Where Have You Been In Your Van Today?
- Thread starter mhill
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and I've just washed it .
@SAJO. Completely agree about the Fish Brothers (Van Centre Swindon at least). They're pretty useless but I'm not sure that there an awful lot worse than a lot of other main dealers nowadays. Going from comments on here, there might be a few good ones around but I haven't found one yet. I'm just glad that I'm no longer in warranty for my next service so I'll be going independent and hope it's a better experience.
@Ayjay: To be honest with you, my previous van was maintained well by a friend who owned a commercial vehicle dealership, and as it was 4 years old when i bought it, it worked well. He serviced it, MOT'd and did regular oil changes, the biggest job he did was replacing the BiTurbo, a pig of a job as he put it, or words to that effect. This time around this van was registered Sep '24, and while I didnt buy it until October 25, it came with a service plan. I was informed by Fish Brothers it was on the 'extended plan' so not to worry about servicing at the moment, I chose to put it in midway at 18 months, and told them of the extended service plan, so would be grateful if that could be updated to two years. I've since found out my next service is due last year, just sheer incompetence. According to the VW app its due in 218 days, nothing adds up at all? Of course the app may take time to update, but when the service advisor cant get things right what confidence do I have in dealer servicing?
Went to another VW garage in Sweden today to fix the van again, back in Limp mode, this time it was the EGR causing problems, £250 later, van is running again.
Common problem in the extreme cold we were told, I’m not sure VW really tested the 6.1 transporter in the cold weather, at least the door handles haven’t froze yet.
As the van was at the garage all day we went for a walk on the sea, it was a chilly one, they are setting up the course for the Lulea ice marathon this weekend and we might enter the 10k run for fun, but need to test the grip on our footwear first.
Temperatures are rising next week so hoping the van will run ok, next trip will be somewhere hot.
Common problem in the extreme cold we were told, I’m not sure VW really tested the 6.1 transporter in the cold weather, at least the door handles haven’t froze yet.
As the van was at the garage all day we went for a walk on the sea, it was a chilly one, they are setting up the course for the Lulea ice marathon this weekend and we might enter the 10k run for fun, but need to test the grip on our footwear first.
Temperatures are rising next week so hoping the van will run ok, next trip will be somewhere hot.
Forum comes through again . Headed off for ferry to Holland 2 nd feb 10 mins from home infotainment system started playing up , some touch screen functions not working dab wouldn’t tune, usb not loading, Mrs Vanderlust aghast at the thought of the next 3,500 miles with nothing but my sparkling wit and repartee so phoned VW told the infotainment system was faulty and would need replacing. First 2 nights in Holland in hotel before heading south. On leaving hotel van wouldn’t start with low battery. Turns out although the screen was blank the system was still on and had drained starter battery. Annoyingly it was happy to tell me it was switching off due to low voltage, horse stable door etc. Got a jump start and as we headed for Luxembourg asked Mrs Vanderlust to check which fuse I would need to pull to isolate the infotainment system which she found but also the information on how to do a soft system reset of the head unit, tried this and infotainment now back working perfectly. Info was from @Dave tec so big thanks for that especially from Mrs Vanderlust.
Now in Italian Alps at one of our favourite places for a few weeks .
Now in Italian Alps at one of our favourite places for a few weeks .
Thursday night at Lickpenny campsite near Matlock before heading to Carsington water on Friday for a marathon training run
@Macp - worth going? We were planning on going, didn't realise on the day price is fair bit higher - so not sure if worth going tomorrow?
It was for us as we wanted to see & touch stuff, and we made a couple purchases whilst there. A heck of a lot of stunning vans to see. Apart from the usual beige stuff we noted a lot of converters we were going for the overland look.
That's great thanks. Seen a couple of feeds with Crafter overland vans - but towards the £200k mark - absolute madness
Yes and I said to swmbo there is still clearly some money in this country if people are paying this sort of money.
It still is a lot of money.....
Tank of fuel.....
I take my van to Dellers Garage on Hobley Drive for its service and MOT. Garage in Swindon
If you want to use them for your MOT don’t try the online booking as it will tell you they don’t do vans, they do - but they don’t want someone booking their knackered skip wagon in for an MOT.
