Ownership Diary - Dethleffs Motorhome No1

Although only 6wks or so have elapsed since I last wrote anything up, a fair bit has gone on and we're now up to 3,100miles. Average fuel economy since new is 19.3mpg but the last tank or two has been averaging 23mpg. A mixture of me not needing to hot foot it anywhere and generally taking it a bit easy.

First update was a nice first May Bank Holiday weekend locally up in St Neot's. It's only 30mins away and given it was a fairly last minute decision and we only had two out of the three possible nights available to us, we decided to look locally. And very glad we did! There was something so nice about having such a short drive and also seeing a place which is never really on the radar because it's close by, but it was worth the trip. Whether we'll be rushing back or not is doubtful, but very pleasant.

The Camping & Caravanning site we stayed on was right next to the River Cam and I'm sure if you were lucky enough to get a spot on the river bank itself, it elevates the experience. As it was, we were considered too big and arrived too late, so were put on a "Jumbo Pitch" under a beautiful tree. This was all well and good, apart from the fact that at 9pm, the birds nesting above, seem to all take enemas and we were rapidly forced back into the van from our seating outside and spent the rest of the evening/night listening to a rainstorm of guano hitting the roof. This was made even worse by the fact that my wife had had to come separately to me and the kids due to earlier commitments, so it wasn't just the motorhome but the Discovery which was covered too. And additionally, I was heading off on a business trip the following day to our return and last thing I wanted to do was wash the van.

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Anyway, the following day we were moved to the only other remaining pitch which was empty, which thankfully was well away from trees. In the morning whilst my youngest was napping in the van, I took the eldest kids out in the Disco to seek out the best rated hand car wash place in the area (would obviously never normally do such a thing! ) and in fairness the chaps did a very good job, taking their time with it and mostly not using anything which made me cringe too much.

A nice meal out in the town on Sunday was enjoyed but a very blustery end to the weekend saw us sheltering back in the van by the evening and forced a costly decision........I decided to buy an inflatable awning for future trips in order to avoid the issue of being packed on top of eachother once the boys are in bed and the weather is inclement.

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Trip over and I spent 4hrs up a ladder with all kinds of cleaning implements giving the roof and rest of the van a proper scrub to get all the bird muck off before tucking it away for its next adventure in just a few weeks time.
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Well, not quite. In the meantime, as I start getting more familiar with the vehicle, I notice a bit of a stutter under load in 4th and 5th gear. This results in an urgent booking at Travelworld and another 300mile round trip to investigate the issue. As it turns out "they all do that sir" - Fiat had to remap the 2.2 engine to work with the 9sp ZF gearbox since the torque curve was producing a torque converter annihilation to early variants after swapping from the 2.3 engine. So in order to save the torque converter, they remapped the later vehicles to dumb down torque at certain points of the rev range (2,100-2,500rpm in said gears being most noticeable). Annoying but Travelworld confirmed that the remap (which is effectively a recall on older vehicles) was present and correct and no fault codes were showing, so given a clean bill of health. Annoyingly it requires you to drive around the issue and therefore adopt a very different driving style. But now another 500miles or so later, I've got the hang of it and it is what it is.

So where does that bring us? Well, Half Term was spent in the Netherlands! And this has proved an absolute revelation of a trip. On the face of it, it was everything we as a couple thought we'd hate doing but were falling on the sword for the kids. A camp/holiday site with a theme park and water park at its centre. But I have to say, after 5 very enjoyable days there, it was a super family holiday and I can see it being in the calendar on an annual basis for a few years to come. The Dutch know how to do campsites very well, and theme parks as it turns out.

If anyone's interested - Duinrell

After packing up, I was pleased to see c. 700kg of payload remaining (for some reason the ALKO system shows 5t MGW but we're plated at 5.4t)

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Also bought a new toy - Silwy magnetic rechargable and dimmable table lamp

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Oh and game changer......youngest son is now out of the basinet with the huge isofix leg and into a "normal" Class I & II seat. Feels like progress and also much better that he can see his siblings during the journey.

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And then the trip! What was also a revelation was the Harwich to Hook of Holland ferry. I'd done it once before when repatriating my last motorhome from Germany. But first time with the family (who are now experienced seafarers with our regular trips from Holyhead to Dublin). What we very quickly realised is that firstly Harwich Port is <90mins from home, which is great for the little one who hates journeys longer than that. And Duinrell - where we stayed - was less than 45mins from the Port on the other side! In the middle we were able to board the ferry at 9pm, put the kids to bed, wife stayed with the boys and myself and daughter had a couple of pints (me on the beer - her on softies, obvs!) and then retire to bed for 7-8hrs; waking up fresh the next day at Rotterdam and feeling like we hadn't even travelled. Amazing!

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So outbound we got in at around 8am, stopped to pick up some breakfast gubbins, found a park-up near the sea and had a relaxed breakfast all together in the van then went for a walk. After that, still having a few hours to kill before checking in at the campsite, we found another beach bar further East past the Hague where we stopped for lunch - in a very tight carpark which I subsequently found out was banned for the use of vehicles >6m long, which explained why I had such a job getting in (we're 9m with bike rack!) - before making our way to the campsite. We arrived at 3pm and by 5pm had the awning set up with all the furniture inside and able to sit down with a glass of wine and dinner. Perfect!

