# We got the Tempo/Autocruse and Heart Of England



## kevwright (Oct 13, 2007)

Yep, we have it. 

Last few days were "interesting", got a call from Autocruise on Monday (we were due to collect today, Wednesday), to say "sorry, Heart of England have noticed a couple of small dents on the roof, and they are not happy to hand it over like this, we (Autocruise) need to get it back to the factory to fix the dents.....

Well, I called Gary at Heart Of England and said, how bad is it, would i have spotted it? Nope, but neither we nor Autocruise are happy with that,, so what they are doing is picking it up tomorrow (Tuesday!) and they will have it back for Wednesday as planned......transporter each way.

Yeah, right I thought like that is gonna happen.....but it did, so a big thanks to Helen at Autocruise, and also to Gary for not just letting it go.

So, as we drove up to Heart Of England this morning, (one way hire car so we could both come back in the Tempo) from Ipswich, about 108 miles, our van was still on a transporter back from the Autocruise factory!!

We got to Europcar depot in Northampton about 12 noon, and Gary sent over a driver in his own car to pick us up and take us back to the showroom.

Got to meet Jayne, Gary's wife, and the saleman Karl all for the first time, since we did all of the sale over the phone. 

All 3 people are very nice, friendly, unhurried and clearly very interested in motorhoming, not just making a few quid!

At this point we signed up the 10 year (gulp) finance and sorted out all the paperwork, then Karl took us out to a nicely covered area and gave us a superb demo of the van, inside and out, very much keeping in mind we were totally new to this lark, but crucially, NOT patronising.

Took a good couple of hours to go through everything, and the van looked great. 

We have got one issue to sort out with Autocruise, and that is the 3rd travel seat in the van, in that the seat belt is currently unusable!!!

Well, not strictly true, if you leave the seat access door open and laying on the floor of the motorhome, you can then pass the thick metal stalk that holds the female end of the seatbelt though, but the door can not be closed.

All the other manufactuers use webbing so it passes through the access door, but Autocruise really seem to have messed this up.

Karl phoned them there and then about this and the great thing was he could talk to the safety officer without messing about. Seems like Autocruise knew about this as they are planning to resovle it be redesigning the trim so the stack can fit in a gap, and be usable.

Gary, the owner tried to resolve this for us by taking a matching part (but using webbing) from a showroom Auto Sleeper, and was about to fit this when Autocruise phoned back and told him he could not do so due to liability laws. The fact he was prepared to do this, and he had to remove a water tank on a showroom model shows just how dedicated these people are.

Apart from the seatbelt issue (which we are promised will be sorted without hassle to us) there was little else wrong, just a missing panel from a seat side (passenger) which is on its way, and the outdoor seats to match the interior which were in the early reviews are missing, presumed deleted!

All in all, given that we knew our Tempo was one of the first off the line, we are delighted, the 100 odd mile drive back was brilliant, so easy to drive.

Looking forward to playing some more tomorrow, but for now, thats it, if anyone wants more information or specific information from a real production Tempo, just feel free to shout.

Kev


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## JohnsCrossMotorHomes (Jul 21, 2007)

Nice one, obviously a family owned business that looks afer its customers unlike some big ones that have been mentioned.

Good luck and many years of happy MHoming.

Regards


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## Broom (Oct 8, 2007)

*Good News*

Hi

I like good news it makes my day

Broom


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## 108370 (Nov 20, 2007)

We put a holding deposit on the Tempo pending viewing at Marquis.

we went to see it and I am afraid we are not going forward with the purchase for a few reasons

Firstly the squab on the 3rd seat is far too deep and basically IMO makes the seat impossible to use for anything but the shortest trip. You would have to have very long thighs to position your bottom at the back of the seat and your legs on the floor.

Similarly the the passenger seat when facing to the rear leaves your legs dangling in space , again unless you are quite tall.

We also found the seat belt problem with the third seat.

lastly despite the increased length of the vehicle the bed length is too short. Why did they not sacrifice a little of the kitchen / toilet size and increase the bed length. It probably only needed 2 inches?

