Ownership Diary - Dethleffs Motorhome No1

Hey Rich - good to see you on here again. Funny, I was only thinking about you the other day and thinking it had been a while. Hope all is well with you and yours?

@Wynne71 - believe me, the patience thing I find really hard. I suppose the only thing is that I've become used to this waiting game with motorhomes over the years. They get stuck in dealers. It's either chassis or hab and to be honest, the chassis seems far more problematic every time than the habitation area. This being my first foray into the world of Fiat, I think it will be my last. There's a huge temptation to attempt to reject it already. On the other hand, I've already established I can't afford anything on a difference chassis and I'm not really sure Iveco is going to be the last word in build quality either. I feel like I'm between a rock and a hard place.

@edthefed - nope!

 

Good timing @edthefed - I was just coming on here now to update. Having said that, not an awful lot to update.

At the start of the week I got a note from Premium telling me that it wasn't 100% signed off but they believed a new gearbox would be required. Since then, nothing. Premium have been on to Fiat daily for an update but nothing has progressed. In parallel I emailed Travelworld to ask them (as the retailer of the vehicle) to apply maximum pressure on Fiat UK from their side. And in the process disagreed with their assertion that "mechanical failures can happen at any time". Since then, no reply.

I have raised a case with Fiat UK Customer Services - they responded today saying they had looked into the case but were unable to provide an ETA on when parts would be available. And I have also been spamming Travelworld & Dethleffs Facebook adverts with complaints. Finally Dethleffs asked me to send details into their HQ Customer Services so I've done so, including complaining at Travelworld's lackadaisical attitude to aftersales. We'll see what happens, but I doubt very much at this stage.

So - where does that leave us?

Facebook Ducato Owners Club seems to refer to up to 2,500 gearboxes on back order. I spoke with a friend of mine who works for one of the UK's largest motorhome dealers and he says the problem is endemic. And I had a good nosey through a German Ducato forum (sometimes it helps to be bilingual!) and found countless threads on similar symptoms to mine (i.e. the initial ones back in May) which led to not one, or two but in some cases vehicles being on their third gearbox!!

Up until this point, my wife has been resolute that we should give the fix a go. Upon hearing of the problems across Europe with this gearbox, she's now becoming more aligned with me and that we should be pressing to reject the van. It breaks my heart (and my bank balance) since we've had so many hopes and dreams for this van, not to mention just having dropped £3k on new electrics. But the issues are multiple:

- no-one seems able to guarantee that a new gearbox is a longterm solution;
- no-one is able to give me any idea whatsoever as to when the vehicle might be back on the road;
- whatever Travelworld say, this is a major failure of a major component, therefore under Consumer Rights laws, it would qualify for rejection;
- I believe with the high incidence of failure, the transmission is unfit for purpose; and,
- I really don't know how I could ever trust it again knowing the foregoing.

As far as I understand it, I am eligible to receive a replacement vehicle or a refund subject to a fair use deduction. At this stage, I would push for the replacement (like for like) vehicle; all the new ones should have the 8spd Aisin gearbox (which is what I had hankered after originally) but Travelworld Salesman talked me into the purchase with the following, now laughable line: "We have no first- hand experience of the new gearbox so cannot really comment, however the ZF 9 speed is an excellent proven unit from one of the world’s leading automotive component manufacturers!"

I think I probably need to see if I get anything further from Fiat UK & Dethleffs today. But I think our minds are made up.

Sad day indeed

 

Bit late to the party, this is exceptionally bad news. How frustrating for you, I was only thinking about you the other day after seeing a few big motorhomes on our hols in Italy.

 

So a small but positive update.

I spent the latter part of last week badgering all and sundry. Fiat U.K. / Stellantis, Dethleffs & Travelworld all received emails of complaint. Shamefully the only ones not replying with any seriousness was Travelworld who just responded with “your Service Advisor is on leave until next Weds, she’ll respond then”. Given this is way beyond the service desk at this point, I escalated to Head of Customer Service - then got an out of office referring to March! Meanwhile Dethleffs has clearly spoken with Fiat and Fiat CS had been escalating internally also.

As a result of this, I received an update yesterday from Premium to say the gearbox was en route, arriving end this week. However the oil lines required were due 21/07. There is an outside hope that they could arrive sooner and Premium have undertaken to get everything fitted as soon as it’s received.

With this news in hand, a surprising wave of excitement came over myself and my wife (we’d already had tears from the two eldest kids about potentially getting rid of “Doug”) and thoughts immediately turned to our Austrian holiday.

Suffice to say, high risk strategy, but we’re going to give it a go (my repeated reading of Consumer Rights legislation makes me think I have to as well). Clearly if there’s the merest sign of the gearbox putting a foot wrong in future, we’ll activate the rejection process and I’ll happily spend money getting a lawyer involved. But let’s hope this solves it and we can get on with living what was supposed to be a dream (and had started out so positively).

Fingers crossed

 

Thanks - fingers are still well and truly crossed. I’ve been told 21/07 is ETA for oil lines but gearbox is there. As soon as oil lines are in, they’ll be fitted and in theory we’re good to go.

In reality, we probably have less than a week to get it home, sort some stuff out and then get ready to leave. It’s going to be tight!