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Whilst not condoning the lack of gas heating, most modern vans have two forms of heating, gas and electric.
Peter
Peter,
Whilst I agree with most of your reply, I should make it clear that a high proportion of motorhomes for hire in the UK are budget Italian vans, which do not have the electric heating option that is fitted to British vans.
We are relative newbies to MHs with just a couple of holidays using them before this trip.
We had hired the same vehicle in July with no problems.
We had to wait over 2 and 1/2 hours with no access to the vehicle when picking up the MH while a new water pump was fitted.
We were then very late for the time of our original Channel crossing.
We had no reason to think we would need to check everything as the owners had had ample time to check everything themselves.
How do you check everything? - every bulb/toilet flushes/oven works/fridge cools to correct temperature/shower works/etc?
How long would all that take?
We had no access to the Internet and it's not very easy to find a dealer/garage/electrician in France in the holiday period between Christmas and New Year and also my French language skills are minimal.
I checked fuses/gas connections/loose wiring and anything else accessible with no success.
We had made arrangements to take the dog to the Vet later in the holiday and this would have been no problem or caused delays.
The day we returned was New Years Day and the following day was a Bank holiday Sunday - so the MH stayed on our drive until the owners premises were open the following day.
I sympathise with you Keith.
As you say your not experienced so you expect the hire company to have checked the van out ready for collection on time.
I cannot believe how many of the replies to your post are so uncaring.
Don't let this put you off, put it down to experience.
______________________________________________________________ Barry
I am sure we will all sympathise with Keith, no one would want this to happen BUT.
There is no known way to predict the demise of a water pump and it sounds like the problem was resolved ASAP.
The average handover time is between 60 to 90 minuets, this depends on the ability of the hirer to take in the information and I am of the opinion only, at best 50% sinks in, hence we supply a manual, it does not stop the phone calls, it just slows them down. The most useful paragraph indicated that if the water system was not working the first thing to check is in fact there is water in the tank!!!
I am sure the other comments on other types of heating have some relevance, but am surprised the company had no useful suggestions or failing that the camp owner may have had a temporary solution. I will not try and defend the company, but it is difficult to cure a problem when the Motorhome is in Europe. I think we can all learn from this and we will certainly include a small heater for our winter hires.
I hope this will not put you off this wonderful hobby.
Regards
Tel
I hired a motorhome in 2009 and, yes, it does take an hour for the handover, while they show you how everything works.
But this is still not enough time to check that everything does work.
For example, the van I hired :-
The fridge did not work - I collected the van 18 hours before leaving, so that I had time to fill it and check things worked - the fridge continued to not work, so that in the end, I had to drive back to the hiring place for an engineer to work on it for an hour before I left for the Tunnel
- like this hirer, everyone knows that a hirer is going to use a fridge - I'm surprised that they don't run the fridge for the day before you pick it up, so that they know it's working, and so that it's already cold, because as we all know, it takes 24 hours to get fully cold
There was a DVD in the TV, which didn't work at all. It was completely broken. As I was going to France and couldn't get terrestrial TV, and was travelling alone, I had taken about 20 DVDs with me for my 6 week trip - it was a complete pain that ther was no DVD to watch at all.
They showed me how to turn around one of the cab seats - the one which worked! The other one was completely jammed and wouldn't turn round at all!
Then, during the trip, the water completely broke - now in this case, it broke while I was away, so fair enough, things like this happen. I contacted them and said that if they could locate a garage or dealer who could fix it, I would drive it there and have it fixed for them. I was calling on my mobile phone from abroad and didn't have the internet. They weren't interested. I tried to get people on sites to help me - we got out tools etc, but no one could help, and it really needed to go to a motorhome garage. But they were not interested in the slightest in locating one for me.
I then had a few weeks with no water - as if I turned on the pump, it pumped all over the floor and soaked everything to about 1 inch deep. This meant I then had no working toilet, no shower, and the thing which bothered me the most, not being able to wash my hands whilst cooking - eg after handling raw meat and then cutting veg.
In the case of this hirer - in December the advertised heating should work. If it does not work, you should phone and tell them, ask for advice, and ask them how to get it fixed. If it cannot be fixed, and there are no other solutions (frankly buying a heater and putting in a van is not really a solution - amps can be low, there can be dangers and so on ) so that you have to bring the motorhome back, you should definitely expect a full refund, plus some compensation for your wasted time, holiday, and vet bills and Eurotunnel fare.
Call your credit card company and put the amount into dispute.
Write to the motorhome company setting out your concerns and ask them for the money back and some extra compensation. Say that you expect to hear from them within 28 days or you'll be forced to sue them in the small claims court.
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