Southdowns Motorhomes Arvostelua 72

Bought a £210k new Hymer blmi 880 two years ago and it was riddled with issues. Went back twice and still not fixed. Utterly useless. Wasted my time and just wound me up with their nonsense. The van almost caught fire while we slept due to poor electrics which they ‘fixed’. I am now taking legal advice having spent over £10k more to have electrics upgraded safely. Ruined several trips due to the poor build workmanship and lack of a proper pre delivery service. Got locked out of van twice due to front door lock fault which they supposedly fixed. Had to get a proper mechanic to sort that too. Just far too many problems for a vehicle of this value and customer service is possibly the worst I’ve ever come across. Do not use.

shame that the service centre no longer accepts telephone calls, I prefer the personal touch of being able to call up and talk to someone not wait 24-48 hours for an email response

Excellent customer service. Thank you to Kelly and the team for your help today, despite being a very busy day. You took the time and made sure i was to obtain the parts I required.
Thanks again, have a great Xmas.
Ken

Sad to say i would give a zero rating if i could. Was excited to buy our first motorhome with a lot of money invested. While waiting A whole month for collection to get our motorhome ready for us, Andy was extremely nice and couldnt have done more for me. First time i took the motorhome out, i noticed a squealing coming from the brakes and also, that the extractor fan did not work, so when i returned i contacted Southdowns only to be told i had to go through the warranty they had "thrown in' for the price. The warranty guys told me brakes were not covered in the warranty but could i take it to a VAT registered garage for a full report. That report showed that somebody had installed brand new pads recently onto old brake discs and the top of the new pads were rubbing on the rusty lip around the edge of the brake discs causing the squeal. Halfords report stated

Needs fixing:
major areas of concern that need to be addressed immediately!
Brakes:
renew both front brake discs. Brake discs worn beyond manufacturers reccomended spec.

advisories that need to be fixed soon to ensure the safety of your vehicle!
Brakes:
renew the front brake pads

This was within a week of picking up my dream motorhome!

5 phonecalls to Southdowns motorhomes. Andrew Martin continues to say 'He will email people and get back to me' Paul from Southdowns said 'Leave it with me , i will take care of this myself' Yet 3 weeks later, not one phone call back to me, and not one email responded to, even after sending both the report, and then the follow up email from Halfords auto centre.

At this time, I have paid £55,000 for a motorhome that is not roadworthy or that may fail to brake if i take it out, potentially putting our lives in danger. The professionalism of this company is disgraceful and they seem to just want to take your money but not return phonecalls when there is a problem. With huge regret, I am afraid to say I could not reccomend this company due to this serious problem.

Had a problem with the leisure battery on my Adria motorhome, Spoke to Hugo who was great on the phone. In the end (despite them being fully booked) I went in the next day at 8 am , by 9 am the problem was solved. Hugo was amazing going over and above.An absolute life saver-thank you.

We purchased a Burstner 910G which on the first outing had a screaming drive belt on the AC compressor. Turned out it had the wrong belt fitted(actually lifted on top of pully) so this was obviously not checked prior to delivery to us. Second outing and while 100 miles from home the satellite dish went up and jammed in up position, obviously again not checked all worked before delivery to us(no battery in controler or updates loaded). With dish stuck up it was undrivable and insurance could not help even though sold a 24 hour, 7 day a week support. Eventually a helper got through the roof light with an allen key to release it and fold it down. The service to try and remedy this was so so poor and I now have to take the motorhome 300 miles to an expert to get it sorted. The sales team are ok as is the chap who shows you the motorhome, but the service team I would not trust to feed my cat let alone look after the motorhome. I only had an assistant talking to me and I would expect a manager when sale of goods act gets quoted, Right now I am considering if we go legal on this all depending what I find when the repair is actually done and if we get reimbursed. All could have been avoided if the checks that should have been done were actually done.

Thank you to all the team in the service department. Very polite and helpful . Would highly recommend this company and will be using again. Needed help with a Hab key and spares dept came to me and assisted over and above. Thank you.

A huge shut out to Trevor and the Parts section of SouthDowns for helping us source a complete Hymer headlamp unit when ours cracked on day 1 of our travels from Norfolk. Trevor went out of his way to get the unit ordered from Germany and express delivery so we could fit the headlamp for it's MOT date on 30th July. Trevor kept us updated on the order all along by phone and email. Great service and I would have to say, above and beyond the call of duty to get the part to us so quickly. Thank you Trevor, David and Ian for a superb result and a very happy customer.

