Hymie swapped for Buster

Interior of Buster

Friday 9th November

Galley area in Buster

The sorry saga of our van continues.  As reported previously we were not able to pick up the van on our return from France.  In fact another electrical problem was found requiring yet another part from Europe.  We had had enough.  We contacted the people we purchased the van from to arrange a meeting with the sales director, service manger and customer service to discuss our van.  Mike was very clear that the van, despite all their efforts was still not ready and that this was seriously disrupting our travel plans; something had to be done.  The upshot was that they took the Hymer back we purchased a Burstner Solano in place of her.  Some of you may wonder why we did not do this weeks ago but it has been a difficult decision, partly because each time something has gone wrong it has been thought it has been fixed and it has only been on the next journey we have found out that there is still a problem.  Secondly and more importantly we took a long time, almost 6 months, to find a van that we thought would suit our travel requirements.  We had made modifications to it and it was set up for our journey.  Changing the vehicle would not be easy and we would probably have to make changes to it and of course, we had no guarantees that any new vehicle would be problem free.  Anyway with much deliberation we have now chosen Buster the Burstner.  It has a different living set up to Hymie but I am sure it will work for us.  Buster is two years younger and has less miles on the clock.  Buster is a manual drive so at least we wont have the problems we have had with an automatic gear box and lets hope there aren't any other problems.  We are getting the solar panels and other bits and pieces put on this week and hope to pick up the van at the weekend.  We then plan to give the vehicle a couple of good runs in this country before heading out.