# Apache 700 quality issues



## joostdejonge (Jan 28, 2012)

Dear readers,

We recently bought our brand new apache 700 motorhome, and have been travelling for about 5 weeks with it (+/- 4000 km's) now. In general we are very happy with the motorhome. But we encounter a lot of (quality) problems with it. I will post the list underneath. Do other readers have the same problems? Or do we have the (I don't know the english sentence) "monday morning monster"?

1.	VARIOUS SCREW CAPS MISSING AROUND VEHICLE
2.	GRILL DOOR REQUIRES ADJUSTMENT – UNEVEN HORIZONTAL GAP 
3.	O/S DINETTE WINDOW – BOTTOM FRAME PULLING AWAY 
4.	O/S DINETTE WINDOW BLIND BROKEN
5.	KNOCK IN TRIM ON FORWARD FACING DINETTE BULKHEAD NEEDS REFITTING
6.	KITCHEN CUTLERY TRIM CATCHES WORKTOP
7.	DING ON KITCHEN WORKTOP IN BETWEEN SINK & HOBS
8.	CHECK ALL BLINDS – VERY STIFF TO PULL UP
9.	REAR LOUNGE BED SLAT DRAW BOARD HAS COME LOOSE – NEEDS REFITTING
10.	HINGES ON BATHROOM DOOR & WARDROBE DOORS NEED BIGGER SCREWS FITTING AS THEY HAVE COME LOOSE
11.	KITCHEN SINK VERY SLOW TO DRAIN
12.	CUPBOARD DOOR IN REAR LOUNGE SNAGS ON CARPET WHEN IT IS OPENED
13.	ALL UNDER CUPBOARD LED DIFFUSERS ARE FULL ON SAWDUST – ALL REQUIRE REMOVING, CLEANING & REFITTING
14.	CHECK STEP HINGE ON LEFT SIDE – IS THE PLAY ON IT NORMAL?? / ALSO RUBBER IS
MISSING OFF HINGE??
15.	REAR STEADY HANDLE TOUCHES REAR BUMPER WHEN OPERATING WINDER
16.	ADVISE ON SQUEAKY BRAKES
17.	REFIT DASH WHERE ECU PLUG IN HATCH IS
18.	O/S SILVER LUTON TRIM COMING AWAY & NEEDS REFITTING
19. cupboard in the back (underneath television) is braking a part
20. suspension system is making a lot of noise
21. cupboard above stove is falling a part
22. waterhose of onboard shower fell off (one of the red hoses), causing major floading in the motorhome.
23. a lot of loose screws next to the boiler, where do the come from?
24.doors of closet above heating system is opening way to difficult


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## coppo (May 27, 2009)

My word some of those faults seem quite major, have you taken it back to the dealers and what do they say?

I must say, there does seem a lot of posts lately about the poor quality of Autotrails.

Paul.


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## joostdejonge (Jan 28, 2012)

I visited the dealer 4 weeks ago (just before we left the UK), and I am sure they will fix the issues. 

The thing is, I bought a over 40 grand motorhome, and all these issues occur (ofcourse during my vacation...). And I'm looking for a way to contact auto-trail to get some kind of (financial) compensation for all the problems.

The other thing is, we are going to export the motorhome to New Zealand in september, and I don't want to have any new issues over there...


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## JandB (Apr 3, 2012)

Hi, sorry to hear of the issues with your Auto trail. We bought a brand new Tracker EKS in April of this year. I have to say we are very pleased with it as its our first motor-home. We have fiddled with it a bit by tightening up some things and adjusting others, but then I'd do that with a new car. A motor home though has more capability for things to go wrong.

If there was any single issue which disappointed me, and its not a serious one, and that is like yourself an awful lot of the screw covers fell off if you as so much touched them. They appear to have been stuck onto the screw heads with a silicon mastic. I mentioned this to the supplying dealer and he said that he had not heard of this before. I of course had the option of driving the 90 miles to him and having him replace them all but for such a small issue I decided not to. However it annoyed me so much that they were dropping off with such regularity that I systematically went around the motor-home removing each one, cleaning off the silicon and replacing the covers but this time using an acrylic mastic rather than a silicon one. To date not a single one has come unstuck.

Perhaps I should have contacted Auto-trail and pointed this out as it may well be that they are using a different mastic than before, and are unaware of the problem. But I didn't and hadn't heard mention of this problem until your post.

I hope you get your issues sorted out and if anyone else with a recently built Auto-trail has had this particular problem maybe we should let Auto-trail know


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## peribro (Sep 6, 2009)

joostdejonge said:


> And I'm looking for a way to contact auto-trail to get some kind of (financial) compensation for all the problems.


Your contract is with the supplying dealer, not Autotrail, so any compensation should be from the dealer. However unless you've suffered inconvenience or loss, I'm not sure what your grounds are for claiming compensation. If some of the problems were present when you took delivery then it sounds as if the dealer failed to do a proper pre-delivery inspection. Certainly the number of problems you have encountered would indicate that all was not right with it when you took delivery.


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## Charisma (Apr 17, 2008)

JandB said:


> If there was any single issue which disappointed me, and its not a serious one, and that is like yourself an awful lot of the screw covers fell off if you as so much touched them. They appear to have been stuck onto the screw heads with a silicon mastic. I mentioned this to the supplying dealer and he said that he had not heard of this before. I of course had the option of driving the 90 miles to him and having him replace them all but for such a small issue I decided not to. However it annoyed me so much that they were dropping off with such regularity that I systematically went around the motor-home removing each one, cleaning off the silicon and replacing the covers but this time using an acrylic mastic rather than a silicon one. To date not a single one has come unstuck.
> 
> Perhaps I should have contacted Auto-trail and pointed this out as it may well be that they are using a different mastic than before, and are unaware of the problem. But I didn't and hadn't heard mention of this problem until your post.
> 
> I hope you get your issues sorted out and if anyone else with a recently built Auto-trail has had this particular problem maybe we should let Auto-trail know


We have the screw cap falling off syndrome on our 2011 Apache and I did let the dealer and AutoTrail know. I too have removed the loose ones and re glued with UHU. AutoTrail sent me a few spares (through the dealer) as some had dissapeared completely.

Some of the issues appear to be dealer PDI issues, we are very pleased with ours and have had none of the other issues mentioned in the list.


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## Landyman (Apr 3, 2010)

Our Delaware was new in April and so far we have done just over 6,000 miles in it.
Most serious problems so far are the electronics display panel over the door is somewhat erratic ......waste tank level shows full some times just after I have emptied it and the fresh water tank alarm bleeps with the tank half full. Both only happen *very* occasionally.
Those pesky plastic caps fall off screw heads. I refit them with a little dab of blu-tac.
Squeaky brakes at low speed, which is most likely a Fiat problem.

These are all very minor things that really are not worth getting stressed about and will be sorted at some time.
The most important thing is......we are really enjoying our Auto-Trail which feels so much better finished than our previous Swift.

We think it is a great van.


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## Mark993 (Jul 1, 2007)

Oh dear that is a long list.

Agree with others that it is dealer responsibility - but the dealer needs to be having words with Autotrail because, shipping it to the dealer in anything close to that state, they are clearing not caring what they are doing during the build.


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## Oscarmax (Mar 3, 2011)

To be honest your list is not that bad,we had quite a few problems, the dealer was absolutely useless, if fact they done more damage with there feeble attempt at repairs, at one point we were going to reject the motorhome.

In the end I carried out all the repairs myself, since ditching the dealer touch wood we have only required the odd minor repair.

The motorhome is now just over 4 years old and due for changing, but, we are too frightened to change.


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