Caravan Dealers - are any of them any good?

That's a really useful point! As we have to buy used, we are not expecting a very long warranty, so knowing that we have a really good service centre nearby could be a godsend.

Just to let you guys know that we have decided to HIRE a caravan for our up-coming break in September and see how we get on with it.  Then, when we come back we have no more stays booked anywhere, so can take our time over the winter to look at lots of caravans and hopefully find our "dream van".

Golden Castle Caravans at Twigworth in Gloucestershire. We bought a new Coachman 575 Excel from them in April and cannot fault their sales and afters sales service. The sales process was very smooth considering the country was in lock down at times. The Sales team kept us informed of delivery delays from Coachman and provided a very comprehensive hand over. My limited experience of the After Sales service suggests that it is just as efficient. The caravans been excellent as well!

Thank you Roger!  Not too far from us and certainly worthwhile checking out, particularly as we've been thinking about getting a Coachman too.

Absolutely the worst caravan I ever bought, was bought from a very large local dealership - probably the largest in the UK at that time - began with a W. I was assured it had been thoroughly checked for damp and would undergo a thorough pre-delivery full inspection and end to end clean. 

Reassured by that, I gave it only a cursory inspection to ensure it suited our needs and agreed to buy it. When I collected it, I remember the guy dealing with me was obsessed about torquing the wheel nuts up - he wouldn't let it move until he had found the torque wrench and checked they were correct.

The thorough clean was nothing more than a quick 10 minute flick with a damp rag inside, the full inspection missed a long list of faults such that it was unfit to use safely - the hob top was completely unfastened, the oven filthy, the first time the heater was tested, on my drive, it set fire to the underside of the van due to an internal gas leak - I was just lucky there was a hose to hand to extinguish it. I had checked the main gas hose, found it 10 years out of date, so had replaced it. They might well have checked it for damp, but if they did, they simply screwed up the report and binned it. 

I complained loud and long, in writing and on the phone, but promised calls back never came - in the end agreed to them inspecting it again, to see if something could be sorted out. I was asked to take it along to there repair depot, some 60 miles further from where I had collected it and for 8am. I was there on time, made myself known and was completely ignored for two hours by the staff. I then wrote a large note of complaint about the company with my contact details, which I put in the front window, uncoupled, left it completely blocking the busy site.

We eventually settled on them just rebuilding the front end, where the worst of the damp and damage was.

How I missed it when I first looked, I just don't know. That caravan was not kept for long - rather than pass it on, I sold it on to be scrapped.

Harry1000, was the dealer you refer to located in East Yorkshire, not far from Hull? If so it is probably the same large dealership that we bought our Lunar from. Never again will I set foot in their premises. Our handover of a brand new caravan took over three hours because of things that we found faulty or things not done that had been specified in the order. And the caravan was full of manufacturing dust and dirt so it was obvious that no PDI had been done at all. What I couldn't understand was that we were told that the caravan would not be available until April, (we had ordered in February) but we found manufacturing documents that had been left in it that indicated it had been completed and signed off by Lunar the previous October. 

We also bought an awning whilst we were there waiting. When we got it home we found that this was also faulty. The dealer collected the awning from us and sent a new one. This was also received in a damaged state so we asked for our money back.

We've had 4 caravans over the years from the same dealer, 20 minutes down the road. The last one we had and are still using had a problem with the fridge which would only work on gas. This happened just after we bought it.  Pointless when we always hook up.  Despite numerous attempts by the dealer to fix it, I took up the problem directly with Dometic.  Got a very knowledgeable guy who knew exactly what the problem was, arranged for the van to go back to the dealer, sent an engineer out and problem solved. They sorted it within a few days whereas the dealer had got nowhere in three months.

Otherwise, haven't been able to fault the dealer except for when it needs a service.  Have to book months in advance and can only drop it off and pick it up when there is an "R" in the month.  Very inflexible.

It's now 7 years old and this year I decided to take it out of the dealer service.  Had it serviced last week by a guy who now works out of the storage yard.  Dropped the keys off, he picked it up from the plot, did all the work plus one or two other little jobs that wanted doing, took it back to the plot and all I had to do was call in to pay and pick the keys up. 

Job well done.

'Harry1000, was the dealer you refer to located in East Yorkshire, not far from Hull?'

They do have an outlet there too. I will not name them, because possibly they have changed in the intervening years since that episode.

we have been caravaning for 30 years we change every 3 years and have to say we have never dealt    with anyone better then winchester caravan  cant recomened them highly enough   

Hi

My key points are:

Don't touch anything with an ABS panel

Buy local

You can see some of our trials and tribulations below. It also says who our dealer was for the van we bought most recently. They have 3 branches - one in Wiltshire, one in Oxfordshire and one in Berkshire.

The chap we dealt with for purchase was at the Wiltshire branch (Andy) and we have no complaints. After sales service dealt with all issues with utter professionalism. And there have been a lot - still though wouldn't put me off a Swift.

See more detail about issues / resolution below, click on the link for details and photos

Builkhead and other problems