Author: Martin Farrimond

A phone call from the dealer’s in Weston yesterday morning told me it was all ready to collect, so off I went back down the M5.

They’d kindly fitted new tyres (6 of them) following my complaint that the tyres that were on there – despite having done only 14700 miles – were still 8 years old and all had degraded and cracked sidewalls. Yup, they’d got it started after having taken the driver’s seat off to get at the battery and removing a piece of aluminium foil from between the negative terminal post and the cable clamp; claiming this to be the cause of it failing to start. With a distinct air of bullshit, I headed home with it. However, the wheel alignment seems to be out now – pulling to the left.

Called in at Bradley Stoke to fill up with fuel on the way back, & thereafter, there was the ever-present smell of diesel pervading the cab. We’d noticed this the first time we filled it up on our way to the Brecons. However, the smell had disappeared by the time we got to our destination so I though no more about it.

When I got home, I discovered the brand new reversing camera didn’t switch on when going into reverse gear. Not really wanting to have yet another trip down to WSM, I booked it in locally to have the wheel alignment checked (8am this morning), then spent a couple of hours yesterday afternoon looking into the reversing camera problem – having assumed the cause to be related to the dealer having removed the phenomenally intermittently noisy indicator buzzers (at my request) under the instrument panel, adjacent to the camera wiring. The camera/display has a wire connected to the reversing light: This wire is what switches the display on & off. Lo and behold, the reversing light wasn’t lighting either. Check the fuses: There is a fuse for the reversing lights. 15A. Blown. 15A seems like a lot of spare capacity for a single reversing lamp. I didn’t have a spare 15A fuse, but I did have a 10A. Tried it – blew straight away. Give up.

However, whilst I was working on the reversing light fault, I noticed that from time-to-time, the automatic gear panel would occasionally light up as though doing its power-on self-test, accompanied by the sound of the automatic gears engaging. This was completely independent of anything I was or wasn’t doing at the time. Also, even with engine ignition off and the keys removed, there’s a constant buzzing/whirring sound under the hood. Something is running the whole time. Could this be something to do with the flat battery/can’t start problem?

This morning, it almost didn’t start: battery seemed pretty low. I never bought the idea of the alu foil on the terminal post as being the cause of dead battery/non starting.

I took the van round to have the steering alignment checked: They couldn’t do it because the laser beams from their alignment tools were being blocked by the coachbuilt body. I’d need to take it elsewhere. However, taking the van off the ramp, I noticed a trail of diesel fuel. Turned out to be running from the filler pipe to the fuel tank. Now I know why there was a smell of diesel.

Nothing for it now – another trip to Weston seems inevitable. Phoned the dealers: Service manager out today. Will call me back tomorrow morning.

Took the van to 2 further places to have the alignment checked/adjusted, having spoken to them about the size of the vehicle. 1st one also couldn’t do anything as they couldn’t get the gauges on the commercial wheels. 2nd place – in Yate – were able to do it after a fashion. They also looked into the fuel leakage whilst it was up on the ramp. Outcome: Split vent/breather hose at the fuel tank. Needs to have the tank dropped out to get at it. Bliss.

Back home, I discover a service invoice attached to the MOT certificate (it was serviced & MOTd a week before I originally collected it). On the service invoice was an item for the replacement of a defective reversing light switch on the gearbox. Could it be that this new switch has become faulty & is blowing the fuse?

I eagerly await tomorrow morning’s call from the dealer’s service manager.

Meanwhile, time passes, and we’re still stuck in this country instead of being in Italy.

Originally, we’d planned to be leaving on Sat, 14th June (yesterday, in fact). We did only manage to get the motorhome fairly late however, and I was pretty insistent that it needed a road trial before going away to Europe.

So last weekend, we took it to the the Brecons – Rhandirmywn, to be precise; about 7 miles N of Llandovery. Fortunately, it rained (??) I say “fortunately”, because we discovered one of the skylights was leaking. And I couldn’t get the drain plug out of the fresh water tank which was a bit unfortunate as I’d filled it up and added a tank cleaner/purifier solution prior to setting off, aiming to drain it upon arrival. Not much use for 100 litres of chlorinated water – certainly can’t drink the stuff!

There were a couple of other “findings” too, so I had to book the van back into the dealer’s at Weston for all these bits to be seen to. Trouble was, they couldn’t take it in ’till Thursday & they needed it for 2 days to sort it all out.

Come yesterday morning, I was told it was ready for collection. Drove down to Weston. They were really busy & I had to wait almost an hour before they could find someone to fetch it from their locked-up yard. Then they couldn’t get it started. Sense of humour failure begins. For another 1/2 hour they didn’t have time to look into it. Then they tried jump starting it from a pick-up truck. Nothing. Not a peep. Dead battery? Who knows? The main battery is under the driver seat where it is totally inaccessible without removing the entire seat. And that’s not going to happen until Monday.

I suppose we have to philosophical about these things: Better that it happened there (so they are on hand to fix it, and at their cost) than somewhere in Europe.

This is the beast we settled on as time was running out. Not ideal, but then again – whatever we looked at involved some form of compromise. This one hit most of the right buttons…

 

• Has a “garage” (bike storage, windsurf board storage, etc) Even had a bike rack in the garage from the previous owner, though I did have to modify it to take proper mountain bike – sized tyres.

• Separate bedroom – don’t need to make up/take down beds to clear space for other activities/driving
  

  

• Longitudinal/axial beds, rather than beds lying across the van – don’t want to have to climb over one another for any essential “nocturnal expeditions”
• Combined shower/loo “wet room” – no need to waste space on a large bathroom as some motorhomes have

  

• Low profile – don’t need any beds over the cab. The overhang only adds more drag whilst motoring.
• Forward-facing cabin seats with seatbelts – in case we ever need to take the grandchildren anywhere with us.
  

  

The one we got has all these features, but…

• It’s bigger than ideal
• It’s automatic
• It doesn’t have cruise control
• It has 6 wheels (twin wheels at rear) so another pair of tyres to replace when ness
• There’s a lot of engine noise inside the cab – it’s a bit industrial!