Bailey Caravans Are They Any Better Than The Rest

Bailey caravans was started in 1947 by Martin Bailey who built and sold a caravan he built in his garage for two hundred pounds. In 1948 Martin registered F G Bailey Ltd and the business started production from there.

The company grew and it soon became obvious that the Bed minister Road site had become inadequate for the company and its future growth. So in the fifties a decision was made to move to a new location at South Liberty Lane Bristol where they remain until today.

New Owners

Bailey caravans was sold in 1977 to Patrick and Stephen Howard. The Howard family still own the company which is why they remain so dynamic and flexible and willing to change when it is necessary.

As a result of this being a family business the quality of each caravan is much greater than a publically owned company. If it was publically owned they would be forced to please shareholders and investors in the company.

This makes Bailey unique in a world of large publically owned conglomerates. These conglomerates buy up a bargain when the time is right. By doing this it improves their bottom line, share price and dividends if they indeed pay them..  

Innovation

Bailey caravans are innovators as well who have come up with a patented body design which is unique in the industry. It uses a laminated system that employs no timber in its laminated process.

The Alu-Tech Body shell was introduced in 2009. This design used aluminum, plastic framing and plastic composite insulation. These materials would not swell or rot if they got wet which is a step up from the older laminated wood frame and wood backed fiberglass.

This would swell after it got wet rot and delaminate. With this method the wall could be wet without affecting the integrity of the wall itself. This Ali-Tech system has not passed the test of time yet so it is to early to tell whether it is any better than the other laminated walls out there.

Bailey Caravans available from Great Britain:

• Pursuit (six models)

• Pegasus (six models)

• Unicorn (ten models)

bailey caravans from Australia:

• Coastal(four models)

• Rangefinder(eight models)

• Unicorn Pamplona

A total of twenty two models of caravans are manufactured at the Bailey Plant in Bristol England. The Rangefinder models are manufactured in Australia to supply the Australian and New Zealand markets.

warranty

The other thing I like about Bailey caravans is their guarantees on their caravans. The Ali-Tech body shell is six years with an additional four years as an option making up a total of ten years on body shell.

The other warranty is with the components of their caravans with a three manufacturers warranty with an additional three years extended warranty making a total of six years on the components.

All this is transferable to the next owner if sold before it expires This is an example of a company who stands by its products and is not seen with other manufacturers. 

This is all very fine but the warranty is only any good if the caravan has been serviced yearly by a Bailey dealer. In some cases when the water ingress is bad they will not honour the guarantee so this is another example of a company playing games.

Mind you the warranty is limited so they decide how much they will put back into it. It would seem to me that reputation does not mean much as long as you can use tricks to sell caravans and then not honour the promises made after the sale is made. it is my hope that what I have read are isolated cases only.

Bailey has really tried to look after their customers but when things break down they become the sames any other company in this business.  If they replaced an unfixable caravan with a new one this would be going above and beyond but you just don't see this happen.

What you will typically see is customers being told it their problem not the companies. If this happens to you feel let down by the company you thought you could trust.

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