After initially telling customers that the transmission vibrations experienced by the Fiat Ducato / Peugeot Boxer were a ‘characteristic’ of the vehicle, and not a fault, Peugeot have finally admitted that the gear ratio used in the Boxer is too high for a Motorhome application.

The Caravan Club, MMM, a number of journalists and of course Motorhome owners with the problem have been badgering Fiat and Peugeot to get a resolution for a long time and I’ve written a number of posts on this subject.

The Caravan Club in their July 2009 magazine have issued a letter from Andy Stothert on this subject and I thought I’d post some of the key points.  Andy writes for MMM, has a book published called ‘Cool Camping’, he writes articles for the Caravan Club magazine and is a professional photographer.  You can see some examples of his photography work if you click here.

• During the last couple of months Fiat and Peugeot have been attempting to rectify the defect in initially very different ways, but both have now embarked on a programme to install a lower ratio reverse gear into the existing gearbox.

• This will prevent the affected Motorhomes from reversing up an incline at a dangerous speed.

• Andy has appealed for and owners with a satisfactory outcome to contact him but to date he has only had tales of dissatisfaction and frustration.

• Fiat now say that they cannot do any more than they have and Peugeot have said that they can only improve the situation, there is no cure.

• Unfortunately these chassis are still being supplied by Fiat and Peugeot for conversion so the risk of further problems on new vans is still there.

This issue will undoubtedly go on and on and although my Autocruise Starseeker has a Peugeot chassis I have never experienced this problem.  Mind you I have a 3.0l engine so I’m not sure if these have the same problem.

Many thanks to Andy and the other journalists for persevering with trying to get an answer to this and I only hope that they eventually succeed.