Hello to you all, but it really wants to make us cry.

Hello to you all and thank you for having us. Bob and Sally have been lurking for months, prior to joining as full members.
Firstly I want to thank all members that have posted on the forums that we have learnt from over the months we have been waiting for our own van to be made. The tips and tricks that have been posted over the years on the site have been a real help and inspiration to us and given us much to look forward to. I have met a few of you at shows and always been made to feel welcome.
Why you ask it makes us want to cry, well after suffering a very long 7 months waiting for our Autotrail to arrive and having a totally disinterested, unhelpful, and untrustworthy dealer experience in the meantime, the van eventually arrived at the dealers in the wrong spec, even after being assured that it was all on track and correct. After being what was only could be described as an attempt to bully us into accepting the van as it was ( they had our deposit ), we took the decision to reject the van after taking into account the months of not returned phone calls, lies being told to us, and the total lack of concern that the van was wrong.( the story of the dealers and Autotrails failings is too long to type ).
After a couple of weeks of feeling like all our dreams were now never going to happen as I had taken early retirement to coincide with the vans arrival, I did a global internet search on a 696G and there was one in a spec close to what we had wanted, 8K cheaper than we were going to pay originally. Rang ordered and delivered within a week and so happy all back on track, so we thought.
Apart from the large Remis rooflights flyscreen going ping and losing all its tension whilst we were sitting in the van out on the drive and one of the lockers opening and leaving the hinge behind as the screws pulled out we were very happy, after all they are minor, repairable items I hope.
What makes us weep, is that we haven't actually been anywhere in the van, two weekends away cancelled as in the 22 days we have had the van 10 of them the van has been unusable as a motorhome, as it can not hold its water inside due to the failure of two webasto dual top heaters. To be fair the installers, a very well know company to MHF, are not to blame and have been distraught about the matter. It is hopefully going to be resolved in the next few days.
Still enough of our problems, we are itching to get off over the channel and head for the continent. Its just a shame that our initial experiences with motorhomeing has been fairly negative at first, even after what is to us a very high financial outlay, not just in the purchase price of the van, but in the cost of all the myriad of things you have to buy to equip the thing with.
We hope to meet some of you on our travels, that is if we can get it off the drive.

Bob and Sally

SHADO HQ Gloucester