Just my perspective but what defines a 'manual'?

Years back when I was building specialist PCs, we had a pile of individual documents on various components and their operation, same for a lot of standard software, printers etc. Depending on what was being bought, we would simply import these individual documents into a single publication and print and bind (ring binder). It was easy and the clients were always happy with what they got. It is so easy nowadays to find the relevant appliance manuals etc and to cut and paste the relevant sections into another document.

It's not rocket science to do this and certainly something I would expect of a dealer/manufacturer.

When it comes to wiring diagrams, I can understand that many of the vans and vehicles would change over time so that the diagram would soon be out of date. Perhaps this is an option for some enterprising young sparky to offer as a service.

Theoretically it sounds like a great idea and from a dealer perspective it would certainly save us a lot of trouble. Unfortunately, while posting theoretical solutions by people with no experience on a forum makes good reading it is a long way from the reality of the situation.

We currently have, at best estimate, 130 caravan manufacturers in Australia, little or no regulation and they seem to appear and disappear on a monthly basis. Many of these builders operate out of an industrial shed in the northern suburbs of Melbourne and build about 4 to 6 vans a month with no idea who they are going to sell them to. Every van they build is different so wiring diagrams or instruction manuals are not high on their priority list. Many of these manufacturers, no disrespect, have difficulty with our language so writing any kind of manual would be impossible for them, much less a wiring diagram. Their survival exists because you, the consumer, support them by buying their products. When they go broke with loss of deposits there is an outcry and the reputable manufacturer's reputation suffers as a result. 

Some more reputable manufacturers have a national dealer network who sell and service their products. They are currently competing in an unregulated and extremely competitive environment so survival is top of the priority list. Maybe one day we will have some standardisation of models and layouts which would allow manufacturers to provide instruction manuals for each specific model produced but in the meantime we, as dealers, have to live with what we've got.

It is pointless shooting the messenger.

landy wrote:

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12V/240V/Gas fridge operation: my fridge has an automatic power detection system, and DOES NOT run off 12V unless the engine is running - it says that in the fridge manual! When the engine is stopped there is a 15min delay before the fridge tries to "find" gas or 240V. And, this is despite having two house batteries in addition to the vehicle battery.

Hi jrk36 I am not sure whether or not you are aware of this so please do not be offended if you do. Firstly the reason that your fridge dose not run on 12 volt unless the motor is running is because the 12 volt element in it that keeps the fridge cold while traveling is very power hungry and would flatten your house battery's fairly quickly if you parked up and left it on 12 volt. The time delay before trying to ignite the gas is a safety feature to stop the fridge trying to light when you turn of the motor in a petrol station while parked close to the petrol bowser, if every thing is working properly every thing will be fine for 15 minutes. Hope this helps. Landy

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Yes, I did know that for that is described in the fridge manual. Not what I was told by dealer though.

No offence taken :)

dogbox wrote:

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if you have a house built ,you get the manuals for the appliances.
if you happen to get a set of plans you do not get a wiring diagram you might get a plug or light location but you don't get a plan of where the wires actually run, that is up to the electrical person doing the job
a motor vehicle has a wire loom because they built thousands the same, with any redundant circuits left empty depending on model/ accessories
so i would think any wiring diagram for a low production number caravan could be a costly exercise the best you could hope for would be to have lots of pictures taken if you were having one built to your specifications.

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 Sounds about right to me.

Have you ever tried to find your way around a car's wiring even equipped with a circuit?  Loads of unused stuff.

It seems that my earlier comments about the lack of a users manual in our new van created a bit of flack, Montie I was not suggesting that the dealership had been at fault my comment was aimed at the manufacturer. The person at Parravans who did the handover with us did a great job, he covered everything that we needed to know about the vans operation. The salesman at Mitsubishi also did a great job when we bought the vehicle to tow it with the difference being I was able to refresh my memory on the Pajeros operation by reading an owners manual.

Here's a suggestion instead of the manufacturers trying to write individual manuals why doesn't the dealer make a simple video on how things operate relevent to that RV (new or used).  This could be presented as a reference for the buyer after completing the handover - it just means that the dealer may need to do a run through twice in order to record a video..  IMHO most people dont need things as complicated as wiring diagrams but knowing how things work when you are a newbie on your first trip away would be pretty handy.

Our dealer actually gave us a DVD to watch which ended up being a video of Retreat dragging a couple of their vans across the Gibb River Rd -  good for advertising but not much else.

Cheers

BB