Thanks! That's what we kept telling ourselves. 🤣 It's an amazing country, you will love it! The kids have been blown away by it. Give us a shout if need any tips or advice. Are you travelling in the motorhome?
Sadly you just learned that ‘servicing’ means different things to different people. These days most garages do an engine oil and filter change, air filter and pollen filter change, check the levels under the bonnet and visually inspect the brakes without removing the wheels. Thankfully I am able to do all my own servicing so each winter I do all the above, drain and refill the gearbox, strip, clean and lubricate the brakes, lube and adjust hand break system, lube locks and hinges, and generally clean check and lube any moving parts like the winch for the spare wheel etc.
The factory provides a checklist of what constitutes a service, usually 2 lists, annual & bi-annual, & the lists are part of the documentation that came with the vehicle. If these lists aren't completed something _will_ break.
We are learning that the hard way. Unfortunately for us the transmission fluid was checked on the list but it looks like it hadn't actually been changed during the service. The French garage said as much. 😥
We used Tappers to upholster a U shape lounge layout in our Transporter T6. Excellent service and really good quality work. Definitely recommend Richard and Tappers.
Can’t really blame the dealer. Fiat, Citroen, Peugeot all terrible for reliability. Check out all the issues the happy days had with their engines (two!)
Hi we don't blame them necessarily. I bought a VW car many years ago that died after 3 months. Vehicles are always a bit of a gamble! But yes we are learning about Fiat's reliability the hard way! 🤣
don't be put off your Ducato, I have sold Motorhomes for 21 years and pro rata I'd say probably get less aggro with the 15-19 Ducato than anything else. Any auto box can and will go wrong and be expensive when it does , manual is a safer option but hindsight is a wonderful thing. And without psychic powers your dealer couldn't have predicted that, a service won't touch the gearbox unless requested . You'll hear more people complaining about Fiat based vans becuade there's so many more out there
Thanks Brian! Hopefully we will have less major dramas. We don't mind a bit of drama as it's goes hand in hand with the lifestyle. But not the big problems! 😀
You're absolutely right, we did have a decent sized contingency but that took a massive dent. We are learning how expensive mechanical failures can be!
Hi Em, Stu and the three "brilliantly named" kids. What a bunch they are ! they could give you more trouble than that gearbox. LOL. My wife and I only saw your vid last night, and we were as frustrated as you were with the gearbox issue, I think you now know for sure there are many of us watching and holding our breaths for a great success story ending to your adventures, whenever that may be. You are young, but we wonder how you funded your travels, did you sell your house or saved massively for it ? Do you have an "end game" plan for the end of your adventure, or are you just "going along with it". Massive credit to you all, each and every one of you, good luck, we are very much looking forward to the next instalment.
Thanks so much for watching our video! Yep it was a frustrating time with Betty. 😮💨 We are renting our house out at the minute but we do plan to sell at some point when the market picks up, not to fund our travels, but to give us freedom in the future. We have been funding our travels by a combination of Stu working when we are back in the UK on occasion and I do online tuition with other children as we travel. We have got a plan for the next few years but we are not thinking too far ahead as things change so much at short notice. Glad to have you both along for the ride!
@@WeAreTheNomaders Thanks very much for the reply Emma. You have some great plans, and to think "in the future" your children are going to have some fantastic stories to tell their own children, what a great experience for you all. We will of course continue to "look in", all the very best for the future, hope all goes well. Betty ! Behave yourself!!!
Just happened upon your channel today. We are fellow auto trailers too with a comfortmatic box which so far has been fine. We were shouting at the telly "tell us how much it cost, dont leave us guessing " lol. Came on the comments to find out. Hopefully hapoy driving from this point :)
Same for us- we also drive a Comfortmatic box and wonder what was the actual problem and how to prevent it-you mentioned some fluid that hadn't been changed, but we have been told that there's no transmission fluid that needs changing when we did our regular services. Our van is nearly 80000km and now we are gonna be scared going on long trips abroad after watching this 😮
Hi there I think that it was the hydraulic system for the gearbox and the bearers were shot. Our understanding is that it is a bit like pot luck with the Comfortmatics. However, our vehicle was used when we bought it and we have questioned whether it was looked after properly and had the right services carried out prior to us owning it. So I think if you look after your gearbox and get the gearbox serviced like other people have suggested in the comments you should have nothing to worry about. I think we just got some bad luck!
