Lemon caravans are a hot topic lately, so we’ve put together a guide on how to avoid buying a lemon caravan, crucial purchase decisions and what to do if you do end up with a lemon.
Imagine this…
You’ve finally bought your dream caravan, ready for the ultimate road trip, but instead of adventure, you find yourself stuck with a lemon and are now dealing with endless faults and repairs.
While it might seem like a horror story, it’s a reality a number of new caravan owners face. But does it have to be this way? Plenty of travellers are out there living their best life with caravans that run without a hitch. So, what’s their secret?
To help you avoid buying a lemon caravan, we’ve put together our top five tips to make sure your next purchase is one you’ll love for years to come. We’re also talking about crucial purchase decisions and what to do if you do end up with a lemon.
5 things to do before committing to purchase
(Words and pics by Marty Ledwich)
Talk to other owners
Without question, the best information and advice you will get about any caravan is from the people who own them. When we stay at a caravan park or free camp, we take the time to talk to our neighbours, and it’s rare to find someone who isn’t willing to talk about their van’s good and lemon points.
Most owners will happily invite you into their van to have a look. Most importantly, talking to someone in person, with the product at hand, you can see details in the physical product that you would never be able to obtain reading a review on the internet or Facebook.
Organise a factory tour
Any manufacturer who takes pride in their product will not hesitate to organise a factory tour for a potential customer. For a start, there should be other caravans in various stages of manufacture, giving you the ability to see what lies beneath the skin and fancy LED lights.
You will be able to see how carefully the electrical wiring is routed through the frame, the strength and construction of the frame itself and how carefully the insulation is installed. You can see what high-tech machinery they use, and how clean and orderly the factory is maintained.
Even the demeanor of the staff can be an indication of how well the factory is managed and if there is a degree of pride in their work. Let’s face it, if the staff don’t appear to care, you’re more likely to get a lemon caravan.
Read the documentation
Before you sign on the dotted line, insist on getting a copy of the contract of sale and the warranty terms and conditions so that you can take them home to read both documents carefully. If you don’t feel confident in assessing these documents, pay extra to have them examined by a contract specialist.
The last thing you want is to discover your off-road caravan is not covered for off-road use or that you’ve locked yourself into an unreasonable pre-payment schedule. An important consideration with a warranty is who fulfils it. If a caravan accessory turns out to be a lemon, does the manufacturer remedy it? or will you just get passed from pillar to post?
Talk about weight
One of the biggest issues facing new caravan owners is weight. Before purchasing, talk to the sales rep about how much they anticipate the van will weigh empty from new including all the accessories you want. Keep in mind, if you don’t specify a minimum payload, you may end up with as little as 300kg for a single-axle van or 400kg for a double axle. Not a lot when you consider you’ll likely be carrying 200 litres (200kg) of water alone.
Ask what items are included in the Tare or empty weight. A good manufacturer will have a set of scales at the factory so they can weigh the final product for you.
Get down and dirty
When you’re looking through vans on the showroom floor, go through them with a fine-tooth comb, inside and out. Open every cabinet door and look inside beyond the pretty exterior. Have a look at the quality of the fixtures and fittings, such as evidence of exposed wiring or careless plumbing.
Cabinet doors should all sit flush with minimal gaps. Look closely at the exterior of the van particularly around window frames and wall joints. They should be properly sealed and sit flush. Make sure all doors to exterior storage compartments are high quality and seal properly when shut. Get underneath the van and look for consistent and neat welds, particularly where the suspension is attached to the chassis.
Anything poorly finished is an indication of a potential lemon caravan.
5 crucial caravan purchase decisions
There are lots of choices you will have to make when it comes to purchasing and some are more critical than others when it comes to the potential of a lemon caravan. But there are a handful of decisions that are so fundamental, if you get any one of them wrong, it could set the tone for the rest of your ownership experience.
Here we look at five critical decisions you will have to make as well as our recommendation of which way we believe you should go.
Wood frame – yes or no?
There’s opinion in the industry that all wood-frame caravans will eventually rot and turn into lemon caravans. Unfortunately, there is plenty of evidence of that to be found on the internet, with images of vans that are just a few years old showing wood frames crumbling apart
However, wood-frame vans should be no more prone to leaks than any van. If all the joins and exterior fittings are sealed properly with high-quality sealant, there should not be any leaks.
That said, we believe there are far better alternatives to traditional ‘stick and tin’ vans. Customers should insist on aluminium frames or full composite construction.
