When we purchased our motorhome last year I was made aware of the warranty offered by Dethleffs who manufactured it. This covered both the inside and water ingress (water leaks) for a certain period of time. I was also told that the mechanical components of the vehicle are covered by the Fiat worldwide warranty.

Having worked in the motor industry for many years I just assumed that when I purchased the motorhome that our details would be passed onto Fiat and the warranty would be automatically registered. Turns out this is not the case, to have your motorhome registered with Fiat they require a copy of the registration papers so they have all of your correct details.

During our travels around the country we came across many other motorhome owners a lot of these driving a Fiat based vehicle. In fact I have be told that 85% of all motorhome sales in Europe are built on a Fiat chassis.

I don’t know how many people we spoke to during our 4 months in the South Island but it certainly was a lot. Not one of these people mentioned taking their motorhome into Fiat to have any recall issues sorted.

When we got back to Auckland I was reading the Facebook posts that I normally follow and saw a post about someone who had taken back their motorhome to have a recall sorted. Reading the post I realised that our motorhome could well be affected by the same recall.

A quick email on my part to the company that sold us our motorhome highlighted that there had been a breakdown in communication and our motorhome had not been registered with Fiat for the global warranty. Once we forwarded a copy of the registration papers to the seller this was quickly rectified.

An email from Fiat NZ to the seller notified them of recall issues which they then passed on to us. It turns out that there are three recalls on our Motorhome #6042 #6152 and #6172 all of which relate to the same area in the engine bay.

With this information to hand we called the Fiat dealer and booked the vehicle in for repairs. I have published this short post because I want the readers if they have a motorhome to be aware that their vehicle might be up for a recall regardless of the manufacturer.

The recall shown above is not for our motorhome but for more recent ones. This highlights a potential camshaft failure. Unlike our motorhome recall which is in the scheme of things reasonably minor this recall if not done would lead to a catastrophic failure of your engine. Not something I would think that anyone wants.

So with all of this in mind I urge you to check your motorhome for a potential recall. Even if it’s not a Fiat you can check this website to see all vehicle recalls.

www.dft.gov.uk/vosa/apps/recalls/

If you have any doubts about anything you should check with the company that sold you your motorhome and ensure that your worldwide warranty has been properly registered with the local manufacturer.

The series I am writing on camping in Auckland will continue with the next blog but I felt it was important to get this message out and urge you to check if you have any doubts.

If you would like to see all the places we have visited click here

If you would like to see the ratings of the places we have stayed click here