My rights under Consumer Rights Act 2015

I wrote to the retailer earlier this week to reject the van in line with my rights under the Consumer Rights Act, although granted the repair to put the fault right is in itself quite small. However the act allows me to reject if a first attempt at repair has failed. In fact the fault after the first repair is worse and has left significant amount of water running across the whole width of van from the leak. 

Went back to retailer this morning to remove all my personal possessions from van and from what I saw of the van today, I have no qualms about my decision to reject. 

Retailer has tried to wipe up last bits of water that we couldn't but when I lifted up the opposite seat to the faulty side, water still under the seating across the floor. I also did a small area damp test and the woodwork around the leak area is reading about 28% on side wall and the floor beneath the lino is bouncing between 34% and 38%, so any thoughts that the floor should be OK if the lino was bonded clearly is not the case.

This is a van that is less than 4 months from delivery date and under no circumstances should a new caravan present with such a bad fault. It does not take a rocket scientist to recognise potential damage and disruption caused by water leaking so I would expect that as a minimum the manufacturers would check plumbing prior to dispatch and for the retailers to do a final check to ensure that the plumbing was intact.

Not loosing sight of the fact that I am simply applying my rights under the CRA, I also believe that unless more customers apply their rights, the manufacturers and dealers will continue to churn out faulty vans with no quality check or PDI as was the case with ours. The more people that reject, the sooner they will get their house in order.I was gobsmacked by the amount of vans I saw today waiting for warranty repairs, some quite significant. The work cards in the caravan windows painted a sorry picture and on so many new vans.It is about time the industry sorted their quality out with less reliance on the dealer or customer finding the faults.

"Not loosing sight of the fact that I am simply applying my rights under the CRA, I also believe that unless more customers apply their rights, the manufacturers and dealers will continue to churn out faulty vans with no quality check or PDI as was the case with ours. The more people that reject, the sooner they will get their house in order."

So right.

Let us know how you get on, Dex. It’ll be interesting and possibly of use to others.

I would also be really interested to see how you get on.  The very best of luck.  Do let us know how it goes.

David 

No  IFS  or  BUTS,  Dexterlevi,  my  first  &  I  do  mean  FIRST,  port  of  call  would  be  the  Clubs  Legal  team  !!

Then  take  their  advice  &  act  upon  it  --  Other  members  going  that  route  over  the  years  have  been  happy  with  their  advice,  indeed  I  cannot  recall  anybody  coming  on  here  &  saying  other  than  good  things  !!.

As a few people have asked for updates on how I get on, I have a new van on order which will be delivered in Feb 2018. The retailer accepted the rejection and offered full refund or replacement van.  When we bought the van we got it at approx 3k below rrp so any refund would have left us the 3k short against the same van if we chose to order elsewhere. We like the van and its layout so wanted the same van model albeit a new one. So we are getting a 2018 Elddis Avante 550 with a dealers spec which includes external barbecue point, additional locker and external power point. I have to give credit where due, retailer was quick to accept the rejection. Whilst they had little choice under the CRA, they did it without fuss or delay. The same cant be said for the manufacturer. The dealer contacted the manufacturer when we rejected and I believe their response was to repair the van. Thank god that the contract was with the dealer and not Elddis. Beggars belief that the manufacturer thinks it acceptable to make do with a repair of a van that is still currently drying out and reading around 38% damp and only 4 months old from new. Ultimately they were responsible for the initial leak as it is them who churned out the van with the fault. I guess the dealer will make good the fault and put the van back on the forecourt as a one owner model. I did ask both the dealer and Elddis to provide some complimentary upgrades to the new van in the form of an omnivent fan and anti theft alarm. I thought this was a small ask to recognise the disruption and upset caused and this would have cost them no more than a couple of hundred quid. Would have gone a long way to repair reputation for poor service and disruption but neither dealer or Elddis would entertain the thought. I guess there's your answer as to how serious they really do demonstrate that they care about their customers (or not). Anyway putting that aside looking forward to delivery of our new van in the next 6 weeks or so. Some praise for the dealer for putting things write but IMHO poor response from manufacturer. Interestingly the manufacturer did private message me via another forum and for  brief time I thought they were genuinely keen to help, but with hindsight I think they only got in touch because I had posted a negative thread on another forum.

A good outcome, although your plans have been delayed. Hope you enjoy your new van.

Dexter, did you continue to engage with the manufacturer on the other forum to point out their failings & negative attitude to customer satisfaction & indeed their commitment in law? On an open forum it would be an alert to future customers.

I think I have responded on other forum but I will check and if not add a further response.

Not sure that I have any legal rights against the manufacturer as my contract was with the dealer. The dealer has the contract with the manufacturer but in this case because the dealer failed to repair properly at first repair they are left holding the baby as such. I just thought that the dealer and/or the manufacturer would have embraced the opportunity to make a token gesture to reflect the disruption and upset caused by their poor service. When you consider how little it would have cost them, I naively thought they would go for it. But there you go, they clearly have no problem with the damaged reputation or the negative threads on these types of forum. The pen is mightier than the sword, as they say.