40,000 hits!

Again, many thanks for your continued reading. The blog is averaging around 100 hits per day now, not bad seeing as I haven't really done anything to the van in ages!

The re-map is getting ever closer, and to ward off the evil Winter blues I've started trawling the internet for campsites and overnight spots for the year ahead.

See you out there!

The Winter Blues...

I hate this time of year; Christmas and New Year are over, yet the warmer, brighter and lighter weather seems a long way off yet. Paying the repair bill this morning has done nothing to lighten my mood either - on the plus-side, the van sailed through another MOT with only an advisory on the rear brakes in the next 8-10K miles (hopefully that's another year away yet).

As you'll recall from previous posts we were hoping that the bill would be partly covered by the AA's Parts & labour insurance - unfortunately not the case. Since our issue with the driveshaft we had the van reclassified from Van to Motorcaravan - guess what the AA don't cover...? Motorhomes and campervans!

Our friendly AA man had (quite rightly) written T5 Camper on his paperwork so there was no way of talking our way out of it. And it wouldn't be fair to drag the garage into wranglings with the AA if we fraudulently tried to claim it as a van - so hey-ho, suck up the (almost £900 with service and MOT) costs and move forwards!

So if you're reading this thinking 'I've always wanted a T5 Camper' remember; big vehicles can often mean big parts and big bills.

Roll on the lighter nights, warmer weather and Dubfreeze, there's another camping trip on the cards too, just before Valentine's weekend - plenty to look forward to. In the meantime, here's a couple of pics I found on the internet while looking at show photos from last year...

The diagnosis...

After the previous weekend and it's electrical problems we were pretty relieved to get home. Annoyingly, we probably relaxed a little too much, parked the van down the side of the house as usual, went inside and tried to forget about it for a day or so.

Some helpful feedback from users of the Brickyard forum pointed us towards possible problems - it's usually at this point you start to see pound-signs!!!

With the van booked in for an MOT at the end of the week we left it, knowing that we'd only have to limp it half a mile down the road to Aire Valley Workshop. Not so easy... a quick check of battery status on the electrical control panel in the van read; Leisure Battery 13.2v, Vehicle Battery 0.8v. No flashing red light on the door top indicated a stone-dead battery, no alarm, no central locking.

Time to call out the AA. Once again another great show of customer service; from initial phone call and text message updates, to the chap arriving with a friendly smile and a love of T5s, the experience was faultless. On a side note he did mention that he'd just come from another T5 - broken driveshaft! That brought back some memories.

With the help of a heavy-duty jump-starter he had the van up and running straight away and with the help of a multi-meter spotted the alternator was delivering 16v to the van battery. He kindly followed us 'round to the garage and brought us home again, with a helpful description of the problem for further investigation - and handy paperwork to claim back on the AA Parts & Labour cover.

A phone call the next day from the garage reveals it is the voltage regulator and alternator at fault. A new battery will also be fitted. Then MOT and service. We should have a healthy van back within the next couple of days.

A worrying weekend away

Just after New Year seems a great time to grab a quick weekend away - the campsites are quiet, cheaper than normal and the pubs and restaurants don't seem to be as manic as over the Christmas period.

With a weekend in York on the cards, certain things can be taken for granted; good company, good food, and a good night's sleep. But this time things took a turn for the worse - it seems we invited some electrical gremlins along for the weekend too...

Meeting up, ready to go

Everything was normal until after a coffee-break at Harrogate, back in the van we noticed no dash lights (the blue lighting behind the clock and odometer) and all gauges - speedo, engine temp, fuel, and rev counter needles dropped to zero.

We pulled in to the world's most pot-holed layby just off the A59 on the east of Harrogate for a check of fuses and read of the manual.

We've had some little niggles before that have usually rectified themselves with the old 'turn it off, wait, turn it on again' routine - but every time we tried this the clocks would light up and function for a few seconds of the engine running and then drop back to zero with no illumination.

It was here we noticed the stalk controls had given up too; no indicators, no wipers. Headlights are working fine and a pull of the left stalk for full beam also worked fine? Other items on the dash such as heater controls also worked fine. Brake lights also worked as normal.

Thankfully, being part of a three van convoy, we stuck ourselves in the middle so as not to upset other road users with our lack of indicators.

So on to the campsite. Another night on the now-regular Lysander Arms - as discussed in previous posts, this place is ideal for getting into and back out of York City Centre, plus with the benefit of electric hook-up you're always going to sleep well - toasty and warm.

Pitched up - we had the campsite to ourselves

It's amazing how a few pints can help erase the worry of a faulty van, plus with having AA membership and the Caddy to use as a regular vehicle it really wasn't worth getting wound-up over.

The next morning we fired the van up and everything (nearly) worked fine - okay, there's an Airbag light permanently on but we can cope with that. A half-mile drive around to the park-and-ride and everything still checks out okay; indicators, lights, all gauges on the dash fully functioning. A few more hours around York, a full English breakfast and a couple of nice coffees and it's time to head home...

Not 10 miles into our return journey and we now have the EPC warning light on the dash to keep the Airbag light company. Another quick flick the handbook reveals this to be a possible ABS fault; check brakes a few times, keep driving steadily...

...until the dash goes again.

Weirdly, every time we brake up to a junction or roundabout, just before coming to a complete halt and then for the time we are stationary, the dash comes back to life. Start moving and everything goes again - is this the infamous brakelight-switch that we have experienced before?

Deciding against going over the notorious Blubberhouses route (not really a place to be breaking down) we elected the longer, flatter route through Pool, Otley and Ilkley back to Skipton. Pulling into Otley and the dash is back with us again; all gauges working, Airbag light and EPC light fully on. No indicators or wipers. Pull stalk to flash lights does work though. I'm glad at this point we didn't leave it any later as I didn't really want anything like lights to fail on us in the dark...

...then it started raining. No wipers and trying to see through a windscreen covered in really fine drizzle on unlit country roads is no fun - if this was any more than a handful of miles away from home we would have stopped. Full trust was placed in the vehicle in front (thanks Shaun) and for a while we were following two brake lights and white lines.

Call it good timing but the van is booked-in for an MOT at the end of this week. I'm looking forward to what the diagnostics have to say. So, does any of this sound familiar to other T5 owners? Any advice will be gratefully received.