SIGMA shower room Sink

Part way through our holiday in Scotland this year, when trying to secure what seemed like a leaky plug, the washbasin around the plug hole broke away leaving it hanging by a thread of plastic. I managed to make a temporary repair by pulling the plug hole back up and secure with Aroldite. On inspection it was obvious that the Plastic moulding in this area was wafer thin and had been cracked for some time, hence the illusion that the plug kept leaking, istead it was leaking past the plug and onto the shower room floor.
Has any one else had this problem, the sink is mounted to a hinged shower partitioning panel. The moulders name is still on the unit so I am wondering whether to go direct to them or back to AS.

Hi Sprocket

Can I direct you in this direction......................

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PB

Hi Sprocket.... Our Nuevo shares the same swing wall sink in the bathroom as your bigger Sigma

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When we viewed our Nuevo at the dealers it had suffered damage at the previous owners hands and had been repaired around the plug hole just as you also described. Not happy with the repair we insisted on a new sink being fitted which the dealer did as it would have driven us crazy leaving it bodged.

I know what you mean about the bathroom plastic being thin, personally I feel all of the plastics especially the shower tray could be made much thicker and not really sure why they are manufactured so thin? It doesn't take a lot of working out that as the plastic ages it's going to become brittle and as owners of older Auto-Sleeper models are now finding Auto-Sleeper are unable to supply replacements parts which is not really good enough... they need to increase the thickness to make them more durable especially if they are (at present) unlikely to last the average life of a motorhome and spares being unavailable within a few years.

By the way, it would be very helpful to post the name or company of the manufacturers name that you say is on the sink? We know Cheltenham Plastics used to make all the sinks and bathrooms for Auto-Sleeper but this no longer seems to be the case so would be interested to know who makes the current plastic mouldings for the bathrooms and showers

CC

Hi CC,
Many thanks for your reply, it does seem that this is a design problem thats going to bite a few owners as their AS gets older. Ours is only 3 1/2 years old but the fracture around the Plug Hole was obviously taking place for some time. The label on our unit is by a company called Plus-Tech Thermoforming Ltd who are based near Hull. (info@plas-tech.co.uk - 01964 544 544). I tried to speaking to some one there but was put through to an un-manned desk with an answer phone, knowing that AS wont be able/bothered to help I will try them again. The pain of the job is that the sink is siliconed to the panel, as is the access panel at the back of the panel to enable access to the taps and pipework.

Do you know if your dealer replaced the whole panel & Sink or fitted a new sink to the panel?

Best Regards,
Sprocket

Sprocket wrote: Do you know if your dealer replaced the whole panel & Sink or fitted a new sink to the panel?

Hi Sprocket.... Good question, the dealer said they would fit a new sink and order one from Auto-Sleeper parts.. a few days later they said they were having difficulty obtaining a new sink and then informed us they were unable to get any from Auto-Sleepers as they didn't have any considering the swing walls are fitted to all the current models this just didn't make sense...

We didn't see the van again until the handover when we picked it up and saw another sink had indeed been fitted, was it new or used? I suspect as the dealer later said Auto-Sleepers had a rummage around and came up with a sink that it was a used one attached to an existing swing wall panel that they had possibly removed from another vehicle due to a similar fault but this is only speculation on my part and we have no idea if this was indeed the case, but the female worker at the dealers said she had a "bit of a job" using the air chisel to remove the old sink prior to fitting the new one, which suggested to me that the sink could well be originally moulded into the swing wall in one piece? ours now obviously has a bead of sikaflex where it joins the swing wall which looks OK in fairness but I would be interested to know if yours does look in one piece or does look separate, perhaps you could confirm?

For further clarification I would call the Auto-Sleeper service centre and speak to Mark he's usually very helpful and he might be able to confirm if you can get a sink separately and the cost? As I suspect a new swing wall would cost mega money to buy.