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Over the next couple of days we would then have a lazy morning breakfast, head to the theme park (and/or water park) for a couple of hours - this was all included in the price - head back to the van for a spot of lunch, put the youngest down for a nap, play some games with the elder two or read, and then head back in for another hour before hitting the onsite pub for a couple of pints, some ten-pin bowling and then back to the van for dinner, boys bedtime and then music & chats with our daughter in the awning before bed ourselves.



Rinse and repeat for four days. We then met friends south of Rotterdam on the final day before sailing again at 10pm and arriving into the UK at 0730 on Saturday morning. Home by 0900. Perfect. Even better, we used less than 3/4 of a tank of fuel for the whole trip.

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Much nicer cabins for the return trip...



Total cost for the trip was £2k for the week - ferry, accomodation/camspite & activities, fuel plus a bit of food. Winner!

So what's next? Well next week sees me dropping the van off at Premium Motorhomes for the upgrading of the electrical system. I'll write a separate piece on that once it's all done with a few nerdy observations. And then I've also ordered an outdoor temperature sensor for the Alde (heating) control panel. It's been bugging me that it's impossible to tell what the temps are outside and I recently found out they have a plug & play sensor kit, so I'm going to have a go at installing that either prior to Premium trip or just after. It was only £40 and needs a bit of cleverness to get it out of the vehicle. But should be fun giving it a go.

Otherwise all the foregoing is in preparation for the big one in August, when we're off to Austria for 2.5wks. Hoping we haven't bitten off more than we can chew with the 14month old. But we'll see. If we can get another weekend away in between, we will do also. Simply put, everyone is loving the van and no regrets whatsoever.

 

So - I broke down today....

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......then this....

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Then this.......

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Ironically en route to Premium Motorhomes this morning to have the various bits of geeky offgrid stuff fitted to the van when the gearshifts start getting clunky, engine overrevs a bit and then "Check Transmission" comes up on the dash, closely followed by "Transmission Oil Overheating". Fiat Camper Assist come out, retrieve the following fault code: P1DB7 (which basically relates to torque converter) and order its recovery. And then the usual game begins - Recovery company ignore all the requests to send heavy recovery vehicle and instead send flatbed (I've seen this too many times before). Then told to "try it", so then just confirm what we already know. It doesn't fit. Rinse and repeat and wait for proper vehicle to arrive. It's currently on its way to Premium Motorhomes but this time for diagnosis and warranty work.

If you believe the internet, it's new torque converter and potentially new gearbox depending on if its ground itself to a pulp.

So here we are - 3,130miles and 3months in and not long before we head to Austria. I can quite easily see that trip not happening as things currently stand.

Monumentally p155ed off. Especially when I consider I turned down the opportunity to buy an Iveco a couple of years older because I thought a newer van would be less problematic. GGgggggrrrr.

Only silver lining is the fact the rig that collected me looked awesome and I saved 100miles of fuel! But that's me clutching at straws.

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Thanks guys. It's a real shame but fully agree, would've been worse if we'd have been either abroad or all up in the van together.

I've seen on the Tracker that Premium have got it in the workshop at the moment. This could be either the toys being fitted or the diagnostics for the transmission. Ideally would've preferred holding off on the toys until we know how bad the situation is with the gearbox but the realist in me says it doesn't matter; the chances of rejection are low and there are so few other options away from Fiat (in fact none other than the Iveco we can't afford), we need to give everyone Premium in the first instance but ultimately Travelworld and Fiat UK the best chance at fixing it for a long-term solution.

Hopefully once we know what we're dealing with and we can go belt & braces, we can regain our trust in it and continue what was becoming a bit of a love affair.

 

That's the concern. In the meantime Travelworld are sticking to their story that the Fiat Master Tech who looked at was thoroughly convinced that all was working as normal and road test was conducted "as expected". Sadly this is in spite of the fact he was a passenger (who does not have a C1 license) so was reliant upon the opinion of the Workshop Manager (who was driving).

I haven't yet had the opportunity to speak with Premium but in the meantime I've done a lot of research. From what I can gather, given the fault code has pinged, it means that Fiat will likely authorise draining the transmission oil. If that comes out anything other than clear yellow/gold (w/o swarf) then there's a chance it's overheated and damaged the torque converter which will necessitate new parts plus oil cooler & oil lines. Lord only knows how long that will all take to order in and fit given we're in the peak time for vans being prepared & sold for the upcoming summer season.

I've started looking at alternatives for our summer holiday

 

Thanks chaps. Desperately hoping for an update today.

I see from my Scorpion Tracker that it's been out for a 20mile road test today, logged over a couple of journeys and it's been sitting with the ignition on for the last 50mins in their workshop just before lunchtime so there's definitely some activity. Gagging to hear so I can understand what the plan of action is!

In the meantime, I did hear from Premium to confirm they had successfully fitted all the electrical gubbins last week, so that's exciting.

Watch this space......

 

Well, I spoke with Premium this morning. Their testdrive yielded the same message as me - "Overheating transmission fluid". Evidently Fiat determine what the next steps are and they are unable to do anything until it's been signed off by Fiat - who are only reachable by email and not the phone! So they're in effectively a ticketing queue and we have to wait until they authorise the next steps.

In the best case scenario, it's a faulty sensor. However, with the other fault code triggered and the fact the gearbox turned to slush afterwards and started slipping, I'd rather suspect it's something more sinister.

Back on the wait and see!