HX24 CMO

Bought this brand new Malibu Charming First Class 2 rooms from Southdowns Motorhomes in May last year.
Less than 6 months later the Engine Management Light came on with a check engine message. We took the van to our local Adam’s Morey Southampton (they were great and kept us informed) who tried to fix the issue on several occasions. They found water ingress and corroded wires and connectors, which they changed, as well as replacing the water pump, but eventually said there was nothing more they could do until Fiat had found a fix for the issue.
We contacted Southdowns to inform them of the issue and they reassured us that they had a good relationship with Adam’s Morey Portsmouth and that they would be able to find a fix for it. They collected the van from us in January 2025 and replaced the ECU unit and more wires. But Adam’s Morey Portsmouth were still not happy with the van.
We then rejected the van under the CRA 2015 in February.
In March, the director Andrew Ayling, asked for a meeting at which he didn’t accept our rejection and denied that there were any inherent faults with the vehicle at the time of purchase. He did however try to reassure us that he was on our side and would send some fair proposals for replacing the vehicle. A week later we received the proposal saying that he would replace the vehicle if we gave him almost a further £23k! That same day we went to empty the van and it was sitting in pieces at Adam’s Morey Portsmouth (Picture). We counter offered and then heard nothing.
This caused us a lot of stress and we started taking legal advice and speaking to Forensic Mechanical Inspectors to prove the fault was inherent and were willing to take the matter to court.
The worst part was Mr Ayling’s reluctance to communicate, there were long periods of silence.
Fortunately for us we were mistakenly given paperwork that we were never meant to see. A month before we took ownership of the vehicle Adam’s Morey Portsmouth carried out the New Van Pre Delivery Inspection on behalf of Southdowns. The report concluded that they couldn’t carry out the pre delivery road test as the EML light was on, there were coolant stains on the engine and that the HTR pump was faulty and had been replaced. The paperwork actually stated “NOT ON CUSTOMER COPY”. We emailed Mr Ayling and said we were withdrawing our previous offer and were seeking a refund plus consequential losses. Even after sending him this evidence, he still took ages to respond, eventually saying he would offer a refund minus usage cost (which is permissible by law) but rejecting the consequential losses.
Despite this we still had to hassle to actually get the money, being told on more than one occasion, that Mr Ayling was not in the office. We did eventually get the refund on 30th May.

This morning, my wife and I called into South Downs Motorhomes’ service department because we had stupidly broken our toilet cassette and couldn’t operate nor extract the cassette from its housing. We were in a bit of a mess as we were due to catch the afternoon ferry to France. We were met by Connor, who was so helpful. He parked our van for us, listened so patiently as we explained our predicament and called in Hugo and together within 20 minutes they had sorted the problem, fitting a new cassette from stock and didn’t even charge for the labour involved. I cannot speak highly enough of the help and support we received today and are very grateful to the fantastic team at Southdowns!

Service dept - excellent customer service, as previously experienced. More than happy to return.

I have used Southdowns Motorhome Centre on a number of occasions and they have always been helpful and efficient. On this occasion I needed a Certificate of Compliance to import my Motorhome to France. Carthago were tardy responding so I asked Southdowns. After a couple of emails providing information they obtained the COC at no charge.

I recently purchased a motorhome from Southdowns Motorhome Centre and had a mixed experience. The sales and handover teams were friendly and professional, and the process of purchase was smooth. However, the service side didn’t meet my expectations, with some work feeling overpriced and incomplete. The team overall tries to be helpful, but improvements are needed in servicing standards. Average experience.

Just collected our Burstner HL728G from the Service Centre at Southdowns Motorhome Centre. The customer service experience was excellent, led by Hugo. His team carried out a Damp repair, Truma service and upgraded our habitation battery system. Hugo gave us confidence, qualifying the issues and requirements, explaining the solution and completing the work on time. On collection he gave us a thorough handover on the work completed. I have no hesitation recommending Southdowns Motorhome Centre.

Whilst holidaying in the New Forest the 12 volt supply on our 18 month Hymer motorhome failed. We turned up at the service centre without an appointment hoping that they might be able to help us. We can not thank Hugo enough. He was able to trouble shoot the problem and get the 12v system running again enabling us to get back to our holiday. The staff were so helpful and knowledgeable on hymer vans -THANK YOU so much for helping us.

These people are very helpful and friendly. They were able to get the exact part i wanted and fast. Were good friendly and willing to help.

Will definitely use them again.

Excellent service, great easy handover. Everything went very smoothly and all involved were very helpful. Had a few queries after arriving home all to do with how things work and every query sorted very quickly, thanks Simon. No doubt we may have more questions following our first trip as we suss out how to do things but I feel assured I know the help is on the other end of the phone. Loving the motorhome, much appreciated all your help from the day we decided to place the order to present.

Having been overcharged back in August I asked for a quote to replace a bedroom window on my T132.I was quoted £700 for the window and another £60 for labour.I had it done in Germany by a dealer there,and guess what £425 for the window and they didn't charge me for labour as it took him 9 minutes ( I timed him).

Southdowns Motorhomes have gone above and beyond in all respects. Ben on the sales team, Simon on the handover and the service team have all given us five star plus service. Friendliness and efficiency doesn't get any better! Many thanks to all.