Pre purchase Inspections

*Kol*

Can anybody advise me where I can bring a motorhome to have it inspected before I buy it? Should i bring it to a motorhome dealer or the dealer for the base vehicle? Or both? I'm not confident that I could spot any defects myself as I do not have any knowledge about motorhomes.

I'm looking at an Ahorn Camp based on a Fiat Ducato.

Any help greatly appreciated.

peasant

The answer is: both, really ...

You need someone with mechanical experience to check the base vehicle and someone with motorhome experience to check the rest.

The first bit is the easy part, plent of mechanics about that do inspections/ assessments.

The second bit is more difficult. I am not aware of any independent motorhome assessors/inspectors and I'm not sure that a dealer would give you an unbiased opinion but it's worth a try.

peasant

there are some hints on what to look for further down this thread:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055137552

*Kol*

Thanks a lot. I rang a motorhome dealer this morning and I was very surprised by their reaction and the manner in which they dealt with me. They wanted nothing to do with an inspection unless they were selling the motorhome. A complete change from when I visited them a few weeks ago looking and motorhomes!!!

As luck would have it a neighbour of mine knows a person who does conversions so he is going to look at the motor home side of things. I contacted a fiat dealer and they said they would be delighted to do the mechanical part (for a fee!!). But I think it will be worth it for the peace of mind.

I'll be looking at it and driving it today. Hopefully if all goes well I'll be on the road in the near future.

peasant

Sounds like you got it sorted, best of luck with it !

*Kol*

Had a good look at it. Both of the large side windows (the plasic ones) are cracked. Anybody got any idea how much they would be to replace?

And can anybody tell me how the hot water system operates??

Thanks.

peasant

Windows aren't cheap.
Including fitting youre probably looking at a 1000 for the two here (or more, if they're really big ones)...

Hot water usually works with gas. There's a separate boiler piped into your water system (usually 10-15 liter) with a thermostat control on a wall somwhere. Newer campers may have boilers integrated in the heating. You open the gas tap for it, set the switch on the thermostat to "on", watch the light go green and then you wait about 20 mins for the water to get hot. You can't really hear the boiler, so you have to watch the light (as it will go red once something is wrong or not working)

Some boilers have seperate taps for the water going in and covers for the exhaust ...both of which must be open for it to work.

*Kol*

Found the switch. Does the light go green when the water is hot or straight away? Does that mean that a cetain amount of water gets heated?

peasant wrote: »

Windows aren't cheap.
Including fitting youre probably looking at a 1000 for the two here (or more, if they're really big ones)...

Hot water usually works with gas. There's a separate boiler piped into your water system (usually 10-15 liter) with a thermostat control on a wall somwhere. Newer campers may have boilers integrated in the heating. You open the gas tap for it, set the switch on the thermostat to "on", watch the light go green and then you wait about 20 mins for the water to get hot. You can't really hear the boiler, so you have to watch the light (as it will go red once something is wrong or not working)

Some boilers have seperate taps for the water going in and covers for the exhaust ...both of which must be open for it to work.

peasant

If your boiler is like my boiler then the green light only means it's working properly.

The type of boiler I have always heats the water that's sitting in it, it doesn't do a great job if the water is flowing through ...so it's like an immersion, not like a power shower.

The boiler heats the whole ten liters to whatever degrees you set the thermostat to and heats up any cold water that flows in as you use up hot water.

In my case, to just do the washing up or washing hands, setting the boiler to 40 degrees is plenty and there is always enough hot water. If i want to take a shower I set it to 60 and reduce the temperature at the shower by mixing in cold water at the tap. That way you don't run out of hot water in the middle of your shower.

Remember, your pipes from the boiler to the taps need to fill up with hot water first, so it will take a while before the hot water actually arrives there when you're trying it out.

*Kol*

It works!! Hard to check something over when you don't know what you are doing.:o

Thanks a million for all of the help. I'm lucky in that the guy who is selling let me bring it home to check it out. I'll be getting it checked out on Tuesday at a garage though just in case.

Heres a photo. I think it should do nicely.

peasant

Looks to be a decent size. Bunks in the rear ?


BTW ...your windows look like Seitz windows (the most commonly used brand)

Here's a link from a German online shop selling these windows to give you a rough idea how expensive they are per size

http://www.campingcomfort-shop.de/?navID=137&pID=20297&tpl=details&lang=1&PHPSESSID=c28b56f38f0a357718f46f32ecd0dd02

*Kol*

Yep bunks in the rear (two small kids). It's 6.8 m long. It was a challange to reverse it in the drive the first time!! Its nicely laid out inside and is clean.

Thanks for the link I must go and measure. I reckon 1200x450 is the size.

Just checked. 1450x700. €546 each!!!