danbury or downunder - that is the question!

Hi all

As you can tell from my username - we're new to this and look forward to living the dream! I've read blogs, researched sites, posted messages and would really appreciate your views on these two companies. We want to purchase a Brazilian but have come across quite negative comments (overall) about Danbury and not that many (at all) about Downunder. Is it Danvury's size of operation which is leading to disgruntled customers and poor service and would we be better served going to Downunder which appears to have better feedback from past buyers? Does Downunder provide all the extras that Danbury's seems to. And are the relic/ tourer from Downunder the 'same but different' versions of the Danbury Braz Bay family? Sorry for the torrent of questions but any first hand experiences would be gratefully received (esp. about Downunder).

Great site and am happy to have found it!

Hey - welcome - you should be able to get exactly the right kind of information you are looking for from members here.

Danbury Motorcaravans are as you have suggested the larger player in the field of supplying a Brazilian Kombi to the UK market. Formed from the collaboration of Beetles-Uk and Danbury they have been supplying Kombis in the UK for a number of years now. VW Downunder is a much smaller operation - and with that you naturally get a more personal experience.

With regard to the negativity towards Danbury it's important to bare in mind that the company is not a Volkswagen franchise - it is effectively a cottage industry that happens to deal in a product that is produced for a market in another country. It is unrealistic to expect Danbury to offer the level of service that you would from a franchised dealership. That said, given the money you are spending, you should expect a quality product. Over the years that Danbury have been importing, converting and marketing the Brazilian Kombi in the UK, their procedures have evolved. In the same way that a mainstream manufacturer reserves the right to make changes to a product over time, Danbury's initial conversions are different to the ones they do today. It's perfectly possible that if Downunder had supplied a similar number of Kombis over the years that somewhere along the line, they'd have had a disgruntled customer or two.

I bought my van second hand. It fitted the spec I was looking for and just happened to be a Danbury supplied Bay. It could just as easily have been one supplied by Downunder. I think you need to see and try examples from both before proceeding. Don't forget you rarely hear people shouting about how much they love their vans (except on this website!) as opposed to those who have something to moan about. For every one person complaining you probably have 10 who are content, but you just don't hear them say so.

Got mine brand new from Danbury back in Feb. Had the basic Amigo interior fitted, also the pop top, RHD convertion and a few other things. Don't have a problem with any of the work carried out by them, they've done a good job.
The only thing I would say is they're expensive. If you don't mind getting your hands dirty and want to do the interior yourself you can save a lot of money.
If I do it again I will buy the basic shell and do the rest of the work myself, just get them to do big big jobs like fitting the roof and RHD convertion.
It's also a balls ache to get it serviced by them. £300 with VAT plus fuel if you live far away and a day off work, my first 6 weekly cost over £400 in total and I had to take it back as they didn't fix my paint problem the first time. It's been dealt with now and they have done a good job, plus found out how it happened and have fixed that as well
I think it's right in what Tim says though, they have a lot of experience behind them and there is some piece of mind that comes with that. I know I have had one issue with them but it was dealt with and have no other problems.

Hi - At the end of the day I think it all boils down to personal preference and convenience for you.

For us, yes we had heard and read all the bad stories about Danbury, although this did concern us it didn't really effect our final decision.

The plus points for Danbury for us were:

• 3 year warranty

• The quality of the cabinets looked good. ( I think it's veneered plywood)

The negative points were:

• In order to maintain the 3 year warranty you had to bring the van back to Bristol for all it's servicing. Living in Brighton this was to far to go and inconvenient, and what we could have saved in petrol going back and forth to Bristol for 3 years would have probably paid for any work that might have needed doing anyway.

• Location

The plus point for Downunder (again for us) were:

• We liked the interior finish and head lining of Paul's buses

• We preferred the westy style roof conversion that Downunder offer

• Location - Essex is a lot closer to Brighton than Bristol

The negative points were:

• Downunder only offer a 1 year warranty. But what we could save in petrol money and time kind of cancelled this out.

At the end of the day you really need to visit both company's so you can compare their vans and the optional extras they offer, although when we bought our van these were more or less the same. But ultimately in the end you will be getting the same van just with a different finish.

As you can probably guess in the end we got our van from Downunder and have been very pleased with it and had no real issues. The only negative experience we had was that our van took a lot longer to be completed than first originally told. This was mainly down to the fact that the design and manufacturing of the pop top was not complete when we ordered our van.