Locally made or fully imported?
In the past, practically all caravans available in Australia were made locally. Today, you can purchase a caravan made in Europe, Asia, South Africa, and even the USA. Many of these overseas vans didn’t have a good reputation as they were not made to cope with Australia’s less than ideal road conditions. However, times are changing and the quality of caravans made overseas has improved considerably.
It’s worth remembering that Australian made vans are made to suit our unique conditions. Parts and repair expertise are also much easier to come by. If you do want to purchase a van made overseas, ensure that it has been modified to better cope with our roads. Are there more imported lemon caravans vs Australian made? We couldn’t say.
Should you purchase from a show?
It’s too easy to go to a caravan show and get caught up in the ‘show specials’ and end up with a rushed and regretful purchasing decision. Taking the time to look around and now allowing yourself to be rushed will go a long way to ensuring that you don’t end up with a lemon caravan.
That said, shows can be an opportunity to strike up an awesome deal for the van you want. If you’ve done a lot of research and you have a very good idea of what you want in your new van and how much money it is likely to cost you, then purchasing from a show can yield excellent results.
Big selling brands or small builder?
There’s a very good reason why a manufacturer like Jayco has such a huge slice of the Australian RV market. Its volume production means it can build a decent van at a very competitive price. However, there are times when cheap and mass-produced doesn’t exactly equate to a quality build. Further, a larger manufacturer may not be able to offer the same level of customisation as a small builder, meaning you have limited scope to get the van that suits your exact needs.
If something does go wrong, a brand like Jayco has dealers and service agents all over the country whereas the smaller guys may only have a handful of support agents in other locations, if at all. When it comes to purchasing a van, the risk of ending up with a fault-riddled van is there regardless of the size of the manufacturer. It’s what they do resolve your lemon caravan that matters the most.
Should you buy a caravan at all?
The average cost of a new, full-featured caravan is around the $70,000 mark, so you would want to get a lot of use out of that van in order to get your money’s worth. If you live in Melbourne and your standard holiday is no more than two weeks away each year domestically, your average holiday cost could be about $5000. If that’s the case, then $70,000 can fund your holidays for 14 years.
You have to ask yourself is the high cost of a caravan, including ongoing maintenance, registration and insurance, justifies the likely use you’ll get out of it?
What to do if you do end up with a lemon caravan
(Words by Jane Little)
About three days before we were due to collect our caravan, one of our children fell and broke their arm. An operation was required and the snowball effect meant it was four weeks past delivery date before we could travel interstate to Melbourne to pick up our brand new caravan – which indeed, turned out to be a lemon.
It didn’t start well
We arrived at the manufacturer’s yard for handover day, as had been pre-arranged with our contact person/sales rep. She was nowhere to be seen, and we were ushered into a private room to be told that she was running a couple of hours late. Eventually, we were shown our van by a different staff member and it was glaringly obvious that there were problems.
The rear awning arm was scratched back to bare metal and dented. There was a gouge out of the picnic table that was also back to metal and the windows along that side had small surface scratches.
Things didn’t improve and we soon had a list of over 60 items that needed to be fixed. Some were minor – like the bunk-bed mattresses were too small – while others were major issues like the small holes in the vinyl floor. The pantry was incorrectly built, and the inside of one drawer had two screws poking through.
It was at this time that we suspected a lemon caravan and asked for a ladder. However, we were assured that the van had been through their high-pressure cleaner/water test facility and there were no leaks. So no ladder was provided. Unfortunately, a week later, we found out that the main hutch in the van was not sealed when we had a small river in the van during a storm.
Our sales assistant finally arrived. However, she refused to enter our caravan to look at the issues. Her excuse? She was wearing high heels.
We spent the day getting things fixed
By the end of an exhausting day getting things fixed, they paid for a night’s accommodation in a cabin. Our van was far from ready to leave their premises.
We returned the next day, and amid more drama, and with more faults identified, we spent another day watching repairs. Now, while they finally fixed the awning arm with a new one, I watched in horror as they coloured in the scratch on the picnic table with a black texta. We spent the night sleeping in the caravan in the manufacturer’s yard, as I refused to leave until everything had been rectified.
After finally taking the van home, it leaked in the first storm. We identified more problems, and eventually the manufacturer sent someone out to look at the van. He ordered it towed to the nearest repairer – more than two hours from where we lived.
