UK caravan industry bite the bulllet and start to deal with the causes of this dreadful record.

 

[Raywood]

Hello Ray,

Its good to hear a positive word, but even so you wrote "and never had a serious problem" So I take it from that you have had some problems, and that just shows how the companies have managed to bamboozle customers into thinking they've had a good experience, even though they have had problems!

With the exception of one manufacture the same basic design and construction techniques have been in use for nigh on 35 years yet the fact is, a caravan is not a high tech cutting edge product, and , and they still can't get it right first time every time.

What the manufactures call quality control, clearly is not working. In reality 100% perfect production is not possible, but many industries now look to produce less than 0.1% faults. Sadly it is not possible to get to the number of caravans that genuinely fault free (because of commercial confidences), but I'll wager its less than 10% meaning that at least 90% of new caravans have one or more manufacturing faults that requires some form of rectification, and that is with both the manufacturers "quality control", and the dealers PDI!

So whilst your caravan may be good in your eyes, the fact that it has had faults just adds to the engineering perspective that the caravan industry has a long-long-long way to go before customers can have the confidence to believe their new caravan will be fault free.
Other industries of a similar or smaller scale get much closer to zero defects, so why can't or won't the UK caravan industry bite the bulllet and start to deal with the causes of this dreadful record.

Hi Prof, Believe it or not we have had only one minor manufacturing fault on a Coachnman which was some of the trim on the rear bunk not stuck on correctly, we had it 10 years without problem. Apart from that the first one had a couple of lights that failed after a few weeks which were easily replaced and our Eldiss had a faulty fridge. This fooled everybody as all the lights came on as they should and it only came to light when we were away in it. Unfortunately we were in a heatwave in France but we survived. The dealer was very good swapped it for the fridge in another stock caravan which also did not work and it needed a third before we had a working one, I gather there was a bad batch and as ours was built to order the problem had not been identified by the time we got it.
That caravan did arrive at the dealers without curtains but they arrived a couple of days later so we were not delayed. The problem was that we had ordered an L shaped front lounge and they forgot to order the curtains to fit until it was too late.
Our Avondale has had no faults at all although I have heard tales of woe on their vans and there are a couple of design faults which probably should not be there but otherwise we are perfectly happy. My problem with it is the lack of spare parts if anything happens, it did have one minor bump and needed a new back end and is now recognisable by having no rear transfers as they were no longer available and the dealer had to rescue some bits he would otherwise have replaced.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Ray,
Congratulations, on getting what you consider to be fault free caravan. But your history shows that at least two other vans you’ve had have not been perfect.
I’m not trying to be personal about this, but the complacency with which you relate the issue with the fridge, and the caravan with design faults shows how numb we have become to the real performance of caravan manufacturers and dealers.
You say you dealer was ‘good’ to remedy you failed fridge problem, but he was actually only doing what he is required to do by law. It’s your right to have a supplier bend over backwards to correct faults in products they supply. And the fact that the faulty fridge got passed both the manufactures production tests AND the dealer PDI demonstrates how unsatisfactory the industries procedures are.
The fact a caravan was a 'special' is no excuse for the omission of the curtains, where was the quality control in the production plan?
Please show me someone who when ordering a new caravan specifies that they want faulty goods!, So when a dealer supplies faulty goods – no matter how small the fault is has failed to complete the contract.
I have often used the car industry as a role model the caravan industry should emulate, but even more so there is far more technology in Smart Phones, computers and televisions compared to caravans, and yet look at the reliability of these items. I know there not perfect but in terms of MTBF’s they knock spots off caravans.
Don’t be lenient on caravans, They are one of the most significant purchases by cost you are likely to make, demand what’s rightfully yours and don’t settle for second best.

 

[Raywood]

Hello Ray,
Congratulations, on getting what you consider to be fault free caravan. But your history shows that at least two other vans you’ve had have not been perfect.
I’m not trying to be personal about this, but the complacency with which you relate the issue with the fridge, and the caravan with design faults shows how numb we have become to the real performance of caravan manufacturers and dealers.
You say you dealer was ‘good’ to remedy you failed fridge problem, but he was actually only doing what he is required to do by law. It’s your right to have a supplier bend over backwards to correct faults in products they supply. And the fact that the faulty fridge got passed both the manufactures production tests AND the dealer PDI demonstrates how unsatisfactory the industries procedures are.
The fact a caravan was a 'special' is no excuse for the omission of the curtains, where was the quality control in the production plan?
Please show me someone who when ordering a new caravan specifies that they want faulty goods!, So when a dealer supplies faulty goods – no matter how small the fault is has failed to complete the contract.
I have often used the car industry as a role model the caravan industry should emulate, but even more so there is far more technology in Smart Phones, computers and televisions compared to caravans, and yet look at the reliability of these items. I know there not perfect but in terms of MTBF’s they knock spots off caravans.
Don’t be lenient on caravans, They are one of the most significant purchases by cost you are likely to make, demand what’s rightfully yours and don’t settle for second best.
Hi Prof I do take your points. The dealer did go out of their way with the fridge because they took another out of another van on the forecourt rather than wait for the manufacturer to send them one immediately we rang them. I may be going easy on Eldiss and the dealers but only running the fridge for a few hours would show up the fault and I doubt that is ever going to be done, it took us some tiome to spot it. The fault lay with the fridge manufacturer but as Eldiss have very little choice in this with only two manufacturers they are a bit stuck there. The curtains was an error that should not have happened but they couriered the curtains up a couple of days later and we were not inconvenienced as we still got the van on time.
I am not one for letting people off if they are at fault but having spent many years investigating accidents for a major insurer you do realise that you will never get perfection but errors should be minor and if made should be dealt with promptly and without argument. The leaking caravans and other major problems we hear about are not acceptable but given the complexity of the modern caravan if minor problems were dealt with well then I would not be too critical of the odd problem. I appreciate a lot of electrical goods are more complex but from what I have seen they are little more reliable if at all are more fragile and have built in obsolecence.
It does seem that there are many major problems being reported and that should not happen but this is then compounded by poor service from dealers and manufacturers. Having said that you can even satisfy most people with serious problems if you treat them right. One man on another forum with a badly leaking caravan rang the manufacturer got an immediate apology and was asked to take the van to his dealer when it was convenient to him. The van was then taken back almost completely rebuilt and returned promptly. What they managed to do was turn a very unhappy customer into one singing their praises. Solving problems to the satisfaction of customers generally needs as much if not more attention than making sure the product is perfect.

 

[ProfJohnL]

Hello Ray,

It seems we do basically agree the caravan indistry has got a long way to go to improve their consistency. Though I do challeneg your sentence "but given the complexity of the modern caravan " In engineering terms they are not complex.