@@WeAreTheNomaders I did some research after watching your video and turns out there are actually 3 fluids related to the Comfortmatic: 1. Standard manual gearbox oil that needs changing very rarely the same way you change it for manual gearbox 2. Red Automatic Transmission Fluid that is for the valves that needs changing more often which has tank and you can visually check it (located ~30cm under the tank for the brake fluid) 3. DOT fluid for the automatic clutch that needs to be visually checked every 1000km by looking at the level and needs to be topped up when the clutch wears out and regularly replaced to avoid accumulating moisture. It also has a tank but a very small one and it's right infront the tank for 2.
Hi just stumbled on your video that clock tower always reminds me of the one in totnes where I live.....sounds like you have the dreaded auto box as long as you keep up with oil and filter change on it you should be fine glad you got it sorted 😊
There’s only one place that really knows what they’re doing in the U.K. to have the regular service on the comfortmatic and/or any work done, and that’s Adams Morey at Portsmouth, they really know their stuff with comfortmatics, I travel there from Yorkshire to have mine serviced there👍
We will have to keep that in mind as it's not a massive inconvenience to go to Portsmouth when we travel back to Devon. Thanks for the recommendation! 👍
@@WeAreTheNomaders Yes you can even stay at the port Solent aire for free then travel in next morning👍 The clutch fluid change and kiss point re-learn is £147 which is paramount to help the comfortmatic keep working, safe travels👍
@@klisurski the clutch fluid I believe is DOT4 0.050L and there’s some special atf fluid goes in the hydraulic actuators 0.7L then the clutch kiss point is set up with the fiat software👍
@@ThreeFineWonders yes that what it says in my comfortmatic handbook, but it has been superseded with change the fluids (2 yr recommended). Mine is 8 years old 48k never been done till last nov when I had it done at Adams Morey, you can tell the difference straight away, no juddering on take up and a much smoother gear change. I do agree with it being driven sympathetically, I drive mine like our big CAT dumper at work with the CAT powershift😉👍
Thanks for watching the video! Our Ducato is 2015. Yes that's our understanding now! 😆 Although on the service checklist they ticked the transmission, so it should have been checked... We will make sure it's always checked now at services.
Hi i have a comfortmatic gearbox what mileage did yours give problems?and did you change the oil and filter on the gearbox.out of interest what did it cost to repair or did they do an exchange gearbox, like your blogs be lucky.
Hi thanks for watching our video. 😀 The mileage was around 50000. We have had the transmission fluid and oil changed (allegedly!) at the service weeks before this happened. The garage had to install brand new parts no option to exchange. Cost wise it was £7500. I will preface it by saying we definitely overpaid but we were stuck in Rouen so no other option, the work was carried out the next day, it was a part that was reserved for someone else and we had to get it changed in France as this is our home. I reckon it would be closer to £6000 in the UK. My understanding is that the Comfortmatic gearbox is a lottery and could last a long time or like ours go before it should. The FIAT garage did say they were unreliable and the best hope to increase the lifespan was to change the transmission fluid regularly. Hope that helps!
Hi yes we have break down cover, but we didn't want to use this as we only have so many visits a year. We only have 4 left so we were trying to save them for a really rainy day!
Hi thanks for checking out the video. We do have breakdown cover but we only get 5 rescues a year. We are trying to hold on to them for situations where we might get stuck, which...*ahem* Stu did! So that's 1 gone! As we are travelling full time we just don't know what's around the corner. Good question though!
I think you are right, they did say about a blackness to the liquid which could be the seal failing. The guy at the dealer was really surprised that the liquid has been changed recently and it being so black within less than a month.
@WeAreTheNomaders wow! the robbing French. It's a pity you couldn't have just drove at 30 all the way to Morocco. They'd have fixed for you there for less than a grand for sure
Hiya yes the language barrier was tricky as the guys in the garage spoke no English so Google translate was our friend. Even that said, the translation was not always great so we had to fill in a lot of the blanks. It was a whole gearbox overhaul of the hydraulic system (if that makes sense we are not massively mechanically minded) also the bearers had gone. There was a lot of parts in the list and also it was done quickly so there was definitely a premium to pay. I would have liked to try refurbished parts but we were worried about being stuck in limbo for weeks as I know some people have experienced with replacement parts.
