Motorhome warranties and warranty work

Should the worst happen and disaster befalls your new motorhome, stay calm, find your warranty documentation and start phoning.

But be prepared to find out that the warranty may not cover what you thought it did, once it’s translated from small print into action. Caveat emptor, the oldest phrase in trading, means ‘buyer beware’.

The nature of warranty cover

When purchasing either a new or pre-owned ’van, you will normally be offered warranty cover. The first thing to check is who exactly will bail you out if things go wrong.

For new ’vans, it should be the manufacturer – Fiat, Peugeot or Ford for cab/chassis, or Swift, Auto-Trail or Auto-Sleepers for the living quarters. In fact, within the latter, you may be claiming against the appliance manufacturer, like Thetford for the fridge, Truma for heating systems or Whale for the water pump.

For pre-owned ’vans, the position is more complex. If it’s nearly-new, you may inherit the balance of the manufacturer’s warranty (but this could involve a transfer fee), topped up to three years by the dealer, as with Marquis Motorhomes. Marquis’ three-year warranty package runs alongside any residual cover from the previous owner.

These ‘dealer warranties’ are not with the manufacturers, but run through an underwriter, with whom your claim must be agreed.

For new ’vans, does warranty cover vary between manufacturers, particularly between UK and European models? The broad answer is not really. Models use the same Ford/Fiat/Peugeot/Mercedes chassis, so the standard engine/chassis guarantee applies to all.

With pre-owned ’vans, since cover is provided by the individual dealer’s underwriters, it varies both in duration and in detail. More than ever, check the coverage before finalising the purchase and make sure you know exactly what you’re buying... yes, buying, because you normally have to purchase this warranty yourself, even if it’s included in the deal agreed.
 

Main problems with warranty claims

Dealers sigh when you ask about common warranty problems. The main one is that owners never read how to make a warranty claim and therefore often contact the dealer to demand a refund for repair work which is already completed – as in ‘unauthorised’.

Then the dealer has to contact the manufacturer/underwriter and argue through a claim that has broken the legal contract. Which means that both they, and you, are depending on goodwill.

All claims must go through the agreed process, where the fault is reported to the dealer, who notifies the manufacturer, gets permission to complete the repair, then has the repair carried out.

The second major problem is that not all motorhome manufacturers pay for diagnostic work, even when they authorise the repair/ adjustment.

The third problem is that all warranties are conditional on routine servicing being carried out on vehicles, including habitation checks.

Fourthly, many of us have hopelessly high expectations about what warranty cover includes. It seldom covers normal wear and tear, which is why the final year coverage in a three-year warranty is often weak-as-water.

Fifthly, dealers are often accused of dragging their feet in helping customers once the sale has been made. Most owners have their own horror stories about aftercare. In part, a fantasy version (and what they would have liked to say), often based on a misunderstanding: not even reputable dealers can move faster than the claims procedure allows...
 

Conclusions

>Most warranties offer pretty honest cover. However, always read the detail to avoid later misunderstandings AND go through the approved claims procedure, or you might invalidate the warranty.

Remember, between different warranties, there are small but important variations in wording and clauses. Therefore, across the industry, cover detail is not absolutely standard. Check it out carefully.

This is an edited excerpt taken from the Summer 2013 issue of MMM magazine.

For the full feature, read the Summer 2013 issue of MMM.

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