Very excited as you can imagine, but Im afraid to say we're having a few teething problems.
She's a 2001 2.5TD 4WD AFT, silver over grey with removeable rear conversion. We got her from Bill at Campercraft who was very helpful but to avoid taking her back on a 6 hour round trip in the future he has suggested buying a warranty and using our local mechanic and unfortunately she is there now.
As a fresh import with 60,000 miles on the clock, body wise she's in good nick, has had a respray for scratches and Bills mechanic says mechanically shes one of the best he's seen.
However, after picking her up on 25th June, we werent 20 miles up the road and she started to scream on acceleration and felt very sluggish.
Less worryingly the airbag light also flashes all the time and the central locking makes a bizarre loud buzzing noise on the front passenger side and it doesnt lock.
Our local mechanic tells me her EGR pipe, thread and gasket have gone and there may be something wrong with the turbo, but we wont know til these are fixed. He has found a replacement gasket but hasnt the pipe and says he will try to get one on Monday.
dave_aber on this forum has been great and given me the following advice but I would welcome other comments which may help please.
"Screaming on acceleration, sounds a bit like a slipping belt, can be a warped exhaust manifold and associated sheared manifold stud - I have had this on mine. However, an exhaust leak from the EGR piping would probably sound the same so Gary's diagnosis is most likely spot on. In fact the only job I had done by a garage since buying the Bongo was to have the exhaust manifold removed, skimmed, broken stud extracted and all refitted.
Now, the EGR is there to satisfy the Japanese emissions and nothing else - it in fact slows you down a wee bit. The first thing I did was to blank it off. If Gary's saying the threaded bit has gone, presumably he means where the EGR pipe joins the back of the exhaust manifold? The russian Bongo club blank the EGR off here by putting a coin (2 Roubles IIRC) in the joint and re-connecting it. (I have used a pair of blanking plates further along the pipework - one at the valve and one at the inlet manifold.) Some folks have just removed the pipe from the exhaust manifold and welded up the hole. Either way, it needs to not leak, but can be blanked off completely.
Central locking - sounds like a faulty solenoid unit in the passenger's door. Should be a cheap fix, and it's an easy part to replace. Bill may source one for you? My central locking also makes a weird squeak / moan from the back on unlocking for some reason.
The airbag light flashing I'll have to look up - I'm sure I have seen it on the forum somewhere but can't remember what it means. Maybe it's an airbag fault? You never know though - the 'Hold' light is used to indicate loads of different faults for example. "
Im afraid Im not engine savvy and dont know how bad this is but we are desperate to get away in her as you can imagine!!
Not quite what we envisaged for our long awaited dream!
. Belts? or just that the seats aren't tightened down properly & you're hearing more than you should? Check the seat clips are tight to fasten down, if they are slack at all, then bend em a bit more to tighten them (a wee tap or 3 with a hammer