We picked up the van (the dreamland) from Escape Campervans depot San Francisco
We saw that the van was very old, we asked how old it was, they did not know this but it was very well maintained according to them.
it had 235.000 miles already.
we got a very short and quick briefing about the Van.
1st day we drove to Sonora (160 miles), the air-conditioning was working then but along the way the electrical system was not working very well, only the door at the drivers site opened, the rest stayed closed.
while driving, every time when we hit the brakes, all door locks where clicking.
In Sonora we found out that the refrigerator was not working and the door would not stay closed so it also had no use of putting ice in it.
2nd day (Tuesday 16-7) we started to drive from Sonora towards the Tioga pass on the east entrance of Yosemite NP
the air-conditioning did not work anymore, it became very hot in the car.
after 20 or 30 miles driving we decided to call Escape San Francisco what to do.
it was very hard to get in contact with San Francisco, we got Las Vegas, Miami, Los Angeles on the line,
when we finally got San Francisco they asked us to come back to San Francisco so they could fix it.
we said that we didn't want to loose 2 extra holidays by driving back, wait for the repair en drive back again we asked if we couldn't stop at a garage for fixing, that was ok.
We stopped at a auto Repair shop near Pinecrest.
The mechanic looked under the hood and was really amazed of what he saw.
the bad condition of the car shocked him.
we phoned again with San Francisco to tell that the car was a piece of junk and that we wanted a new car, they could not do that and they hang up on us!
The whole Air-conditioning system was leaking
there was no lid on the oil-break system
there was hardly any oil in the break system!
there was a balloon on the hose which would explode definitely within a week according to the mechanic and then there would be no oil at all in the break systems!!
there was leaking oil everywhere
another hose broke when the mechanic touched it lightly
the mechanic said this car would not last a week
the Van was 12 years old and totally worn out with an engine in a very bad condition.
The mechanic said to us that it was a very dangerous car, he could see that it had no maintenance at all for a long time!!
he told us we could have been killed with that car if we would go down from the Tioga Pass without breaks.
We phoned the general manager, Shawn, to say that we wanted another safe car because this was a piece of junk.
He told us that the car was fine!!!??? And he didn't have another car for us till Friday which we could pick up in Los Angeles!!!
he said to us that we had chosen an old car????!!!!!, (the only this we could choose was the type of car, never an age, we would never have excepted a car in this condition)
We asked the mechanic to give Shawn a call to explain what was wrong with the car because he thought that we exaggerated.
The mechanic was starting to fix it in order of Shawn but whiles fixing he found more and more and didn't managed to repair it that day.
we already had spend the whole day at the garage and were very stressed about the way we were treated and the dangerous state of the car.
the Van didn't feel right anymore for us, we did not wanted to strand somewhere in the middle of death valley or so and get killed.
we really feared for our lives, our holiday was ruined at that moment.
We called again with Shawn to tell him that we didn't want to drive this Van anymore.
He told us ok, leave the car and now you are on your own.
He just left us on the street in the middle of nowhere, without transportation, without anywhere to sleep.
Only with the force of the credit-card company we got our money back, first they did not wanted to pay back out our 200 dollar down payment in advance but finally we got that back as well.
The garage was about to be closed for the night, luckily they were very helpful, they said there was a hotel 5 miles further op the road and gave us the phone number and told us that there was a Hertz in Sonora and gave us their Phone number as well.
Luckily the hotel had a free room and Hertz had a normal car for us (no camper or so).
a nice gentleman (customer) hear our story and gave us a ride to the hotel.
Hertz was so nice to pick us up at the hotel the next day by noon.
when Hertz picked us up we passed the garage, the Van was outside, we stopped, the mechanic told us that the Van was repaired, but he told us again, " it is repaired but I still would not want to drive it because he heard a lot of thing while driving it that where not ok"
In Sonora we got a new, great car, luckily there was a Wall-Mart in Sonora so we could buy a whole camping gear, we did not wanted to stay in expensive hotels.
We got after that a nice holiday but were very mad about all that happened to us.
NEVER, NEVER NEVER ESCAPE CAMPERVANS AGAIN. read more