Mercedes Stanton damp

I’ve just traded in my 2016 registered Stanton & the dealer taking it in part exchange has found a serious damp issue in the rear passengers side seat base floor & wall. On close inspection you can see the wall board is discolouring & it smells damp. The dealer had two of his technicians look at it & test it with different damp meters to confirm the problem. As this was found on trade in on the day of exchange the dealer insisted on asking for an additional  £2000 retainer from me in case Autosleepers do not honour the warranty. Also the warranty in the handbook was unclear. They have contacted Autosleepers asking if they will carry out or pay for the repairs. We await their reply.
I was stuck- going on holiday in a weeks time & needed the new van so had to pay. However I don’t see why I should be £2000 out of pocket when it’s not my fault. I’ve had both habitation checks done by supplying dealer & I have reports that say no damp found. I have taken this up with the supplying dealer but they have initially Indicated that they are not interested.
I see Autosleepers web site states from the 1st Oct 2015 a total of six year water ingress warranty. As my van was first Reg is March 2016 it should be covered by this.
I will keep you posted on my progress.
I have been a very good customer to Autosleepers over the years buying my first new van from them in 1982 at the age of twenty. Over the following 36 years I have bought eleven new vans from them. I’ve given them a lot of hard earned money & business so I’m expecting them to appreciate that & do the right thing & honour the warranty.

wheter the supplying dealer is 'interested' or not, it's their responsibility to fix this....not ypurs or AutoSleepers'.
they may agree the way forward with AS but it is their job, not yours, to manage this issue to your satisfaction.
go back to the supplier immediately and be clear about what you expect to be done, you are still the owner and theybare still the supplier.

It’s not clear whether the dealer taking the trade is the one you bought it from? If not then I can understand that the new dealer would want to check with AS that the warranty is valid. My understanding is 6 years provided annual services are carried out correctly but not covered once the motorhome is sold on.
With routine warranty claims the dealer keeps the van whilst he checks with AS and gets approval. Mine is with a local dealer at present and he says AS are excellent with warranty claims.

Just to clarify the trade in dealer is not the one who sold me the van new. The dealer who sold me the van did both annual habitation checks & said everything was fine - I have copies of their damp reports. The selling dealer has not responded to my email & was not interested when contacted by the trade in dealer asking about A-S warranties The two dealers are approx a mile apart on the same road. I see what's going to happen here - I'm going to end up loosing £2000 because of buying a new van which has a manufacturing defect & they won't stand by thier product. If this is the case I will never buy an Autosleeper again.

Hi Aldercrow. So sorry to hear about your situation. I spent all of my working life in the Law and Order professions and my initial thoughts would be first for you to keep your written record of everything that goes on. Any telephone conversations, keep a record if the date, time and the person you spoke to. Correspondence and E Mails should also be properly hard copied by you. If you get no satisfaction with what happens with the Dealers and Warranties, you may ( I was too long in the business to say will ! ) have more general Legal Rights under Consumer Law.
At this stage in any event, , I would also speak to TRADING STANDARDS for the area where the transaction took place and advise them. They will have experience in these matters , and should advise you of the situation. Sadly, you will also probably have to keep at it so that the dealers will be aware that you are determined to have this resolved to your satisfaction. After reading your first report, I checked our Stanton - everything looks OK. Good luck. Mike

Have you spoken to AS after sales regarding the warranty?
That would be my first call, in my experience most dealers don’t want to know once they have sold you the van. There are exceptions of course.
You could also ask to speak to the AS sales director, Dave Williams, I think his name is.

Sounds like the dealer handling the trade-in is not an AS dealer, hence the difficulty. I feel sure that the warranty claim is valid, it’s just a question of how best to proceed. Agree that speaking to the service department at the AS factory is a good way forward. They should be able to advise you.

Interesting can I guess that you are talking about Highbridge

Yes Highbridge is where I have bought my new van. Very thorough hand over & van presented in a good state. No complaints with them & they were only protecting themselves asking for extra money to accept my damp Stanton trade in. I'm purposely not naming the AS dealer who supplied my Stanton & did habitation checks as I'm hoping for a response from my email to them - no response after three days but still hoping to keep on good terms. However I think they probably dont care. No communication either from Highbridge as to whether AS have responded with to them about warranty. I will wait until Friday & then phone to see what's happening.

Thanks for that (I can guess the other dealer) 
I was thinking of looking for a nearly new Stanton when I finally get my van back (currently waiting for a Auto-Electrician to rebuild my wiring loom, see loads of lights if you don't know) and would have been down to Highbridge as soon as it was advertised. 
Maybe I should stick to van conversions if we decided to continue 
David

Well I’ve heard nothing from selling or trade in dealers. To cap it all I see the trade in dealer has it advertised already at the price I paid for it new - what have they done in a week? Had the damp repaired? I doubt it so what’s going on? & where’s my £2000?
Not happy. They should have had it repaired before putting it up for sale. I shall be phoning them tomorrow.

Update - Autosleepers have not responded this week to the trade in dealers email asking about the warranty & whether they will honour the damp warranty - the dealer is going to chase Autosleepers for an answer. Also one week on no reply to my email to selling & habitation check dealer. So it looks like so far nobody is interested.

Thanks for the update. Sorry to hear of the lack of progress and good luck with sorting it out. I appreciate the complexity of the problem, but I do feel the advice given above that you should personally contact AS is good. Good luck.

