Baileys Caravan

chutchi · Member

Baileys Caravan

LLD · Senior Member

Awful to hear that. When I bought my new van early last year, the insurance companies were hesitant about insuring fully imported vans because of the difficulty in obtaining parts should something go wrong. Unfortunately, most of the modern, lightweight vans are fully imported. The importers need to do better on support. Ratting a part off the production line and sending it to Australia should not take that long.

Yuglamron · Guru

DISGUSTING isn't it.

My Carver water heater in my motorhome packed up. I was going to replace it with a Suburban water heater but not enough room to retro fit one. I did some Googling and found a Chinese knock off for sale in the UK at half the cost. It was an exact copy and the only difference was the gas connector which was the old olive compression fitting. In Australia now it's the flare fitting. Gas plumber changed the fitting for twenty bucks including certifying the installation.

The Knock off was purchased online from the UK with Paypal on the Friday and delivered to my door (Brisbane) four days later for 90 Pounds sterling via air courier.DHL. I was still way under the cost of the Suburban and because it was an identical model self fitted except the gas connection.

So if little old me can expedite an item from abroad How is it so hard for companies?

aussie_paul · Guru

Yuglamron wrote:
DISGUSTING isn't it.
My Carver water heater in my motorhome packed up. I was going to replace it with a Suburban water heater but not enough room to retro fit one. I did some Googling and found a Chinese knock off for sale in the UK at half the cost. It was an exact copy and the only difference was the gas connector which was the old olive compression fitting. In Australia now it's the flare fitting. Gas plumber changed the fitting for twenty bucks including certifying the installation.
The Knock off was purchased online from the UK with Paypal on the Friday and delivered to my door (Brisbane) four days later for 90 Pounds sterling via air courier.DHL. I was still way under the cost of the Suburban and because it was an identical model self fitted except the gas connection.
So if little old me can expedite an item from abroad How is it so hard for companies?

I love "against the odds" results like that.

Aussie Paul. smile

KevKim37 · Senior Member

I have also spoken with a few disgruntled Elldis and Geist owners who either give up waiting sometimes up to 9mths for the front or rear Windows cracked . In the end they sealed with silicone awaiting arrival of parts.

Sorry I don't care how cheap or light they are I will always buy Australian Made as far as a Caravan built for our Road Conditions.

Cheers Kev.

-- Edited by KevKim37 on Friday 25th of March 2016 06:32:14 PM

Desert Dweller · Guru

Brother-in-law had a Giest from new, had nothing but problems. Had to get chassis reinforced as it had around 50 cracks in it. Never been off the bitumen. Cost $5,000. Next thing that happened the A-frame snapped & the van ended up in a table drain on the roadside. Had that all fixed at horrendous cost then sold it. Bought an ON THE MOVE van, no worries. You can keep your luxury Euro vans they're rubbish. Giest vans have disappeared from Australia, I wonder why?

LLD · Senior Member

Had a long chat to a salesperson in a Swift dealership this time last year. She explained to me the differences between fully imported and what Europeans need (don't free camp, smooth roads) vs what Australians need (free camp, bouncy roads). Swift had just engineered one of their vans to suit Australian conditions and the spec difference was quite big.

The Phantom · Guru

Can anyone enlighten me on this phrase "Australian conditions"

Are the roads in Australia rougher than those in Europe? Is it because the air is hotter than European air? Is Australian rain wetter or more corrosive than European air? Are corrugations in Australia deeper than those in Europe?

It is something that has eluded me for years.

I have driven, extensively, in Europe and found the roads there to be equivalent or worse than Australia, so what is this "Australian conditions" that we must have our caravans designed to?

Oh and, by the way, for those that post about how crap Bailey, Alldis, Geist and others are, you need to read Hey Jim's post about his Jayco which was designed and constructed for "Australian conditions".

The Phantom

banjo · Senior Member

The Phantom wrote:
Can anyone enlighten me on this phrase "Australian conditions"
Are the roads in Australia rougher than those in Europe? Is it because the air is hotter than European air? Is Australian rain wetter or more corrosive than European air? Are corrugations in Australia deeper than those in Europe?
It is something that has eluded me for years.
I have driven, extensively, in Europe and found the roads there to be equivalent or worse than Australia, so what is this "Australian conditions" that we must have our caravans designed to?
Oh and, by the way, for those that post about how crap Bailey, Alldis, Geist and others are, you need to read Hey Jim's post about his Jayco which was designed and constructed for "Australian conditions".