The rear kitchen/toilet end of the van is excellent but these small details spoil an otherwise well designed product.

The problem now is simply what do we buy or do we stick with the excellent old Tribute.

The new Tribute 650 is spoilt by the crazy shower room and badly positioned wardrobe. The 550 has no oven. And space is still compromised by the small overhead locker and internal water tank.

The new symbol has no double glazing and limited opening widows.

The IH and Timberland seem very expensive.

Any ideas would be gratefully received


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## kevwright (Oct 13, 2007)

reeventu.


I think you are going to struggle with the 3rd seat squab issue, all the vans we looked at are much worse than the Tempo except the Adria Twin which has the train carriage style, lousy for lounging we thought. 

When you tried the squab on the 3rd seat, was the funny little wedge things in place to angle the seat forward, makes all the difference but I must admit that we do not care so much about the 3rd seat, it will only really be used as a anchor point for our dog harness. 

With all of these High Tops, the passenger seat when turned always seem to leave feet dangling, one company have solved it (Auto Sleeper Symbol) by raising the roof and putting in a false floor, and another by providing a foot stool, we plan to solve by getting a cheap foot stool or looking at pulling the 3rd travel seat forward as a bed) and resting (clean!) feet on this, not sure if the heights will work though. 

Also, I don't like the GRP roofs that AS use, I reckon a factory fixed roof is the best bet. 


Again, with the bed, you did try it with the cabs seats forward and the infill pieces in place? Not going to be an issue for us as we are not tall. 

I very much doubt the perfect motorhome exists, we did not even look at IE or Timberland, far too rich for us I am afraid. 

The Adria was out due to those train seats, and the Tribute has a poor build quality about it in my opinion, and the shower is just too small as you say.


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## 105062 (Jun 10, 2007)

What a good service your experienced, was a lot better than ours. We picked up our new Tribute from Danum Leisure in Doncaster, got it home and found some unpolished polish across the top side, polished it off and found 2 scratches, a dent, overspray and masking tape !!! rang them up, was told to fetch it back, they had a look and said "Nar it was not like that when it left here"

I showed that the scratches actually ran under the Tribute stripe that runs down the side so I could not have done the damage so they polished them out but did nothing with the rest plus 7 months on I am still awaiting new seat base covers as they were damaged aswell...What can you do other than sort it yourself............ I still feel P'd off when I think of it, great to see that not all dealers are like this!

650


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## ingram (May 12, 2005)

reeventu said:


> The problem now is simply what do we buy or do we stick with the excellent old Tribute.


If your old Tribute is 'excellent' I wonder why you are looking to buy something else. My old Renault is not excellent but we have great difficulty finding a replacement which does not have some unacceptable downsides that ours doesn't.

There must be *something* wrong, or that you don't like about your Tribute: what is it?

I do like to hear other's views, like yours of the design of motorhomes: so many seem to me to be spoiled for a 'ha'p'th of tar'.

Harvey


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## MaxandPaddy (Mar 18, 2006)

Glad your story turned out well Kev,Autocruise are pretty good at resolving problems and I am sure they will continue to give you good aftercare service if you ever need it again in the future.
Enjoy your new Tempo!  

Val


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## 108370 (Nov 20, 2007)

The reason to change is fairly simple , I really need cab aircon ( for southern Spain) and I would like to upgrade to the new spec vehicle from Fiat/Peugeot etc.

This is because it has all disc brakes , ABS , drivers airbag etc as well as the 2.2 ( 120BHP engine ) and 6 speed gearbox.

I tow a trailer with a racecar as well so these points are interesting for me.

Since posting I am considering a revised look at the new symbol ( but I worry about the ventilation and also the Devon Provence ( but I am not familiar with the Renault )

Any comments again please


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## Steamdrivenandy (Jun 18, 2007)

reeventu said:


> We put a holding deposit on the Tempo pending viewing at Marquis.
> 
> we went to see it and I am afraid we are not going forward with the purchase for a few reasons
> 
> ...


I keep on saying it but give http://www.roywoodtransits.co.uk/ a butchers.