One thing I would say though is that if you do go with Danbury don't get carried away with all the options available, as some of these can be purchased at a fraction of the price else were and can be easily fitted yourself. One example being a set of jail bars cost £199 from Danbury and only £50 for just kampers.

Hello and welcome.
We own a Danbury, and love it. Yes they are expensive, yes its a pain getting it serviced in Bristol, yes the quality could be better for the amount you are spending, but we are happy with it.
If and when we ever buy another new van, i would seriously consider buying an empty van, have the right hand drive converstion and direct drive done at source, and then do the rest of the conversion myself.
Before you decide, you do need to visit both and see for yourself what they offer.

Thanks to all of you for your advice - what a lovely community! It's been really useful to have your opinions and I think we need to just take our time, skulk around various VW sites, do loads more research before diving in. You've all given me so much to think about, it's made the decision making a bit more complicated but well worth it. I spoke to Paul at Downunder today who was helpful but said they'd run out of stock until September And surprise surprise my husband called Danbury again and was told by the guy that a yellow 'stick-it' note with my name on it was in front of his computer and that he'd get back to us in the next day or so with stock details! I am hopeful!
I'd never thought about getting a stripped back version and kitting it out myself - don't think I'm brave enough, but thanks Den and jboa for your suggestions of where to go buy/ get kit cheaper - I'll take a look.

Boy, this is a big journey (and we don't even have one yet!) but an exciting one nonetheless.

Have a great evening!

Hi, I think I'm right in saying that I bought the first Brazilian bay that Paul, from Downunder sold. What can I say, well it took a very long time to get all the stuff done to it that I had done, but that wasn't Paul's fault. It took O'Connors forever to make the pop top roof. I don't think too much of the finish from O'Conners, would love to see what Paul's are like to compare. Again I think it was their first Brazilian too. But what a job Paul did. Love everything that he did and Paul always kept me up to date with how it was all going with lots of emails and pic's along the way. I really felt like I made a good friend with Paul and am very happy with everything that he did. Good luck with your choice.

Kaz
x

Thanks Denni

Why btw are air-cooled preferred over water-cooled?

Hi Denni - Officially, 3 inches, er um cough, cough..... but it was probably more like 6! I can't remember exactly what Paul did, although I do know that some men have a problem with measurements!! :#

Kaz
x

Hi,
We ordered our bus from Danbury in May 2006 and collected her in Sept. We had lots of optional extras but decided against RHD conversion as we had heard of the odd possible problem with the conversion and weren't that bothered about it anyway. We have been totally happy with the product and have had no problems at all since the day we collected her.

But quickly came to realise that a lot of the extras that Danbury supply are for sale at a fraction of the cost elsewhere. We wanted to put nice alloys on and found similar ones to Danburys at Midland wheels for half the price. We asked if we could supply our own wheels and were told by Danbury that the quality of Midland wheels wasn't great compared to Danburys so we decided to stick with the Danbury ones. Imagine our surprise when we removed one of our wheels sometime later to discover that they were actually Midland wheels!!!
We did feel that once they had our money they were no longer interested in us as cutomers. We had three services done and decided that we would rather pay our local VW specialist quarter the amount and waive the warranty - especially as our friends had a gear box failure which turned out not to be covered anyway!!

I have recently emailed Jason to enquire about RHD conversion but he never got back to me! VW downunder did!

Once again I can't stress how pleased we were with our bus but if you decide to buy through Danbury I would check and double check that you cant get some of the extras cheaper elsewhere. All of the people that we have spoken to with Danbury buses have been really pleased with their buses but don't have a good word to say about the service Danbury provide.

Den, do you know with absolute certainty that Danbury buy their roof racks from Just Kampers? Unless you know that is fact you need to edit your above post.

TimV wrote:

Den, do you know with absolute certainty that Danbury buy their roof racks from Just Kampers? Unless you know that is fact you need to edit your above post.

Tim, I think Billyelaine's quote on their Midland wheels says it all and confirms what we all believe about the majority of the comments about Danbury. If Denni says it fact then so be it, this is what the forum is about afterall, free speech and a great tool for knowledge on our vans and for future Brazilian owners. If people are happy to go to Danbury and believe what they are being told then it is their choice. Just remember that we are talking about buying a vehicle and for generations car salesmen (sorry salespersons) have been notorious for saying whatever the customer wants to hear to get a sale.....remember Swiss Tony? Or the fantastic scene in Only Fools and Horses when Del Boy tries to sell a secondhand Mark 2 Cortina with the 1 speed wiper!!!

