CARAVAN MAINTENANCE

Your caravan is just as valuable as your car and needs maintenance in the same way as your car needs to be maintained. Caravan Man provides all maintenance services.

Maintenance done by Caravan Man

Your caravan is just as valuable as your car and needs maintenance in the same way as your car needs to be maintained.

Maintenance on your caravan that you can do:

• Keep your caravan under-cover whether it is in a garage, carport or under a custom canvas.
• Remove mud and dirt because it stains and weakens the paint, promotes rust and perishes canvas and rubber parts.
• Keep an eye on the tyres and look for perishing. Tyres should be replaced every 5 years regardless of its appearance.
• Regularly inspect the caravan for cracked or buckled rims, tighten wheelnuts when necessary and keep the tyres correctly inflated.
• Check that the handbrake engages and releases properly, that base plates are free from rust and cables do not unravel.
• Inspect the jockey wheel. The wheel and handle must turn freely, the clamp must tighten without hindrance and the whole jockey wheel must be free of stress fractures and rust.
• Take the caravan to a trusted service provider for a general service evey 10 000km or 12 months whichever comes first.
• If your caravan has water tanks do not fill them before towing unless you are heading into the bush. Water is heavy and moves around quite agressively in a moving caravan. Regularly flush the water system to prevent stale water in the tanks.
• You need to regularly inspect electric, gas and water connections to make sure they work correctly and do not have leaks. Check that batteries are fully charged and healthy.
• Keep your caravan well ventilated to prevent damp that is a favourite place for mould to form.

Mould

Mould can be prevented.

• Wipe surfaces with disinfectant to remove bacteria and stop them from taking hold.
• Clean and air the carvan regularly.
• Watch out for leaks and maintain seals and corner moulds. Dry any spills immediately.
• If mould appears, treat it with anti-mould chemicals or white vinegar diluted with water.

Problems that you can’t solve needs to be addressed by a trained caravan technician. Caravan Man trains their own technicians. They are qualified to provide the right advice to make sure your caravan continues to give you long service and much pleasure.

Sealing

Caravans are sealed to a standard that should keep them well-sealed for at least ten years.

The life of the sealant can differ depending on how well you maintain your caravan and the climate where the caravan is kept.

Caravans should be sealed with silicone with a high movement capacity because caravan walls and joints can move quite a lot when towing and moving the caravan.

Sealing should not be done unless you follow the process followed by Caravan Man technicians. If you want to save time and cut corners, you will in any case end up with us. There are no shortcuts when it comes to maintaining a vehicle worth thousands of Rands.

How Caravan Man seals a caravan:

• We remove windows and corner moulds.
• Remove all surface sealant on the roof, under the moulds, and on the body or pop-up top.
• The caravan door and all fittings and access doors are removed.
• Clean all removed parts to be free from the old sealant.
• Clean the body surface from any left-over sealant.
• Apply high-quality sealant with a high movement capacity.
• Put back all moulds and parts properly tightened so the sealant will be able to bear any movement created by normal use.

If you seal your caravan yourself, never just apply a sealant over the existing sealant without removing the moulds and beading that must be sealed. A caravan is not a kitchen sink and sealing it half-heartedly will only mean your caravan will leave you with water seeping into the sides of the caravan.

If that happens, you will in any case end up at Caravan Man for repairs to the wood rot that the inadequate sealing allowed to happen.

Caravan service

Many caravan owners service their own caravans. If you are technically oriented or enjoy working on your caravan you can do it.

A caravan service by Caravan Man includes checking, repairing or replacing:

• Wheel bearings.
• Caravan jack.
• Coupler shocks.
• Wiring on the caravan.
• Brake cables.
• Brake shoes.
• A-Frame (coupler unit) regreasing.
• Bolts and nuts.
• Chassis (new rubberising).
• Sand in wheel valves (if there are no valve caps).

We inspect the caravan and will alert the owner to potential problems not covered by a normal caravan service.

Caravan Man services all caravans so that their clients will not be stranded on the side of the road.

Legal requirements related to your caravan service

In South Africa, it is not legally required to service your caravan. It is however a legal requirement that your caravan must be roadworthy.

If you do not have your caravan serviced regularly it may become un-roadworthy without you noticing.