We eventually got the caravan back, and it was in awesome condition – except the new mattress (that had been drenched in the leak) was the wrong size. The company agreed to refund us a small portion of money to pay for a new mattress ourselves.
We leave home – for a while anyway
As we left home to travel Australia, things went bad. The washing machine was not installed correctly and blew up during its first use, cracking an internal wall. It was not built for caravan use.
During these repairs, the repairer mentioned he thought our van was overweight, but I was adamant that it wasn’t. I had a spreadsheet that listed every item in the van and its weight. We had the initial weighbridge certificate from the manufacturer, and I had worked out that we had weight allowance to spare. Well it turned out that they had under weighed the van and our stated Tare weight was 125kg lighter than the actual Tare weight.
From here, things got interesting. The manufacturer insisted we take the caravan back to Melbourne, which we did – and we had to move out of it for three weeks. The van returned to us still damaged and without a working washing machine.
Things went from bad to worse, and eventually the van had to go off the road for more than six weeks. All of the internal laminate walls had to be replaced due to cracking and spider-veining, the van was overweight, and the internal door between the main bedroom and the lounge/kitchen had fallen down.
The van returned to us eight weeks later, and we could not tow it. The repairer had damaged the DO35 hitch, and he had put holes in the stone guard at the front. The repairer had removed laminate and then Blu-Tacked it back on, and there was a hole in the laminate under the couch. The new laminate that the manufacturer had sent up pre-cut was sitting in a puddle outside the van.
The manufacturer repaired the DO35 hitch and stated the van would only be repaired if we took it back to them in Melbourne. Further, they refused to discuss the weight issue.
What to do about it and what you can do if you end up with a lemon caravan too
It was at this time that I took action, which is a process of the following:
- We wrote a letter outlining all the issues the van had had since day one. We did a column that stated if it had been fixed, attempted to be fixed or not fixed. We rejected the caravan in this letter and stated we wanted a new van or a refund.
- The manufacturer contacted us, and a date was made to return the van to them for listed issues to be fixed.
- I completed the paperwork online for Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal or VCAT.
- I received my case number from VCAT.
- I emailed all the details of my matter with attachments of letters, correspondence between the manufacturer and us and minutes from any meetings we had had (VCAT Case Number in the subject line).
- We got an engineer’s report and a report from a repairer.
- We returned the caravan to the manufacturer. We had a meeting where they tried to bully us out of taking action. We went through the issues of the caravan. At one stage we were told to just tow the van in its overweight state, but if we were in an accident to make sure we released any water we were carrying to ensure the van complied.
- We sent minutes from this meeting to the manufacturer. They didn’t reply within five working days, so they accepted the minutes as true. We forwarded the minutes to VCAT under our case number.
- We collected all our evidence:
- Emails
- Minutes
- Pictures
- Engineer’s report
- Repairer’s report
- Sales contact
- Agreed drawings (ours had a caravan weight on it – this showed the van was heavier than they agreed when we signed the drawings); and
- Weighbridge certificates
- Attended the mention day at VCAT in person.
- Collected our van from the manufacturer with all the problems outstanding and with a new VIN Plate.
- We took pictures of the new VIN plate and forwarded this to VCAT.
- Read the engineer’s report from the manufacturer and sort advice from the engineer who did our initial report (Added this report to my evidence).
- Found another engineer and obtained a second report and response from both engineers in writing for VCAT.
- Supplied these reports to VCAT and manufacturer (Added these to my evidence above).
- Attended a mention at VCAT via telephone to set a mediation date.
- Attended the mediation at VCAT in person.
- We had an outcome that we wanted and were not willing to negotiate. We made it clear that if we did not get the outcome, we were happy to proceed to a hearing.
- The mediation started at 9am, and we walked away with an agreement in our favour at 4.30pm (with no lunch break). We refused to back down.
Conclusion
We cannot tell you the make of the van nor the agreement at VCAT, but we have enjoyed our caravan for several years now without any further issues.
When we attended VCAT for the mediation, the manufacturer attended with a Barrister and a Solicitor. They tried all the intimidation tactics they could, but we stayed firm in what was wrong with our van and used our evidence to prove this.
The system is set up that the manufacturer must have access to the caravan in order to fix any problems. By giving access to the manufacturer to repair the van, we followed the law and by them failing to fix the caravan each time, it gave us more leverage at mediation.
Finally, if you’re wondering – we do not have a weight problem any longer, and our van is perfectly legal.
Links for state tribunal bodies (should you ever find yourself with a lemon caravan)
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