# Frankia urgent repairs, three months!



## erneboy (Feb 8, 2007)

Hello all, I have had a bad week with my van. It is just over two years old. I am currently in Germany.

Just after showering the other day I noticed water dripping from the wheel arch below the shower. My Elektrobloc is showing the message defect. All the habitation windows on the passengers side leak when the direction of the rain is right, I put some clear sealant round them a while ago as as make do measure.

Having looked up Frankia Service agents I went to the nearest one yesterday morning. He spent a few minutes looking round and pronounced that I had extensive damp in the underfloor area due to a leak in the waste water and faulty fitting of the locker doors. He said the job under the shower was beyond his capability and I must go to the factory. Being 300 miles away I went. I decided not to ring first as they would surely say they could not help at the minute due to being booked up.

This morning I have spoken to the Service Manager here and he says come back in September. I explained that I am in Europe for a long stay and living in the van and that I could not do without using water for three months. He has gone to speak to his colleagues to see if they can fit me in. I have said I am not in a hurry and can wait.

Interestingly there is a van beside me with the same problem. I had a new shower tray fitted last year because it had cracked up. This time the problem is in the pipe work below the shower. I am not sure whether this pipe work is only for the shower or if it carries all the waste. The piping is very badly routed, there is no access without removing the shower base.

On the bright side Frankia provide a lovely little Stellplatz for customers and there was free bread on the door step this morning.

I will post again when I have more information, Alan.


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## geraldandannie (Jun 4, 2006)

Hi Alan

Sorry to hear about your problems. I think you did the right thing, especially since they'll probably be closed for all of August.

I hope it gets fixed soon.

Gerald


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## Rapide561 (Oct 1, 2005)

*Frankia*

Sorry to read of your woes - but at least you are close to the factory and I suspect they will do their level best to assist given the nature of your tour etc etc.

Russell


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## trek (May 1, 2005)

Hi Alan 

sorry to hear of your troubles hopefully the workshop will be able to fit you in !

we are booked into factory service centre for some work in 13/14 Sept 
(additional rear bed support / roof rack fixing / waste valve freezing up last winter in the Alpes)

not sure of your locker / floor arrangement but I have cut access holes (about the size of a dining table plate mat ) inside the rear walls of my lower side lockers to give me access into the internal double floor space void these are then held back in place with magnetic clips

I did this to make it easier to allow me to run in some new cables (alarm etc ) & for maintenance access 

it has amazed me how much wasted space is under the floor of my Sprinter based camper 


just noticed damp in the garage of mine traced it back to the rear wheel arch - water was tracking along the aluminium wall base then running the length of the channel to the rear corner when parked on a slop on drive
the sealant hadn't got right into the whole of the ally channel section they had missed a tiny bit under a lip in the channel

I seem to remember that Frankia claimed not to use timber in their contruction but they have plywood on the inside of the walls / floor & a plywood top floor on mine


Good Luck!


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## macone48 (Mar 14, 2006)

erneboy said:


> Hello all, I have had a bad week with my van. It is just over two years old. I am currently in Germany.
> 
> Just after showering the other day I noticed water dripping from the wheel arch below the shower. My Elektrobloc is showing the message defect. All the habitation windows on the passengers side leak when the direction of the rain is right, I put some clear sealant round them a while ago as as make do measure.
> 
> ...


Alan,

Goodluck and hope all goes well. It would be interesting to hear how it all works out ??

ATB

Trev


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## erneboy (Feb 8, 2007)

Well the workshop manager says he will fit me in when he can, possibly tomorrow, so that looks hopeful. I have plenty of time and can wait so here's hoping.

I must say there are a nice, friendly bunch here and it is a lovely place, Alan.


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## bigbazza (Mar 6, 2008)

Good luck Alan.


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## bevjohn (Jul 22, 2007)

Hi Alan,

We also went to Frankia in Germany for repairs in 2008, They were very obliging and gave us the loan of a van for a few days. And of course bread every morning. 
One thing to bear in mind is that they did not accept credit card or cheques,cash only. In our case over €2000.00 which we had to take with us.

