While we were getting ready for New Years Eve, I couldn’t help but notice and amazing retro looking Mercedes based motorhome on the other side of the park.
It was built in Germany as a Micro Supreme branded Motorhome.
Brian, Kim and their daughter Maddie and the Mercedes.
Owned by Brian and Kim from Auckland, they bought this two years or so ago and it became Brian’s project do up. The Mercedes D307’s are really popular in Europe as delivery, courier vans and small trucks and enjoy a great reputation as reliable runners and Brian was saying, he has no problem getting parts for it. All he has done mechanically was put in a bigger radiator which is apparently a must do for motorhoming. It also has a real “unimog” look to the front of it which I think reveals its Mercedes truck DNA.
The retro paint job
The Tv station iutside
Inside, well all I can say is what a great job they’ve done. New toilet and shower area and a new galley area. The minute you walk in, you get this amazing feeling of big volume. Brian has done amazing things with a TV/ sound station including a server for movies, a wifi router and a pop out Tv station in the awning area.
InsideThe Galley
A great achievement by them both, a nice van and although at 1988 it is not really that old, the improvements that they made are amazing and it was nice to see them enjoying Sullivan’s Bay in the sun with friends and family.
Every now and then a good product can fail which can be simply bad luck. We get it repaired and life goes on. When things like a fridge fails to work or fails to be useable, there are consequences like food going off or a cancelled trip. When there is a failure due to a silly design fault which lead to these consequences, there is plenty of room for an end user to be a bit miffed.
Rafe at Uretiti Doc park this weekend
About a year ago, I was chatting to a neighbour at Uretiti DOC campground in Waipu. He had a New Euro Motorhome with the same fridge as ours and was showing me how his door lock mechanism had failed so he couldn’t open his fridge door. He ended up taking out the decorative panelling off the front so he could get to a shaft to open his door with a pair of pliers! The shaft had failed when two bits of coat hanger like wire, end on end had slipped past each other rendering the door mechanism useless. There was no proper joining shroud to keep the two bits of wire lined up. He’d gone to some trouble to show me how to get at this shaft and seemed fairly convinced, I was going to be next. This thankfully, hasn’t happened yet but I was very appreciative for the efforts he went to so I knew how to deal with it. My memory from this was how Micky Mouse, the whole setup was for a supposedly quality fridge that was more expensive than my fridge at home.
Friday night was looking good to get away up north for a few days. We’d both just finished work and decided to stop at the Silverdale Roadside Cafe and BP station for some diesel and food.
We’d just got going when the fridge starting beeping with a light flashing as well. It beeped for 30 seconds every 2.5 minutes. It was driving us nuts and we knew we’d never be able to sleep with it like this. At the truck stop, we turned off the fridge while we had tea and got some fuel as it seemed to keeping stuff cold, just making a racket!
After tea, reading through the “book” gave error messages for things like no gas, no power and talked about other buttons beeping with the alarm but nothing for this error. It did talk about having a “door open” alarm and the “light on in the fridge” alarm. That’s what it had to be as the fridge was still working perfectly.
In the meantime, we had a fridge full of food and didn’t know how to fix it.
Our fridge. If you have a fridge like this and it beeps at you, you’ll know how to deal with it!
We decided we’d go home, rescue the food and try again Saturday morning if we could find a fix.
Isn’t Google great for this… “Why is my fridge beeping” gave me a list of answers from several caravan sites and they all mentioned two fridges, ours being one of them. The fridge, can’t remember the model number now but it’s definitely the same as our one and they’re in all the newer bigger motorhomes and caravans.
Well, the nitty gritty of it is, they have a bad built in design fault or as some call this “an undocumented feature”! The led light is part of a printed circuit board inside the door catch assembly with an edge connector poking out the back into the fridge space.
Who is the fruit loop who thought putting an unprotected printed circuit board in a fridge was a good idea? Why not give it sealed plastic cover and some heat shrink and make it reliable?
The door catch with the cover onDoor catch with cover off with the cover on the shelf.
I could see by putting my finger in the door switch that the interior led light went off but still had a faint glow so the door switch must be short circuiting by moisture. This was mentioned on various sites as well.
The fridge catch with the cover off. Note the unprotected wires at the back
The recommended fixes from the Internet: pull the door catch cover off, wipe the plug surfaces dry and reconnect, reset fridge.. This didn’t work. Next step, disassemble again and disable the light by pulling the plug off. Yippee, success, but no light but at least the bloody fridge was quiet, works efficiently and we could sleep without the damn thing beeping all night!
So we shifted all the frozen and perishable foods, cheese and wine etc back into Rafe and we finally got away at 10am. It seems I’ll have to get a new door micro switch.
This is a wee bit off topic, more about boats than Motorhomes but I’m so disappointed in our brain dead elected council people to let this go ahead. Read on.
Years ago, there was a huge footbridge with steps that went from the northern end of Milford beach and climbed up into the cliff to join a track to go to Inga / Beach Rd. Over the years, the bridge fell into a state of disrepair and in the late 60’s -early 70’s was deemed unsafe and demolished with a promise from the council that it would be replaced at a future date.
Time marched on and the Milford Mariners Society and Milford Cruising club members developed the marina to where it is today with about 200 boats with jettys, power and water.
Along came a few people from Castor Bay who couldn’t be bothered walking around the marina to get to the beach and had the council drag out the “promise” to renew the bridge.
This “replacement” is a mechanical bridge which they intend to operate remotely which is very different from what was there and with all the best intentions, will break down. When it does, it will become a safety issue, not to mention the costs in running it.
The bridge
Anyway, how it works – Boaties are supposed to radio in to Viaduct Harbour to have the bridge opened when they want to leave or enter the creek. There will be alarms to “warn” people off the bridge which will be heard all around the Milford basin.
Most mariners will tell you that Milford creek is a nightmare to enter in anything from an easterly quarter in more that 15 -20 odd knots with the swell. If the bridge fails to open, there would be mayhem with boats up each others chuff in the corner of the entrance with nowhere to go.
I’ve entered the channel several times in Rorqual when it has been quite rough after a holiday weekend or two and once you’re committed to enter, there is no turning back. It is simply too narrow with rocks on both sides with the swell coming from behind. This makes it incredibly hard to steer until you get well into the creek. It is a safety issue which I think the council has largely ignored.
Map from Google Earth showing the layout
I understand the cost before construction started was already at $1m with talkfests and surveys. I reckon it’ll be at least $2-3 m before its finished.. all for a few people to walk to the beach.
A digger in the water preparing the bridge
We hear them say.. “ it won’t fail”. Those in Viaduct harbour will tell you about their bridge that “wouldn’t fail” that has failed regularly since it was installed which is why we are hearing talk about it being replaced.
Bridge in relation to the boats
Anyway .. as you can see, it is being built.
Looking down from Beach road towards the Cruising club. The poles for the safety pontoon.
As a safety measure, they are constructing a pontoon which will require ongoing dredging (cost) just outside the bridge. On a busy holiday weekend with returning boats, this will be totally inadequate as it will only be big enough to hold about 4 vessels.
News Flash : A wee birdie tells me that the folk who open the bridge at Viaduct Harbour won’t work the Milford bridge as they have enough trouble getting folk off the Viaduct bridge before opening, let alone try to do Milford remotely.. What now ?
Fiona & Chris, two empty nesters put their dreams of doing something different into reality… Now back in a house, they were living in their Motorhome, come along for the ride.
Bugger It, we are off - www.buggeritweareoff.com 
You must be logged in to post a comment.