Truma Combi 2 E Boiler replacement

If you intend to keep the van for some time then perhaps a new boiler might be the way to go but if you are considering changing anytime soon I would be inclined towards the repair. As far as I can tell a new Combi 2 costs in the region of £1200 plus fitting which is a lot of money. OK you will get new functionality with the CP control panel. What is the nature of the repair required? If it's only a replaceable part that is required surely that would be considerably cheaper than changing the whole thing and could well give many years of good service? As far as how long they last I have only kept vans up to about 6 years but I have not heard of anyone having to replace the whole unit. Having said that I had to have a new circuit board on my current boiler in under a year of ownership, fortunately replaced under warranty.

David

Depends what you intend replacing it with.  Although I have been impressed with the  actual operation of our Truma Combi 6E - I can't say the same about it's reliability.  It's 3 and half years old and has been back to the dealers twice this year for new elements.  Added to which, it packed up again a couple of weeks ago - probably due the main 240v fuse blowing due to a power surge and I'm waiting for someone to come and fix it.

Although it's only a rumour at the moment, our dealer has heard that Truma are discontinuing the 6E and it is to be replaced with something else and I can only assume from comments on other forums that it has something to do with reliability.

If I were you, I'd make some serious enquiries as to the future of Truma Combi boilers before you end up replacing it with something that's likely to become redundant very quickly.

Hi & many thanks for your replies.

we intend keeping our caravan for several more years that's why we are going down the new combi unit  route rather than having the heating elements replaced.

In fact Truma now don't supply/recommend  fitting of the heating elements alone ,they supply the boiler unit with elements already fitted.(cost £500) then the fitting cost.is obviously extra.

I'm aware you can still get non Truma  heating elements fitted ,we have been quoted £500 for supply & fit ,that's with a 6 months warranty but only with our service engineer.

I'm  buying the unit myself as mentioned at around £1200 at the moment ( I check prices regularly) for the whole fitting kit & we get a 24 month warranty through the retailer as long as the combo unit is registered with Truma & fitted by a qualified service engineer,which it will be 

our service engineer will fit the unit when he does the service next year & he'll just charge us his hourly rates to remove the old unit & fit the new one.

His estimate was between 2 to 3 hours.

once again many thanks .

Just to add we contacted Truma direct to ask if they would supply just the Combi 2E unit to our service engineer so he could do a straight replacement(supply & fit) , obviously all the relevant pipework/ electrics  is in situ, but we never even had a reply.

"In fact Truma now don't supply/recommend fitting of the heating elements alone ,they supply the boiler unit with elements already fitted.(cost £500) then the fitting cost.is obviously extra."

Correct C362 - and I suspect that the reason for this is that if the elements are just pushed into the housing without 'crimping' the cooling fins around them, they fail in a very short time.  (I have a suspicion that this is what happened re our first repair in January - hence the failure two months later).  They are now sold  as a 'kit' with the cooling fins already attached and although this requires more work to install them, it means they will last longer.

That said - when one equates the number of hours of anticipated service from the elements - as published by Truma - this only equates to about 18 - 24 months of use in a caravan if you use it every month and all year round as we do.

We had to rely on gas water heating when we were away a couple of weeks ago and I was surprised how little gas we actually used for that purpose. It also got much hotter than by using electricity.