[barryd]

Have you checked your insurance cover details Jan? Tell them you want it either fixing within two months or you want either a replacement rental or a new van. They have failed to make good on your claim. Time to kick up a fuss I think. It will be a nightmare finding another van. I suspect as said to you before you would probably have to come over to the UK to find one the same and its a sellers market with hardly any vans up for sale.

 

[barryd]

I still say and always said this should be handled by your insurance company. This is how it how I would expect it to work. I know its not the same but last time I had an accident that required a claim (not my fault i might add and a car not a motorhome) I just left it all to my insurers. I got a replacement hire car and mine was fixed and returned to me. I never did any of the running around myself. Thats what you pay them for.

I know its more complicated but I still say you need to get in touch with the insurers and throw the problem back at them. Demand a loan motorhome if its in your right to. That might focus them a bit.

 

[barryd]

That sounds like the best Idea. Suggest this to your insurance company. Get them to agree to the temporary repairs and also to agree to pay for the van to be properly repaired at a later stage perhaps later in the year when the parts eventually turn up.

 

[barryd]

I have no trouble with the insurance Barry, it´s still insured, not been taken off the road although if I had known it would take this long I would have done.

I was just meaning that you need to make it clear to the insurance company that you have now been without a van for a year or whatever it is now so as they have been unable to carry out a repair would they be willing to authorise temporary repairs which presumably will be an additional cost to the final repairs once the parts arrived. You just need to make sure everyone is in agreement and knows what is happening.

 

[barryd]

Sounds promising Jan. So providing they use a decent courier and get their Brexit red tape sorted you should have them imminently.

 

[barryd]

Email is always best I reckon. You have a paper trail. However in my experience of dealing with motorhome, car and bike dealers they are sodding hopeless at responding to emails. I am sure its deliberate in some cases probably because they dont want a paper trail.

 

[barryd]

I have to say so far with both dealer, Auto-trails MD and their head of Dealer Support my emails have been answered within the hour every time.

Good! They probably know you are motorhome royalty and on all the forums.

 

[barryd]

Funny you should say that, because I have already thought if I hear nothing good next week I would tell Dave Thomas the MD just that and I´d advise people on all my motorhome forums not to buy Auto-Trail because the after service is sh!t 😁

You just need to be subtle about it. Tell them you are a dedicated motorhome online blogger (influencer even) and your thousands of motorhomer followers are excited by the news that Autotrail are now on the case and are delighted that they are finally getting things sorted for you and await the imminent arrival of said parts and a quick fix with baited breath.

 

[barryd]

I had a nice conversation with my Insurance man today, he told me to get the van fit to use, there is nothing stopping me from using it as it still has the TÜV /MOT and is insured, the accessor didn´t say it was not roadworthy. I have put this to Matthias on a WhatsApp message and wait for his answer. Although they say the parts will soon be on the way who knows how long it will take for them to get here. 3 years ago it would have been so much easier. I really do want to have it ready for use by Easter, but as we don´t know when the parts get here it´s wise to have a plan B.

Has he given you an indication of how long it would take once the parts arrive and are these "all" the parts? What you dont want is for the parts to arrive in say a week or twos time only to find its going to take him another three months to fix it.

 

[barryd]

I have just put the phone down after Matthias rang me. He has already started taking things to bits as he has to replace some of the wall where the insulation was also burnt making the wall unstable, I knew this, however he has promised he will make it useable before Easter for me, if the parts are here soon they will be replaced if not he will make the other bits legal and I´ll also have a new TÜV, at the moment he says it won't pass because there are sharp edges that must be smoothed off before going on the road because it is illegal in Germany to have sharp bits that could be dangerous to pedestrians, I do believe it´s the same in England.

Barry
Your suggestion for an email reminded me of when I fist joined the forum 8 years ago, I was thrilled to talk about the Navajo and was reporting what we were doing and where we were going, a certain person who has disappeared off the scene got stroppy with me and in a not nice way he told me to write a blog if I wanted to give all those details, I didn´t even know what a blog was. Anyway I'm still doing the same thing, unfortunately at the moment nothing to do with travel. 😁 afraid you just have to put up with me.

LOL! You will have discovered that there are some right miserable sods in the MH world.

Good news on the van. Progress!