Motorhome warranties

THE WARRANTY PACKAGE
I’m officially confused. When tackling the subject of warranties, I naïvely thought that warranties on offer from different companies would mostly be pretty much the same.

I also innocently thought that I would be able to get all the information I needed from brochures or web sites. But, I was wrong.
Some companies are great, making the information clear and easy to find. Others, though, bury the information in the middle of brochures or in small print. And some don’t display it anywhere. I have to praise some of the smaller converters, however, who make the information a lot clearer.

Why should it bother me, I hear you ask? Well, it affects your enjoyment experience of your motorhome. Should something go wrong soon after you have bought the vehicle, you want to know you won’t have to pay out in the case of component failures etc.
If you know exactly how long you are covered and who is covering your warranty then you’ll know exactly where to go to get it fixed.

TYPES
There are two main types – factory or manufacturer-backed and insurance backed. As you will have read a few months ago, when Autocruise was bought, the warranty for any vehicles already sold did not continue, so responsible dealers took out insurance-backed packages to cover their customers for the remaining term.

The most comprehensive type is the factory-backed, and anything other than normal wear and tear should be covered. But, what I’ve also discovered is that many warranties may only be manufacturer-backed for the first year. After this time, some revert to insurance policies for the second or third year.

The insurance-based policies are certainly not as comprehensive as those companies giving ‘no quibble’ manufacturer backed warranties. And they generally tend to exclude certain items and cover less as the term of the policy progresses. Ask your dealer if you can see a copy of the policy document before you sign on the dotted line. It’s certainly worth knowing where you stand.

BASE VEHICLES
The great thing about warranties on motorhome base vehicles is that they are fairly transparent, and they are fairly standard throughout. Saying that, there seems to be some uncertainty as to whether European motorhomes, built on European sourced vehicles qualify for the same warranty as a UK motorhome, built of a vehicle sourced in the UK.

Most European vehicles come with two years pan European, base vehicle warranty as standard, but some come with the same three that UK motorhomes are supplied with. One of our readers has bought a European van conversion and has been told that he can qualify for the same three-year warranty as supplied in the UK. We’ll let you know how he gets on.

It’s also worth noting that base vehicle warranties may start from when the motorhome maker buys the chassis or first registers the chassis. This may mean that your warranty may be anything up to – and possibly over – a year into the warranty before you drive it away from the dealer for the first time. Ask you dealer for all the documents and your first port of call should be your relevant base vehicle dealer. They can then tell you if there are any outstanding recall notices and when your warranty started, so you can get that changed if need be.

And then, it also seems, that every new motorhome, based on a brand new chassis gets roadside assistance of some form or another. And this varies quite a lot from just one year to three.

The variations for specific manufacturers can be found in the table below.

Base vehicle	Roadside assistance package
Ford Transit	Ford Assistance 3years, 100k miles. Includes assistance at home and roadside recovery throughout Europe 365 days a year, when your vehicle is immobilised as a result of a breakdown.
Mercedes Sprinter	Mobility Go (roadside assistance or recovery to nearest Mercedes dealer)/Service 24 months
Fiat Ducato	Camper Assist: 3yrs on UK-sourced chassis, 2yrs on European chassis. Fiat Assist 12months AA
Peugeot Boxer	12 months RAC assistance cover
Renault Master	1yr for whole chassis cab
VW Transporter	3yr VW Roadside assistance
Fiat Panorama	12months AA
Citröen Berlingo	12 months

It’s worth mentioning the Fiat Camper Assist scheme as a separate entity. If your new vehicle is registered as a motorhome with the DVLA, you should be able to qualify for this service, which not only offers roadside assistance, but will tell you where the nearest Fiat garage suitable for motorhomes is, among many other things.

It’s worth mentioning the Fiat Camper Assist scheme as a separate entity. If your new vehicle is registered as a motorhome with the DVLA, you should be able to qualify for this service, which not only offers roadside assistance, but will tell you where the nearest Fiat garage suitable for motorhomes is, among many other things.

Van conversions aren’t always registered as motorhomes with the DVLA, so make sure you do this, specifically on a Fiat Ducato-based vehicle. There are a whole host of other benefits for registering your camper as a motorhome, as described in the tips for buying a used motorhome feature.

WORTH ITS WEIGHT IN WATER
What you really want to know is the length of the water ingress warranty. Even with the modern materials and techniques used today, motorhomes are still essentially made up of panels glued and screwed together, or – in the case of camper conversions, panel vans with extra holes cut out. The presence of multiple doors, windows and rooflights makes it easier for water to work its way into a vehicle.

And water damage, consisting of mould, water marks and warping of furniture is not cheap to fix - if it can be fixed at all. So water ingress warranties are very useful – but there are often conditions involving annual servicing including a thorough damp check.

However, most van converters often don’t offer water ingress policies as there are no bodywork joins for water to leak through, unlike many coachbuilt motorhomes which are built almost from scratch.

This article was originally published in MMM August 2008 issue. If you've enjoyed it why not treat yourself to a copy of the magazine or order a subscription so you never miss an issue.

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