After 2 1/2 years living full time in our caravan, we have learned many things, especially that there is nearly always something that needs to be repaired, fixed, upgraded or changed! As we travel Australia, through the many various terrains, it is inevitable there is going to be things that need servicing and repairing, not always when expected or at the most convenient time either!!
The issues can also be that where things go wrong, you may be in an isolated country town, miles from the nearest service centre or repair agent. When we were in Mt Gambier last year (we only just made it there before the car stopped entirely) we had to wait 3 weeks for a new alternator to arrive to the local Nissan dealer and then wait a further week for the team to be available to complete the repair. The Nissan dealer also had never had completed this task previously as this is apparently not a common fault that occurs in the Y62's. It also appears to be Murphy's Law that if it is something that is unusual to go wrong it will for us!!
When we met up with some friends in Orange, we noticed our exhaust had suddenly become extra loud. We couldn't work out if we were just noticing the sound more or if something had changed, however by the time we reached Yarrawonga we realised the sound was definitely getting worse. We managed to find a local exhaust centre and the lovely owner had a look and we needed a new muffler as ours had just about disintegrated!! He saw we weren't locals and was able to fit us in the next day and was very reasonable priced.
Sometimes an issue pops up with a BANG!, literally our microwave in the caravan blew up! Oh boy did that scare us. As we don't use the microwave that frequently we were able to wait several months before replacing that one!! It appears however, once one issue is solved, one or two more just pop up. You just can't relax and think everything is hunky dory!
Staying with friends in Albany we had been enjoying our time with them when the drought broke and we received our first really heavy rain since changing to the New Age Caravan. We discovered water coming through our speaker inside the caravan! Yes another issue had arisen, yet this one needed to be dealt with as quickly as possible, however living on a low income, we knew this would take some time to save up to repair.
We started researching repairers and waterproofing businesses for caravans in Western Australia. As always happens, if you discuss something, Facebook was listening and an advertisement for a caravan waterproofing specialist came up and had amazing reviews. We gave them a call and they don't muck around, they only repair the entire roof to ensure that any possible leaks are found and the entire roof is proper sealed. This is the best scenario, however at a cost of $3500, that is a lot of money for us! We said we would think about it and continued travelling to Busselton. There we found a caravan repair business and took the caravan to them to have a look and they felt they knew where the leak was coming from and quoted us $1000. We figured $1000 was more easily achievable for us in a shorter timeframe and felt that before further damage could be done we would go ahead with this option.
This was a mistake on our behalf. We had the $1000 repair done, had to stay last minute in a cabin as they needed the caravan to sit overnight before being moved. So an extra $250 later. we picked up our caravan thinking we could finally move on as we had already been in the area for around 2 months now. Well we booked two more nights to ensure that the repair was done correctly as the forecast was rain. Unfortunately when it rained we had an even larger leak in our roof. So what we thought was going to be a cheaper option for us, turned out we wasted $1250 and the repairer said they stood behind their workmanship, it was that they must not have found the source of the leak. They wanted to charge us $160 per hour to continue to look for where the leak may be coming from with no guarantees.
So the next day we called back the roof waterproofing specialist in Mandurah and booked in the caravan, however it was a further two months later as we needed that time to save up and extra $3500. This time we knew it would be done properly and we would have piece of mind.
So today after having a mini holiday in an apartment in Mandurah we picked up our repaired caravan and have complete faith that it has been repaired properly. We even have photos supplied from Caravan Waterproofing WA that shows the before, during and after process. Andrew, the owner is a one man team, but he explains the entire process thoroughly and carefully. His work is amazing!
It is funny, before dropping off the caravan to Andrew, we turned off the fridge and emptied it out, a great opportunity to defrost it as it has iced up in the main part of the fridge (that should ice up). During this process we discovered the thermostat had broken off and that is why the fridge had been freezing up. So another little repair to do! Chris managed to get the replacement parts whilst the caravan roof was being repaired and finished off the wiring today when we were set up at our low cost campsite before being able to use the fridge again.
So I guess the point of this blog is, travelling full time around this wonderful country is enjoyable, but the reality is things go wrong and probably more regularly than people realise!! As these items are being used daily and travelling through all sort of weather and conditions it is more likely things will go wrong. So its not a rainbows and sunny days that is for sure!!
Now until the next hiccup we will start to continue our journey north through Western Australia.
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