Jayco Caravans - Buyer Beware
Submitted: Wednesday, Nov 29, 2017 at 17:27
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Member - Jack
From the ABC News Website:
Jayco News Item
"The consumer watchdog has launched Federal Court action against Australia's largest caravan manufacturer, Jayco Corporation, over faulty caravans.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) alleges the company tried to prevent customers from getting refunds after they were sold defective caravans, costing tens of thousands of dollars.
It is alleged that between 2013 and 2015, Jayco breached consumer laws when it knew the caravans were faulty, even after repeated and failed attempts to repair them.".
I have two friends who purchased new Jayco vans who had much difficulty getting faults rectified. One friend, who is an electriial techie eventually totally rewired his van because he could not get any satisfaction from Jayco up our way. This included fiding wiring rubbing against metal part of the frame that would have worn through and shorted out had he not discovered it. The other friend took it to some people other than Jayco to get their faults fixed .. which related more to shoddy workmanship.
There are plenty of Jaycos on the road so they must have a lot of happy users, but this story is a sobering one for those that might be considering buying one from them.
Reply By: Shaker - Wednesday, Nov 29, 2017 at 17:45
Wednesday, Nov 29, 2017 at 17:45
I agree whileheartedly with the following statement:
“This is an industry that does need to be put on notice," Mr Sims said.
The industry has been virtually self regulated & getting away with it for far too long.
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Reply By: 865 - Wednesday, Nov 29, 2017 at 17:55
Wednesday, Nov 29, 2017 at 17:55
Consumer watchdog should survey customers of various other brands of caravans re the difficulty in getting warranty repairs done. I had a conversation with a caravan salesman recently who said the Manufacturers will not pay them for doing warranty repairs
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Reply By: AlanTH - Wednesday, Nov 29, 2017 at 18:20
Wednesday, Nov 29, 2017 at 18:20
While they're about it the ACCC should be looking long and hard at the retailers as
well.
Shoddy treatment is not the word for the way the biggest retailer in WA treats buyers including us who over the years have bought 3 RVs off them and 2 of them were off the same manufacturers.
We had a wheel cover saying what we thought and did get threatened by their legal lot but we ignored them as everything we say has been documented and been part of consumer affairs and small claims court action.
We know one couple who not long ago purchased their second off road camper from them and got it
home (about 30 kay) and found one wheel was close to falling off!
Retailers reaction...."You must have abused it".
The whole industry is full of bastards like this.
AlanTH.
AnswerID:
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Follow Up By: lancie49 - Wednesday, Nov 29, 2017 at 19:28
Wednesday, Nov 29, 2017 at 19:28
"The whole industry is full of bastards like this."
Rubbish.
The RV industry is like most others, there are good and bad apples on the tree and on the ground.
Strange how we seem to only hear the bad stories, and then only one side of that story.
We've all had bad purchasing experiences over time with various items.
The Jayco haters will be out in force here.
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Follow Up By: Shaker - Wednesday, Nov 29, 2017 at 19:39
Wednesday, Nov 29, 2017 at 19:39
You only have to walk around a caravan show to see that many don’t comply with the most basic aspects of VSB1.
Also, if you add the contents of full water tanks, HWS, gas bottles, sullage tanks etc, to the tare weight, they actually exceed their ATM, even before you add any camping gear, personal effects, tools etc. One answer I got after I pointed it out was “
well, you don’t have to fill the water tanks”, & that was regarding an off road van!
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Reply By: splits - Wednesday, Nov 29, 2017 at 20:20
Wednesday, Nov 29, 2017 at 20:20
This reminds me of this story last year. In addition to faulty workmanship, it is time someone looked into the weight distribution, advertised weights and the stability of them.
Caravan Royal Commission
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Reply By: Notso - Wednesday, Nov 29, 2017 at 20:27
Wednesday, Nov 29, 2017 at 20:27
But, there are good stories around too. I've had my Blue Sky for 6 years now. At about 4 years old it developed a leak in the front. I rang the dealer who rang the builder who called me about 20 minutes later and said,
"The van is leaking, bring it in, that's my problem to fix". New front, new lining, new frame in front as he said it was damp and would rot out in a few years time.
I'll sing this blokes praises to anyone!
Just spent my first money on it in 6 years, new tyres and new battery!