Olive, I agree with what you say and yes this forum is independent so that such discussions may be had.

However this is a public forum and therefore we have the ability - albeit subconsciously - to affect public perception. If something negative is written about an individual/organisation that has the potential of defaming, it needs to be fact and not speculation.

Hi All - Sounds like hate mail again Denni...Just to clear things up (again as we've discussed this many times now) . Our standard size roof rack is NOT sold or made by Just Kampers or anyone else. We produce this rack and are the only ones to do so. It is specially made for the higher Brazilian bay roof profile. The cost of this retail is £382 + vat including building it up and fitting. It is also powder coated to last with hard wood slats. Our new deluxe staniless steel larger roof rack is also not produced or sold by Heritage and costs £509 + vat, again including building it up and fitting. Both racks we believe are the best quality possible and we have sold many of both to happy owners. We don't want to have the cheapest roof racks - just what we believe is the best quality.

Also Denni's comment:

'At the end of the day you really need to visit both company's so you can compare their vans and the optional extras they offer, although when we bought our van these were more or less the same. But ultimately in the end you will be getting the same van just with a different finish'

This is not true. Danbury are the only official place in the UK to buy a new Brazilian bay VW from and our vehicles are specially made with a different specification and only sold to us direct from the factory (unlike the few cars Down Under brought in that were Brazilian home market vehicles! The VW factory will not supply anyone else with our Danbury official vehicles. In fact this is one reason no one else in the UK apart from Danbury has any stock!

Please bear in mind that we are not the cheapest (and yes we are here to make money as any business MUST!) and have sold 1000's of vehicles over the years to many many happy customers. We have also invested millions of pounds into new service/workshop premises and have over 40 staff trying their best to help everyone. Yes sometimes we get it wrong but we also get it right most of the time and have in fact spent many £1000's of our own money helping out with VW warranty claims that VW would not pay! Danbury are here to stay and are the biggest VW van converter in the UK. This has only been possible by the support of many happy customers and a lot of hard work! Support any long term business needs!

Billyeleine: You say you e mailed me about a RHD conversion: I can confirm I have not had an e mail from you. Anyone is free to e mail me at : beetlesukltd@yahoo.co.uk and I will try my best to help you. I cant promise I can or that it will be the answer you want to hear - but we will do our best!

The people that criticise us here want to take all the good bits from Danbury (a UK spec 2010 model vehicle, rack and pinion steering, 3 year warranty etc) but not pay us a profit on fitting options...........A business with 40 staff that also supports 100's of other jobs at various suppliers must make money....Luckily we have full order books and many happy customers or the Brazilian bay would not be on the road in such numbers and in fact this web site would probably not even exist! We also have no stock supply issues as VW are happy to supply us and only us the vehicles.

No doubt we will see some negative replies to this as Denni and some others love to have a go at anything we do but freedom of speech works both ways and luckily we are able to have our say aswell :-)

Support works both ways in any community and we will soon arrange an open weekend with some fantastic special offers on parts, free advise, b b q, power steering test drives and updates. Anyone interested should e mail: beetlesukltd@yahoo.co.uk to regsiter and we will send you details on when this will be. All the best

It's a shame that despite being a registered member since the early days of this forum, we've never had a post from Downunder.

Hi Den - I know the JK boss very well so let me know who you spoke to and I'll discuss it with him directly....Although the fact still remains our new roof racks are not sold or made by them and dont worry I dont take it personally. As discussed above please feel free to PM or e mail me if you need any help that Danbury can offer and I will deal direct with you so you recieve top class service and if I can offer any discount of something you want or need then I'll do my best mate. Jason

Did you just use the word DISCOUNT Jason!!!!??

Surely what you meant was a discount to all registered members of Brazilian VW Bay.com??

That would be a very generous offer.

Hi Jason

You miss quoted Denni

jj123vw wrote:

Also Denni's comment:

'At the end of the day you really need to visit both company's so you can compare their vans and the optional extras they offer, although when we bought our van these were more or less the same. But ultimately in the end you will be getting the same van just with a different finish'

Those were my comments

The bottom line hear is that whether or not people choose to believe any of the comments posted hear or else were about parts or optional extras that you offer be it roof racks jail bars,wheels or whatever. The fact is that many of these parts can be purchased a lot cheaper else were, whether they're made by the same manufacture or not is irrelevant. Many people purchase these parts and accessories for their vans Brazilian or German.