The Phantom

Here Hear !

LLD · Senior Member

One item that was pointed out to me with European vans was ground clearance. It's quite small. However, older Australian vans have small clearance. Geist had issues but they appear to be with older grey-import vans.

Some really bits of bad roads I've been on with the van are: Sunraysia Hwy from St. Arnaud to Lascelles, St Arnaud to Whycheproof, Kulpara to Wallaroo, Coffs Harbor to Armidale. Dirt roads on the Eyre Peninsula are better than all of these. If there are sealed European roads of this standard, I too wonder what Australia conditions are except that Europeans do not actually go vanning on bad roads.

The Phantom · Guru

You forgot the Bruce Highway which, at very best, is equivalent to a Route Departmentales in France (France (including overseas territory) is split into 100 departments, the second-highest tier of local government, similar to a UK county or US state. The departments have responsibility for all roads beginning with a letter D, or occasionally RD. These roads vary in quality, from newly built local dual carriageways and downgraded Routes Nationales to winding roads that are barely wide enough for traffic to pass. Generally, they are quieter than the Routes Nationales, and of a reasonable standard. Source Wikipedia).

The Phantom

chutchi · Member

The problem is they send it by sea in a container. I'd be ok to pay a bit more insurance to cover parts ring air freighted. It is not satisfactory to have a van out of action this long. Have now contacted Baileys in England. The issue we are having had we known, would have stopped us from purchasing the van.

mjt57 · Senior Member

We are still researching. Perhaps to the point where we may purchase a Bailey Rangefinder, Australian built to a British design.

We've found that so called "built for Aussie conditions" vans are heavy and rattle to bits just like any other van. Worse are the claims of a van being an off-roader or even worse, "semi" offroad which also rattle apart in rough conditions.

Personally, if I was to do serious off road work I wouldn't be towing a caravan. At best, it'd be one of those camper trailers with fold out tents.

Last week a collision occured between a sedan and a couple towing a Jayco poptop near my place. The van was stuffed. Looked like splintered matchwood. How do the monocoque fibreglass bodied vans such as the imported Baileys fare in comparison if they're involved in a crash?

chutchi · Member

I sent a letter to the CEO Baileys Australia. So far no response. Still no parts. I am really upset that we now haven't been able to use our van for 5 months. I understand the distributer delayed ordering the parts and providing information to the insurance company. I would have thought Baileys would have some agreement with the distributer to do the right thing. I even contacted Baileys UK and they sent the email to Baileys Australia. Not Happy. Totally unreasonable to have to wait for. 2 months + for parts delivery.

chutchi · Member

I sent a letter to the CEO Baileys Australia. So far no response. Still no parts. I am really upset that we now haven't been able to use our van for 5 months. I understand the distributer delayed ordering the parts and providing information to the insurance company. I would have thought Baileys would have some agreement with the distributer to do the right thing. I even contacted Baileys UK and they sent the email to Baileys Australia. Not Happy. Totally unreasonable to have to wait for. 2 months + for parts delivery.

dorian · Guru

The Phantom wrote:
Can anyone enlighten me on this phrase "Australian conditions"
Are the roads in Australia rougher than those in Europe? Is it because the air is hotter than European air? Is Australian rain wetter or more corrosive than European air? Are corrugations in Australia deeper than those in Europe?

I searched for impartial, empirical data but couldn't find anything that was completely satisfactory.

World Economic Forum -- Quality of roads:
http://www3.weforum.org/docs/GCR2013-14/GCR_DataTablesIndex_2013-14.pdf

It's hard to tell what is meant by "quality". The above document assigns a rating of 1 for "extremely underdeveloped" and 7 for "extensive and efficient by international standards". ISTM that this reflects the connectivity of the road network rather than its build quality.

Perhaps Google's Street View project can give us more pertinent data such as the number of potholes per km. In fact my area has potholes that go unpatched for such a long time that they become navigational landmarks. The workmanship is so bad that potholes appear on newly sealed roads after the very first moderate downpour.