CC

Sprocket wrote:The label on our unit is by a company called Plus-Tech Thermoforming Ltd who are based near Hull. (info@plas-tech.co.uk - 01964 544 544)

Forgot to thank you in my previous post for this info Sprocket... I'm sure it will prove helpful in the future

CC

hi sprocket i recently bought a sigma and found the bathroom sink was damaged around the plug hole I suspect something falling from the cabinet above the sink did the damage. The sink seems to be welded to the wall unit not with silicon sealant. The panel on the back of the unit is held on with four screws with a foam gasket not silicon. I removed this panel and could reach the underside of the waste fitting.I used super glue to fix the plug hole into position with a piece of hooked wire to support it from above When set i mixed fiber glass filler and applied by hand to underside of waste fitting using latex gloves on my hands and built up a good thickness to reinforce the sink in this area . when set i applied a small bead of sanitary silicon in the sink between the chrome outlet and the recess to tidy up. It has not been a problem since. I also fitted a bar into the cabinet above to stop things falling out . Hope this may help . Jim

CC, I still have the photo of the old sink that was in your van (before you bought it) if you want me to put it to show people how it had been repaired, prior to it being swopped

The problem of stuff falling out of cabinet into the sink was a problem we easily solved.
You will find that the bottoms of four 1tr milk bottles cut at the appropriate height (just above the fiddle rail) will fit perfectly across the cabinet.
Currently in Midlands looking after ailing parents-in-law, I will post some pictures of this mod. when we get back to Devon next week.

Derek

Hi All,
Reference to sinks, reminded me that ours was developing a crack round the plug hole so I decided to do somthing about it. After removing the centre screw in the drain and removing same I discovered that it had been repaired before with a piece of squire plastic with a 2inch hole in it held in place by some fibreglass filler so I mixed up some more filler (the stuff I used, used to be called bridging filler) which has strands of glass fibre in it for extra strength and stuffed it between the plastic of the sink and the piece of plastic from the previous repair and then reasembled it, this does not show from the top and it is holding water but only time will tell whether I have done a permenant fix or not. This was not easy to get at as ours has one of those sinks with a plastic cupboard underneath which means that to access underneath you have to lie on the floor.

Brian2

roli wrote:CC, I still have the photo of the old sink that was in your van (before you bought it) if you want me to put it to show people how it had been repaired, prior to it being swopped

Fine by me roli.... it will show as an example of what "Not To Do!" if nothing else
The previous owner was obviously not as fussy as us Had it not been fixed we just would have found another Nuevo elsewhere...


Found the other comments above interesting...

it's probably a good idea to attempt to make the area around the plughole stronger as it makes sense that anything falling out of the vanity unit / cupboard above the sink will hit the area around the plug hole and as this seems to be the thinnest area of the wash basin it's hardly surprising it's susceptible to damage in this kind of situation. We don't even use our bathroom cupboard as we both just keep a wash bag in one of the lockers

CC

Had a rummage through my PC and found the photo of the sink that you originally took and sent to us roli, as stated previously our Nuevo had a replacement sink fitted but the dealer presented it with the sink in this condition, presumably the previous owner was responsible.

Anyone else thinking of repairing their sinks DON'T DO IT unless you can do it properly that is!

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CC

CruizingComet wrote:Had a rummage through my PC and found the photo of the sink that you originally took and sent to us roli, as stated previously our Nuevo had a replacement sink fitted but the dealer presented it with the sink in this condition, presumably the previous owner was responsible.

Anyone else thinking of repairing their sinks DON'T DO IT unless you can do it properly that is!

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CC

Thanks CC, yep that looks just like mine, although mine is a bit neater!!. Anyway just to give you an update, the company in Hull say they longer supply the basins to Autosleeper. I asked AS at the NEC show and they have since given me a price to replace the top part of the sink, it being a two part assembly, cira £300. so I think thats the route I will have to take, not that I am impressed with the product. I will ask them to reinforce the plug hole area so it doesnt repeat in another 3 1/2 years. Thanks to all for your comments, very helpfull.

Sprocket