They've got a good cross section of designs now, from their luxy Cavarno, the utility/mobility Innovation of various sizes, basic vans (Ventura) to two sizes of Westfalia Nugget.

Their build quality is acknowledged as superb, they occasionally have used vans in stock and you do see the occasional one on Autotrader or even MHF.

Good luck.

Andy


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## SwiftGroup (Jun 27, 2007)

kevwright said:


> Yep, we have it.
> 
> Last few days were "interesting", got a call from Autocruise on Monday (we were due to collect today, Wednesday), to say "sorry, Heart of England have noticed a couple of small dents on the roof, and they are not happy to hand it over like this, we (Autocruise) need to get it back to the factory to fix the dents.....
> 
> ...


Kev,thanks for your report and would appreciate any feed back you can give me.I will certainly put in an investigation as to what has happened ref the seatbelt and also the height issue.Peter.


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## JohnsCrossMotorHomes (Jul 21, 2007)

Steamdrivenandy said:


> reeventu said:
> 
> 
> > We put a holding deposit on the Tempo pending viewing at Marquis.
> ...


Roy Woods is a long established family dealer in Winnersh, near Wokingham, Berkshire, dead easy to find, 5 minutes Junction 10 M4 who knows his products backwards and has the service back up and knowledge of Ford products.

I have known this company for something like 20 years as I used to have Blue Garage half a mile away on the same main road.

I can 100% reccomend them to any prospective MH owner.

Peter


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## kevwright (Oct 13, 2007)

Kev[/quote]Kev,thanks for your report and would appreciate any feed back you can give me.I will certainly put in an investigation as to what has happened ref the seatbelt and also the height issue.Peter.[/quote]

Hi Peter, thanks for taking an interest here.

Gary from Heart Of England called someone high up at Autocruise and was told he could not take out the thick strap and replace it, seems mad to me really that it could be let out of the factory like that, BUT having said that, I would rather have the MH without a seatbelt for now than not have it.......

Gary was told you could not get signed off on the seatbelt without using the thick straps, but that seems daft when Auto-Sleeper and Trigano and other all use a webbing strap without issue.

As I say so far all is good, we went out today and had a drive around, but the weather was terrible so did not go far.

We did get a nasty nosie today from the main sliding door, but a drop of grease in the door guide holes seems to have solved that one.

We did use the table today for the first time and noticed it is damaged a little in one corner, so I will email Gary and ask if you guys can supply us another one.

More feedback as we get used to it.

Kev


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## 108370 (Nov 20, 2007)

Okay , we have now bought a new van  

Bear in mind we wanted a front lounge layout.

first some comments on what we did and our very personal thoughts.

We discounted the following

Autocruise Tempo , high seats , rear belt , passenger seat as discussed before.

Autosleeper symbol, single glazed widows , only two sliding windows, worried about condensation, a slightly reduced length ( hence room )smallish work area, but without doubt best overall quality and a level floor.

Devon Provence , nice finish but restricted kitchen are , seems an odd layout.

Trigano 650 , what a waste of space in a big van , why a separate shower and rear wardrobe ,and still need to have an infill for the bed, chequer plate on floor to cover raised ares to the cab. Looks very cheap compared to our current Tribute ( The biggest let down )

The above we saw and examined in the flesh , so to speak.

La Strada Trent , Price

Roy Woods Transits ( thanks Andy) spoke with Harry very helpful but the layout really was not for us and the Westfalia versions were on the shorter wheelbase,but the quality and price seem very good

Orian new version Capella , Autocruise have only a flyer and final spec not really sorted but will have single glazing as per the Symbol

Outback wrong layout.

So what did we buy?

Nu Venture Caletta, Seats the right height , Third belt works, Kitchen working area biggest by far, no infill for bed , adjustable back rests for side and forward facing seats, excellent wardrobe with pull out drawers, decent upholstery, reasonable overall finish ( not as good as the symbol but better than the others) Rubbish bathroom with basin really too high , but adequate,Price Okay and good deal on the Tribute.

I guess I will carry on worrying about it for the next few days.


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