I have a fabulous camper, spacious, cozy, with lots of space, but since I have bought a caravan in the Algarve, it is really an overkil, since I do not use it while I am there. SoI am bringing it back to Holland to get it sold and buy a small car where I can just lay in, have enough space for my dogs and can use a a shopping car at all other times.
This year it have been a bit of a mess, which started in May in 2024 when part of the exhaust broke of, while,I was parking the camper in Bordeaux, and because it was still attached, it moved something in relation to the exhaust/motor bit.
We would drive up to 100 km per hour and than, all of a sudden, I could not go faster than 20 km, mostly after riding over a bumper or something.
So I went to Truckland Zaandam, because Truckland Velsen was unfortunately overbooked.
Although I got a bill of over a thousand Euro, changed stuff with wrong parts, they did not even repair it and worse they even forgot to attach the petrolmeter to the petroltank, so I got stuck in Belgium on one of the busiest roads!
Thank God I could steer it towards the sideramp, but nothing worked anymore and cars drove up to me with a120 km only realising that I was stuck there.
The advice I got from the Police was that I had to stop claxoning, because it was “disturbing”!
Thanks to one of my friends who had attached a tag to my keys, he could call up a garage and tell them exactly where I was. Never in my entire life have I been so relieved to see someone! I had been standing there 45 minutes, having said goodbye to my kids and besties fearing I was going to be killed at any moment!
They pulled me off the motorway, repaired my petrolmeter, took out the wrong part and put in a right one, and even replaced something that Truckland very nicely described as “somewhat leaking” !
For my part I would not even trust that Truckland with a dinky toy up seeing as they knew I was about to travel at least 2500 km with my camper after leaving them.
The garage in Belgium picked me up, repaired their faults and on my way I went, finiding out that even after paying out almost 3000 euro,I still had exactly the same problem!!
But having no confidence in neither Garages/countries, I travelled through France, Spain, arriving in Portugal, being convinced that they would actually find it there!
The camper always get put in a friends garage after unloading and because I was so happy at being at “home”, I more or less forgot about my camper troubles!
But in March I was reminded that I promised to petsit my friends dogs and cat, so I better get my ass in gear, I put my camper in the same garage where I go with my normal little car and waited a week, came past several times, got my friend to translate abouth the problem, while he said he would look at it and unfortunately 5 weeks, loads of visits and calls later he still had only looked at it…
So I picked my camper up again and brought it back to my camping place, trying to find a garage who would actually try to find the problem.
I even requested help from the Dutch Automobile Club (ANWB) , but the only thing they could come up with was repatriation…. back to Holland where they actually were so “forgetfull” that they almost had me killed, so no thank you!!
A couple of days later, I went over to the restaurant at the camping and I saw this guy who looked vaguely familiar, but unfortunately as I am faceblind, yep does exist, is called Prosopagnosia, an irritating deviation, but one I am use to, so I am always cautious meeting people… so I smiled and when he and I stood at the cashdesk, I asked him where I might have met him before…
Sounds like a pick up, but I always explain!
He had installed a new louder claxon a couple of years ago and I remembered. A nice man who spoke good English, working at a complete disorganised garage, which actually seems to be the rule in most Portuguese Garages!
“Are you still working there because I have a problem which nobody recognises and I need to go home”
He became weary, because if other people had looked at it, than it must be something very difficult….
I told that the ANWB was trying to find me a garage, but could not and ….
I left,
You cannot force yourself if someone does not want to know. I went around a dozen different garages, begging them to look at my camper but all to no avail…
Finally I saw a big board at a garage proclaiming that the did a lot of diagnostics… I had already explained my problem at the Ducato repair group on Facebook and had been given a lot of solid advice!
I went in and asked the receptionist if they might have place for my camper, but she did not speak English and did not let me finish my simple Portuguese but called a guy working there who could!
And lo and behold that was the same guy from the restaurant.
He said he had no time now but could I bring it around on monday….
Of course I could and did, by tuesday I got a call from the garage but that got cut, car not ready!
Wednesday I went past there, he apologised and told me who did drive around and could not find the problem..
I asked him if I could take him on a drive because the problem had been omnipresent when I brought the car…
He made a deal, thursday after work, he would finish early due to some bank holiday at 1 pm, I would drive him around?
So the next I was ready, he warned me he had little time but I convinced him to bear with me, because he would experience the problem. We went further than he really wanted to, but on the way back, literally on the busiest roundabout, it showed its ugly head and would do no more than 10 km while crossing a very busy street and going up a viaduct.
My mecanic friend was shocked, while I showed him that whatever I tried to do, nothing changed……
He told me to bring the camper back on monday, he would also check around and was the first who actually asked when it had started…..
It took till tuesday night when he had finally time for my camper, I had been around already 4 times on monday and three times on tuesday, staff was already making fun of me, but I should have left already for Holland and instead I was still stuck here so I could not care less!
Tuesday night he started outside garage hours on my camper and found that a hose between the exhaust and the motor had moved such that it almost stopped driving for an uncertain time!
We hugged, I was sooooooo happy, he told me to take a longggg drive and tell me the next day how it had gone. i drove about 40 km with no problems whatsoever!
The next day I paid the bill 68 euros for 1,5 hour work!! And now I am 1300 km further and I have not had any problem with the motor!!
Nelson you are my star!! Thank you for having the patience to listen to me and taking the the time to read through all the points the other garages had billed me for, thus eliminating those things!
If Anyone is ever having carproblems, go to Paolo Anselmo in Zone Industriale in Olhao and ask for Nelson! The manager is a bit of a prancer but Nelson is solid!
Bordeaux, May 3 2025