Swift build issues

With leisure vehicles caravan or motorhome you pays your money and takes your chance with all makes. On the face of it not the most helpful answer but about as near as you can get to an honest answer.

'spose that includes all walks of life!

I think with any make there will be a few where the operatives have taken "their eye off the ball",   not  as some would like everyone to believe just uk built LVs,    the only way to minimise any warranty issues it if possible buy local   ,rather than 200mile round trip each time if problems do arise

Our 2015 year model Sterling Continental 570 has had over 25 faults. 

Well documented on Swift Talk. Hence how it is now described as a heap of crap of thrown together poor quality common parts at the circus in Cottingham.

We have just had it back from a raft of work that went to a specialist repairer to do as the dealer, who has been supportive throughout our ownership and all the faults, wasn't able to undertake fully.

There are a couple of other Sterlings recently rejected by buyers that are documented on CT.

Swift have provided parts gratis, reimbursed travel costs and are paying for the next service. Despite a reported Continuous Improvement programme initiated after ours was thrown together in the summer of 2015, there are still volumes of poorly assembled poor quality common parts purporting to be flagship caravans leaving the circus at Cottingham.

This is our first caravan, a flagship product at over £25k. It will be our only purchase of a caravan. We should never have bought it, after having a MH for nearly 10 years.

We have kept the faith in Swift and the dealer in order not to foist the heap of crap on some unsuspecting mug who may have bought it if we had chopped it in. Still not recovered enthusiasm for the heap of crap, but hopefully some forthcoming trips will go some way to reinstating the original excitement of viewing, ordering and first sight of over £25k of flagship caravan.

The recent CC / camc / wotever and Practical Caravan surveys show 27% of new caravans have faults.

It's an odd world this caravan cartel, where folk repeat buy poor quality common parts thrown together, time after time and don't use their statutory rights to reject poor quality. No wonder the assemblers have no incentive to improve. Must be an awful lot of fat in the price customers pay given the volume, 27% of faulty caravans.

My publications on the issues are at odds with a lot of folks views, but I say it as it is. Must do better.

A motor caravan is a basically a trailer caravan wth a cab and engine replacing the a frame so with the now push for profits in place quality it seems it is a lottery what ever LV we buy

Have been buying lottery tickets since it started. Am currently ahead in terms of winnings 

Will profits be sustainable if quality continues to fall? and folk reject poor quality as their rights? 

The next generation of explorers may not be so forgiving with their hard earned, expectations are higher with the entitled generation 

Oh c**p . . . . 

Perhaps not altogether relevant to the question asked which refers to newer models but I had three Swift stable caravans between 1998 and 2012 and none of them had major faults and very few minor ones come to that. Is it a problem with newer caravans?

David

We had a 2006 Bessacarr cvan (a Swift Conqueror by any other name) and a 2007 Bessacarr (Swift) MH. Both were riddled with niggling faults.

We had a 2003 Elddis Crusader cvan which darned near fell apart and a 2010 Coachman cvan which let water pour in around the windows.

I wouldn't condemn any brand on the basis of our experience. There are good and bad in all makes. It's pot luck I'm afraid.

I have never owned a trailer caravan but I find it remarkable how badly some products appear to be build compared say with mainstream motor cars. Of course there are always "Monday morning" or should it be " Friday afternoon" examples in both industries but difficulties with cars are very often due to component failure/design rather than contruction as such and in general terms cars of 2017 are vastly superior to those in earlier years, whereas I suspect that the model life and design cycle of a caravan makes in uneconomic to attend adequately to design and specification. If the fundamental engineering is not prioritised then it doesn't matter how well the people on the shop floor build it.

In my past life 99% accuracy (build quality by analogy) just wasn't good enough and could have been disastrous but I doubt many manufacturers set their sights that high. 

Not an answer of course but a possible explanation.