This is a difficult post as no doubt I'll phrase it incorrectly and someone will get the arse with me and say I went the wrong way about it. So in advance I just ask you give me a bit of slack.
My original question was regarding the issues and consequences of using a 2000kg rated tow ball on a van that comes in at 3 tonnes.
Explanation:
As my profile states, we are new to caravanning and this is our first van. We were heavily reliant on the expertise and advice of our caravan manufacturer and supplier. Also as you know, we use this
forum and site, to pick your brains as our other source of advice. We are totally inexperienced.
We have never been happy with the service we have received from the agent in Mandurah. They are very unprofessional and slap dash. They lack communication skills and basically don't appear to give a damn. On a customer service level I'd have to give them a score of 1 out of 10, purely on the basis that they will answer a phone, or send a read receipt to an email.
True, we haven't spent the largest sum of money in the world but that should be inconsequential. I run my own business and follow the principle that business is business. I try to give as much attention as I can to everyone that requests my
services, no matter what the size of the job. I expect a level of service from these people, and they just aren’t cutting it. On more than one occasion I explained to them that we are a rolling advert for their business. But they just aren’t getting it. At the end of the day, we’ve put up with it, and not bothered about it, as we are very pleased with our van. The product……………..great!!!
So we let their apathy go and always looked upon it as their loss and if that’s the way they want to conduct their business then fine…….
That is where the line of acceptance with us is drawn. What we don’t accept is what we consider to be professional negligence. When they cross the line from unprofessionalism to `reckless endangerment’, I get angry.
As I expected, many of you guys saw the whole situation of having an under rated ball connecting me to the van as totally stupid and dangerous. I needed second and thirty second opinions!!! LOL Part of our deal when we ordered the van was that they would provide us with a WDH. It was all included in the price, along with fitting. We went to Mandurah got the van, and they set everything up.
On our last trip I was chatting with a guy in
Coral Bay about vans. I asked him about the hitch and the movement in it. Was there a problem? He came over to my Cruiser had a look and said it was fine. What he’d actually be worried about was my tow ball. It had the 2000kg rating. He said it should be a 3500kg.
I immediately rang Mandurah and the guy told me that it wasn’t right but he’d have to
check with management and that he’d ring me back. He rang back within five minutes and told me that they would pay for a new ball and for us to get another one correctly rated as soon as possible. The cost of upgrading is not the issue here, it was only $33.50 and we were able to get one in
Coral Bay immediately. So now it is all changed and that’s fine. Hopefully you can all rest easy now and not want to head bush if you see us coming the other way!!! LOL
Our issue is that we feel that the caravan guys in Mandurah are just totally slack and that they have failed in their duty of care. I know that you hard, uncompromising types in this
forum are going to bounce the onus back to me, as the driver, but again, I feel that would be slightly unfair. They knew we were novices from the outset and were happy to provide info and suggest packages from the get go. We were dependant on them as professionals to get everything right. They have put our lives in danger and failed miserably. It would occur to me to second guess what they have fitted to my vehicle.
I have sought legal advice. As you can imagine I am livid. However it seems that we have no recourse as there was no accident, therefore no claim. I just don’t see how that can be right. Does someone have to be killed before someone is held to account?? I think that is ridiculous. The thing that makes my blood boil most, is that I wrote to the owner in
Brisbane about this whole travesty. I know he’s read my mail as I got a read receipt. To date, I’ve had no reply. No reasons, no excuses, no apologies, nothing!!! I think that is piss poor. It aggravates me.
So to summarise, I think that people should be aware of the dangers that lurk in dealing with this particular dealership/agent. We have no confidence in their level of expertise and would never recommend them to anyone. Buying a new van is an expensive business, but to us, who knows what the final cost may have been if we hadn’t been lucky enough to come across Mark in
Coral Bay…..