Can anybody help me with the contact details for the CEO or appropriate person to send my complaint email to. Only their web site does not give email contact details just a contact us page. Thanks

Update - I emailed Autosleepers last weekend. The person I sent it to, Alan Doherty opened it on Monday & advised he forwarded it onto Alan Curry. To date I have not had a reply. So two weeks on after trading in my two year old Stanton & being advised it had serious damp problems & having to pay a £2000 retainer to the dealer I am still no further on in getting Autosleepers to stand buy their product & agree to pay for its repair & I get my £2000 back. This is a very poor show. They made it, I had the habitation checks done by their approved dealer so they should stand by the warranty. Currently very annoyed with them as I'm sure anybody would be.

Aldercow wrote:Update - I emailed Autosleepers last weekend. The person I sent it to, Alan Doherty opened it on Monday & advised he forwarded it onto Alan Curry. To date I have not had a reply. So two weeks on after trading in my two year old Stanton & being advised it had serious damp problems & having to pay a £2000 retainer to the dealer I am still no further on in getting Autosleepers to stand buy their product & agree to pay for its repair & I get my £2000 back. This is a very poor show. They made it, I had the habitation checks done by their approved dealer so they should stand by the warranty. Currently very annoyed with them as I'm sure anybody would be.

I was led to believe Alan Curry had retired, or is he back. Alan Doherty I found a bit difficult to deal with when I had problems with our once owned Topaz bought brand new from Marquis. Alan Curry was very helpful, although I don't think A/S lost out as much as me when it came to meeting repair costs.

I am sorry to read of your problems, I would have thought that the damp issue would have been found when you first agreed to P/X, I find it a bit odd to say the least they raise the damp issue when you have already agreed a deal. Very strange, never met that one before.

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Richard

I am so sorry for your situation. I am not suggesting a solution but have you thought of ringing Mark Burdett at the AS Service Centre in Willersey and discussing a way forward. We had a number of issues with our Broadway, fortunately not damp as yet! but not all of them were dealt with through the dealer. This was I think due to us getting Mark at AS to carry out our annual habitation checks, four times so far. This meant we were able to develop a good relationship with him, as you do, and he was always very good at resolving our warranty issues. I don’t understand why no one has got back to you yet, Alan Curry, I understand, works in the same Centre as Mark. If you ring Mark, please don’t lose your rag, I can understand why you could, but please keep calm, I am sure he will listen and understand your predicament and your natural expectation of a warranty solution. I will be surprised if you are fobbed off by him, he is just not like that, he has always been fair and constructive with us.

Best of luck, please keep us posted with your progress.

Pete

Hi thanks for the last few posts. Re finding damp on day of exchange - that was first time dealer had seen van. Due to the age etc of the van the dealer was not initially concerned as they commented that many people agree deals at the many shows around the country & dealers don't see van until change over day. I felt sick on changeover day when told how bad the damp was & was sure the deal was off & I would be driving the Stanton back home. Perhaps that might have been best as I could have taken Stanton up to AS service centre & left it with them to sort out. Only problem was I was going on a fortnights holiday the week after. I shall phone Highbridge for an update tomorrow.

Aldercow wrote:Hi thanks for the last few posts. Re finding damp on day of exchange - that was first time dealer had seen van. Due to the age etc of the van the dealer was not initially concerned as they commented that many people agree deals at the many shows around the country & dealers don't see van until change over day. I felt sick on changeover day when told how bad the damp was & was sure the deal was off & I would be driving the Stanton back home. Perhaps that might have been best as I could have taken Stanton up to AS service centre & left it with them to sort out. Only problem was I was going on a fortnights holiday the week after. I shall phone Highbridge for an update tomorrow.

Now I see the problem. Sounds like when I once had a senior moment and took a car to "we buy any car". Got a price online which equalled what a garage offered in  P/X, when I went to the guy in a rented office he tore the car apart, slight scratch on mag wheel, stone chip etc etc.

I learned very fast that day, never again go by online etc offers. Bit like buying a house at auction and not viewing beforehand.
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Richard

Hi, Aldercow
I really feel for you. Morally you have a good case that this should be dealt with but legally you lost your water ingress warranty the moment that you passed ownership of the vehicle on in PX. The terms of the guarantee are are absolutely unequivocal and so you have no recourse against A/S. I feel that the dealer who took the van has some responsibility but again, in law he doesn't. You had the option of stepping back from the deal, or of deferring it until you had arranged for the repairs under your warranty and, in effect, you chose not to do that. You can hope for sympathetic treatment but I doubt that you will get it.

Good point Ron. Does this also apply to the manufacturers anti rust 6 year warranty you now see on some cars these days? If so, take care when buying a second hand one, check for rust, the original warranty may not apply, or am I on shaky ground with this thought?

Pete

The 7 year warranty on a Kia is transferable.

PB

I understand what has been posted & the comment that now I've traded it in AS don't have to honour the warranty but the fact is a van they manufactured was found to have a bad damp issue at just over two years old. I think this is very poor & I feel manufacturers & dealers are quick enough to take our money & should stand by the products they have made / sold - especially when your talking about ones that cost this type of money. Unfortunately a lot of them don't  really seem to care. If I were AS I would want to ensure problems like this were fixed to maintain a good reputation- if they did I would sing their praises & consider buying one of their vans in the future. Instead I'm moaning & myself & two friends who have vans are not going near the selling dealer or AS if they want a van in future. Sorry for keeping on.
I'm on holiday at moment- I will check post on my return for letters & cheques (ever the optimist) & if I end up losing my £2000 I will write a warning article for MMM & other mags about warranties, their pitfalls & my experiences.

Sorry me again - I have been looking at other UK manufacturers warranties & Swift & Elddis give six year water ingress which is transferable if sold to new owner. If you are the original purchaser you get up to ten years warranty as long as you have the habitation checks done. Looks like AS are lacking in their warranties.