Powertouch service

When we had our Powertouch fitted,(manual) i was advised it was the best to have if there is not a method to keep batt charged,and c/van not used often as it is not unknown to engage the mover then find there is not enough power to move the c/van and release them

Even with auto engagement is there no way of manually doing it?

Yes the rollers can be engaged/ disengaged manually with a Tbar wrench, which comes with the rest of the installation. Or a battery drill with a 7mm socket can be used.

We purchased a Powrtouch Evolution motor mover about 5 years ago for our then Coachman 520/4 caravan. I was a bit unhappy with the slowness of the system to activate but some 12 months later, when we changed our van to a new Coachman 565/4 Pastiche in September 2014 we had the unit transferred to our new van because it was so new still.  That was probably the biggest mistake of our lives!

Since that time the the Motor Mover has failed us on almost every other time we have needed it!  At first it tended to fail to engage, mainly on the nearside wheel, which made the caravan very good at moving in circles but totally uncontrollable !  Sometimes just for a change it failed to engage on the offside so it went in circles in the opposite direction!  Lately however just to emphasise how useless it is, it now refuses to engage on both sides!  It switches on, starts to engage and within 2 seconds switches off again!  

We store the van in a narrow sloped location, off of a narrow lane. It is essential that when we leave the storage, that we have a functioning motor mover to get back in!  Sadly although we have now paid our dealer a lot of money to repair the mover before we can get back into our storage, the repair only lasts for a short time. On every second usage the bl**DY thing fails again!

My wife now wants to give up caravanning after 40 years purely because of the hassle we have almost every time we come home!

Truma don't want to know, the unit is now over 5 years old but its been failing almost every time we've used it for the last 4 years!  Its rubbish!

TF

sorry to hear your troubles but did you have the unit looked at by powertouch when the trouble  first began on changing vans when it was one year old and under warranty? but putting that to one side the easiest thing is to now is to buy a new mover?

I agree re buying a new mower.  And I suspect that it will be a manual engagement one!

There have been a couple of lessons learned  in this debacle.  Powrtouch now tell me that the units require lubrication about every 3-4 months. Thats new too me, Ive not heard it before and it seems totally impractical for most owners.  Secondly, and I accept I am at fault here, I have assumed that a quick service of the motor mover would be done at the time of my annual service. I pay £239 for the service, but the dealer insists that they don't touch the MM despite having sold it to me and having fitted it!  Lesson Don't Assume!

So in part, the appalling lack of serviceability could be due to a lack of inclusion in the annual service and the lack of 3-4 monthly lubrication. But nowhere have I read of that requirement.

In our particular case my storage point is off a fairly narrow but quite busy lane, through some stout gates and then into position on an upward slope.  Because of the narrowness of the lane it is not really practical to reverse the van in, on the car. The van is much too heavy for two 73 year olds to be able to push it up the slope. So a reliable MM is essential to us.  Its no good arriving in the lane to find that its not working again.  So we always test it before setting off on the return journey and almost invariably it is U/S. So we drop the van off at the dealers and I pick it up when they've got it going again.

When it is working I can get the van inside the small two van compound  very quickly, in time to avoid that bus that always seems to come along at the wrong time!!

Corners you are correct, a new and reliable MM is the answer, but its a shame to have to do that in the closing years of our caravanning.

TF

Well thank god im not the only one who has experianced all of the above problems. I have had the mover from new fitted to our Bailey Barcelona a twin axle which because of where it is stored a motor mover is essential so we went for the best which was the power touch mover all wheel drive auto engage costing in the regeon of 2000 pounds. I can honestly say that in all the time we have had it and all the problems of changing both control units all the drive motors I never feel confident that is going to work without some issues. Having said that  warranty and help from power touch has always been excellent. On a break a few weeks ago and whilst moiving on pitch the moters locked phoned head office and was talked throughand the problem was a low battery, charged it up and it was fine.

We had 2 or 3 Powr movers and the only one that proved troublesome was the auto actuation model.

Powr identified the parts needed to convert our mover to manual engagement. They would have cost about £100 but that was considerably cheaper than buying a new mover. We didn’t proceed with the conversion as we traded the van in for a MH.

Yes indeed it is, but at least you can enjoy them more?

Our mover needed some work on it at the last service and it cost £72 labour I think to stop it going round to the left when it was supposed to be going forward.  

Yes, again an incorrectly engaged LHS roller!

Bah!  Back to a manual system!

TF