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Reply By: Hewy54 - Wednesday, Nov 29, 2017 at 20:32
Wednesday, Nov 29, 2017 at 20:32
Very pleased that some action is being taken.
I think that many are getting carried away with thinking that ALL vans are lemons and ALL manufacturers are below par.
I do not have exact figures, but I believe that there are 650,000 vans out there and 180,000 of them are Jaycos.
Anyone who has genuine problems with their van deserves to have them addressed in the correct way, however there are also many out there who are very happy with what they have.
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Follow Up By: The Bantam - Thursday, Nov 30, 2017 at 09:17
Thursday, Nov 30, 2017 at 09:17
there are also a great many that simply don't know that their Van as towed is not legal and have not a single idea that their van may be non compliant and shoddily built.
It is a simple and unfortunate fact that the majority of vans as towed would not pass a thorough regulatory inspection.
AND this is right across the brands.
IF caravans where required to undego the same annual inspection commercial transport is required to including being weighed
.... very few would pass
cheers
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Follow Up By: William P - Thursday, Nov 30, 2017 at 15:09
Thursday, Nov 30, 2017 at 15:09
But they are not commercial vehicles so the point is irrelevant.
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Follow Up By: The Bantam - Thursday, Nov 30, 2017 at 22:49
Thursday, Nov 30, 2017 at 22:49
you fail to understand the point.
Commercial vehicles are inspected annually ...... many of these vans are never inspected by other than the manufacturer.
cheers
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Reply By: splits - Wednesday, Nov 29, 2017 at 21:16
Wednesday, Nov 29, 2017 at 21:16
Some of you may have seen this before. It is hard to believe some vans are being built like this. There may be many owners with vans only a few years old who are yet to become aware of these faults.
Manufacturing Faults
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Follow Up By: Frank P (NSW) - Thursday, Nov 30, 2017 at 22:54
Thursday, Nov 30, 2017 at 22:54
Have to be a member to view that link, splits.
Cheers
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Reply By: Geoffr17 - Thursday, Nov 30, 2017 at 14:43
Thursday, Nov 30, 2017 at 14:43
Well it's about time . The whole caravan and camper trailer industry needs looking at.
But what do we have , forums that are sh*t scared of them , you can''t even post an actual rip off or warranty complaint you had , because they might sue us administrators .
I caught out a company on a
forum who were threating to sue the administrators for any adverse comments , but when someone asked about which trailer to buy , the general manager/owner came on the site and sung the praises of his own product without saying who he was, he had joined without saying his professional connection to the industry so he could SPY on them and the comments.
Forum's stop being scared of them , go the ACCC , and may you investigate the whole rotten industry.
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Follow Up By: Member - Scott M (NSW) - Friday, Dec 01, 2017 at 11:34
Friday, Dec 01, 2017 at 11:34
Geoff, they're doing exactly that on Lemon Caravans on FB. Tracy the admin has provided a lot of the evidence to the ACCC.
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Follow Up By: Member - Bill D - Sunday, Dec 03, 2017 at 16:47
Sunday, Dec 03, 2017 at 16:47
Yep, we're big fans of the Facebook page "Lemon Caravans and RVs in Australia". Tracy has done a great job in trying to make the many shonky manufacturers in this industry accountable to their customers. We've had two very ordinary new vans from small manufacturers who've gone out of business, so avoiding the big shonks like Jayco doesn't necessarily help. We've now got a 15-year old Supreme Getaway (the one that looks like a van built on a trailer) and it's much more solid than our new vans were. Much cheaper, too.
Lemon Caravans does not allow glowing endorsements from manufacturers (or anybody else). Tracy has been threatened with legal action, so please have a look at her stuff and support her if you're impressed with what she's done.
We'll follow the ACCC action with interest.
Bill
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Reply By: Isuzumu - Friday, Dec 01, 2017 at 20:05
Friday, Dec 01, 2017 at 20:05
We brought a Jayco Sterling Outback in August 2013 that was two years old at the time, six months later it developed some cracks in the front of the van. 18 months out of warranty Jayco replaced the whole front of the van.
We replaced the leaf spring
suspension with the Cruise Master independent air
suspension have done the GRR, the Cape and numerous other outback jaunts and no problems. This van owns us $50K, so we are pretty happy.
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