Well, I know it's a long time since an update, but we didn't get eaten by dingoes (as one of my readers suggested), however we did do battle with our insurance company - which was almost as bad!
We eventually got back home to Canberra about 10 days after our breakdown in the middle of nowhere (Elliott, NT) and over that period of time we were in (and out of) contact with our insurance company, CIL. When we got back to Canberra we discovered that our van still had not been seen by an assessor, and was still - you guessed it - sitting in the back yard of Elliott Mechanical Services. Thanks so much to Bob for looking after our van for us for so long. But it gets worse....
After 3 weeks, and many anguished and escalating phone calls, CIL Insurance finally decided to get a transport company to bring the van back to.... Adelaide! This is because, apparently, there were no suitably qualified repairers in places like Katherine, Alice Springs, Mt Isa (need I go on?) to fix our little van, and only Adelaide could do it justice! A week later the van arrived in Adelaide and was finally seen by an assessor. We were fully expecting the company to write off the van, as there was considerable damage to the chassis, but no.... they decided they were going to repair it. We were now 4 weeks down the track from the initial breakdown, and more than a little annoyed by this stage.
To cut a long story short, after 9 weeks of phone calls (each time having to go through an interminable identification process and speak to a different person each time), our caravan was finally 'fixed' and delivered to us in Canberra.
Well - 'fixed' is not really an accurate description of the condition of our van. We were horrified, both at the quality of work that had supposedly been done to fix our original problem, and at the additional damage that had been done to our van in transit. We were absolutely disgusted! We compiled a list of the damage and defects on our caravan and sent an email to CIL Insurance which included this:
Within a couple of days a cheque had been deposited into our bank, and a few days later a transportation company arrived to take away our formerly lovely little Paramount Duet caravan. What a long haul this has been, and what an expensive exercise for the insurance company - if they had done their job properly and sent someone to look at it in Elliott it would have saved them a lot of money and us a lot of anxiety and distress.
We eventually got back home to Canberra about 10 days after our breakdown in the middle of nowhere (Elliott, NT) and over that period of time we were in (and out of) contact with our insurance company, CIL. When we got back to Canberra we discovered that our van still had not been seen by an assessor, and was still - you guessed it - sitting in the back yard of Elliott Mechanical Services. Thanks so much to Bob for looking after our van for us for so long. But it gets worse....
After 3 weeks, and many anguished and escalating phone calls, CIL Insurance finally decided to get a transport company to bring the van back to.... Adelaide! This is because, apparently, there were no suitably qualified repairers in places like Katherine, Alice Springs, Mt Isa (need I go on?) to fix our little van, and only Adelaide could do it justice! A week later the van arrived in Adelaide and was finally seen by an assessor. We were fully expecting the company to write off the van, as there was considerable damage to the chassis, but no.... they decided they were going to repair it. We were now 4 weeks down the track from the initial breakdown, and more than a little annoyed by this stage.
To cut a long story short, after 9 weeks of phone calls (each time having to go through an interminable identification process and speak to a different person each time), our caravan was finally 'fixed' and delivered to us in Canberra.
Well - 'fixed' is not really an accurate description of the condition of our van. We were horrified, both at the quality of work that had supposedly been done to fix our original problem, and at the additional damage that had been done to our van in transit. We were absolutely disgusted! We compiled a list of the damage and defects on our caravan and sent an email to CIL Insurance which included this:
- The quality of workmanship on the chassis 'repair' is very poor. There are huge gaps between the steel, an angle grinder has been used and left gouges in the steel and some of the repairs have been sprayed with galvanised paint, other parts just with a silver paint. It looks very shoddy and indeed amateurish. I am most concerned that this repair has not been done to a sufficient standard where I can trust that the van won't come apart while travelling. We have not received an engineer's certificate of compliance on the chassis from the repairer.
- The water tank vent hose has been wound around the cross-member instead of being properly secured.
- Major problems with the awning - it appears that straps have been used to hold the caravan down onto the truck while in transit. The straps have worn away the stitching on the awning edges at both ends, broken the front awning arm, rubbed the front arm and twisted the clip and holder roller on the front part of the awning, making it impossible to open. The caravan door does not open properly due to the damage. The awning is now totally unusable.
- Stabiliser legs - the front left one is bent, and two of the handles which release the rear legs are totally broken in half.
- Paint has been stripped off at least four places on the poptop roof, where the straps had been holding the van down. There are dents in the roof at the rear, where the strapping has been, and a dent on the side wall.
- The radio aerial has been broken - in fact, it is no longer there, there are only two broken holders where it used to be. The stereo no longer works at all.
- There is a vertical strip above and below where the aerial used to be, where paint has rubbed away due to the friction from the strapping.
- One of the rear roof clips is bent.
- The pole carrier has been replaced with a smaller unit, and this has been very poorly mounted in the original, larger holder.
- The water hose which was replaced has been left dangling and has not been secured anywhere.
- The copper gas pipe has not been secured and is a safety issue.
- The brake wiring has been poorly secured.
- The water tank has not been secured.
- The water hose has not been secured.
- The front water tank now leaks.
- The waste outlet pipe has been secured with only one screw instead of the original two.
- The welding earth lead location has not been treated with cold gal and has already started to rust.
So, our broken van came back to us in significantly worse condition than we had left - unusable and unsellable (is that even a word?) This email was sent to the person supposedly handling our claim as well as the complaints manager.
Within 24 hours we had a very sheepish call back from the assessor who had released this vehicle as 'suitably repaired'. Obviously, he had had some 'feedback' from his manager or complaints department, and suddenly, our caravan was finally going to be written off! Yayy! Sense had finally prevailed after more than 32 phone calls (from us), 9 weeks and some very unhappy emails.
Within a couple of days a cheque had been deposited into our bank, and a few days later a transportation company arrived to take away our formerly lovely little Paramount Duet caravan. What a long haul this has been, and what an expensive exercise for the insurance company - if they had done their job properly and sent someone to look at it in Elliott it would have saved them a lot of money and us a lot of anxiety and distress.
So we said a sad goodbye to our lovely little van, and look forward to new adventures in our next van.