Good luck,
Bevjohn


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## erneboy (Feb 8, 2007)

Well they did fit me in which was good. When I got the invoice there were three hours labour on it. This made me wonder what was done, so I stayed this evening to check it out.

They resealed the three leaking winows by running a bead of Sikaflex round the outside. I am not sure but suspect to do that properly they should be removed.

They said the fault showing on the Eloktrobloc is due to a faulty battery, but they could not replace the batteries as they do not have any. I said I could wait till tomorrow (having seen a local battery supplier make a delivery today) but they said the would not have batteries. So Eb problem not fixed.

They said they had removed the shower base and repaired the problem. They have not, I can quite clearly see that it has not been removed, unless they kept the old sealant and put it back in place. They may have fixed the leak but the shower is still not draining.

All in all I am not impressed. I will talk to them again tomorrow but probably only mention the shower not draining.

300 Euro for very little and so much for so called Quality Marques. Very nice people though, Alan.


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## Quincyocamps (Mar 12, 2012)

There is any on line adress for Frankia parts ?


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## erneboy (Feb 8, 2007)

What do you need? It may not have to come from Frankia, they don't make any of the parts they use, Alan.


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## jiwawa (Jun 22, 2007)

There was me feeling all sympathetic for you alan - till I discovered the post was ancient!!

Hopefully you're all sorted


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## trek (May 1, 2005)

Hi Quincyocamps

this is Frankia's main address they will be able to forward any questions to the service department

FRANKIA GP GmbH
Bernecker Str. 12
95509 Marktschorgast
Telefon 0 92 27 / 7 38-0
Telefax 0 92 27 / 7 38-33
E-Mail [email protected]


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## erneboy (Feb 8, 2007)

Thanks Jean. I ended up fixing it myself, which is what I should have done in the first place, Alan.


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## coppo (May 27, 2009)

I must say, re-reading your experience Alan, you were treated shabbily to say the least. Terrible service to a Frankia owner, you would probably not buy another one now?

Paul.


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## erneboy (Feb 8, 2007)

Probably not Paul, though to be fair it's not entirely their fault.

I bought my van new from Spinney. The day after we took delivery I noticed that there was no warranty paperwork. When I asked for the warranty they gave a UK Insurance type warranty. I told them I was not happy with that and asked for a manufacturers warranty. They explained that they where buying Frankia vans from the factory without warranty and claimed that the insurance warranty would be just as good.

Reluctant to reject the van, which would have been my only option, I accepted that.

I was not told about this when we were negotiating the price and don't think I would have been till I needed warranty work had I not noticed the lack of paperwork. Had I known I am fairly sure I would not have bought the van. It's my belief that a material fact was deliberately withheld by Spinney. I have said this before on MHF. I understand that Spinney do come on here from time to time and I hoped they might care to address my allegation, so far they haven't done so. 

I imagine that when I went to the factory the first thing they would do would be to put the build number into their system and at that point they would find out that the van had been bought without warranty and presumably at a substantial discount because of that. Under those circumstances it's reasonable for them not to do warranty work.

However none of that excused the poor standard of work they did end up doing, Alan.


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## trek (May 1, 2005)

I too have been to the Frankia service workshop for work and had a totally different experience than Erneboy 

I followed his saga & would be feeling just as miffed as he was/is

what I did notice was that they were very busy but I had been booked in some months previously & the work I had done went exactly to plan & they even changed my shower tray for no charge when I mention while I was there that other UK owners (Erneboy ) had theirs crack at the waste outlet So I was 100% satisfied & I am a fussy %$ger


I have this hunch that a lot of owners were just turning up on the off chance that they could be fitted in & that the workshop tried to get them to come back by making an appointment , but they did do some repairs to those that couldn't return and obviously these had to wait around until they could be fitted in . 

I don't know but it could be that these squeezed in jobs may not be getting the quality that we all would like when time was really tight at the factory ??


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## erneboy (Feb 8, 2007)

I think you are right about fitting jobs in trek and they are very nice people. Add that to fact that I had no warranty from them and it explains quite a lot, Alan.


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## eurajohn (May 9, 2005)

If you require parts they are excellent, I needed a few bits and pieces and the service I received was second to none.


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