I believe that people looking to purchase a Brazilian bay should be aware of this, whether or not they purchase their van from Danbury, Downunder, ebay or wherever.

There are many option available to the buyer if they just do a little research and just don't take every thing Danbury say as gospel. There are other company's out there that offer interiors, roof conversion, lowering, RHD conversions etc...

I understand that using any other company will invalidate the warranty, but if you live hundreds of mile away from Bristol the warranty is not actually worth much anyway.

I'm not having a go at Danbury but believe that people should be aware that there are alternatives out there.

TimV wrote:

Did you just use the word DISCOUNT Jason!!!!??

Surely what you meant was a discount to all registered members of Brazilian VW Bay.com??

That would be a very generous offer.

Yeah I'll have some of that if it's going for free. I'm still looking at that side step but not at £300.

Julian

I would just like to add to what Jason said earlier - we are in avery different position to everyone else on the site in that we live in Belgium "doh". We did not buy our van from Danbury not because we had read any bad press as there were no forums at the time but becasue snailtrail were offering a conerted danbury minibus van with pete o'connors westy style roof and a full fit vanwurks interior - which is now the down under standards - interior made no difference but the westy style did. Also Danbury did not have any used watercooled at the time of the spec we wanted. To be honest we have been disappointed with many aspects of the interior and especially some of the construction and lack of rust proofing in te roof since. This may have been rectified in downunder vehicle I do not know. But that has never bothered me as Daphne our van is a project as well and will eventually get a full vohringer custom interior.

All that said we have had occasion to contact Danbury for help each time both jason and Matt have been aware that our van was not fitted out by them and both have been exceedingly helpful. Last year we needed our van serviced by danbury when we were back in the UK to reregister it as a UK vehicle we also had a bad rattle in the exhaust.

As it turned out we had a hole in the cat. Admittedly the cost is not cheap but then Danbury did have one in stock heritage didn't and could not predict when they would.

The CAT going has nothing to do with danbury or even brazilian quality just the fact that any vehichle which is only used for part of the time and often sits for months with petrol residue in the exhaust will go through cats.

Cost wise for the full service carried out by Danbury compared to belgium the cost is not steep. In the UK you are spoiled by very cheap back street garages - trying to get a service in Belgium that does not include booking the car in 3 months in advance and paying around 1000 euros just for labour is almost unknown - honestly.

Matt especially has been really helpful and was willing to talk me through the lifter adjustment sequence twice over the phone.

Maybe Danbury do have faults but then they are in an unenviable position of being importer and franchise all in one go. VAG don't have the same problem they have a dealer network

Jason is right when he points out that without Danbury's investment then you (we) would not have Brazilian bays in Britain and they are entitled to make a profit.

We all have shocking service experiences sometimes - justkampers supposedly have a german sister business - they do not they just have a .de domain name as well as their normal one. The result overpriced and terrible delivery service to europe for a supposedly eurozone based business that is my experience but it is not everyones. VAG dealer in antwerp went the extra mile and sourced me a new digifant unit direct from brazil, any VAG dealer can but would they does that mean that VAG have crap service?

Also I can confirm that the JK roof racks and the Danbury are not the same - again given that we have to order to europe I am very anal about making sure that stuff fits so from what both JK and Danbury have told me abou dimensions over the phone then they are not the same - danbury might have used JK racks at some stage but then from memory many of their accessory prices also went up when they started openly advertising that stuff was made by them specifically - about 5 years ago this was not the case they just listed accessories.

I cant comment on the quality differences I often have to buy on recommendations but the flat4 which BTT4VW sells 6km from me does not fit and also JK state on their site that their own two bow does not fit Brazilians

Just my thoughts with no offense meant to anyone

Hi Jboa - I have to disagree: All things are not the same and quality does differ from each manufacturer and supplier. A Piaggio is not the same as a Ducati motorcycle. A Phillips TV is not the same as a B+O TV etc etc. Danbury only supply quality parts that are tried and tested and are covered by a warranty. We are also here to make money/profit as any business is. If you can convince vw to make and send us parts for free and do the same with the council rates, electricity, water, insurance, oil, waste disposal, recycling, H+S, NI and offcourse wages then its a different story...Most of our customers buy from us as its a 'one stop shop' and we fit all their requests under one roof. 90% of our customers also enjoy the same day servicing, free brand new loan cars and a heavily stocked parts department we provide. We even have customers that come from as far away as Scotland, France and all over the UK and benefit from 3 years warranty. I like the idea of a parts discount for all club members aswell Tim. As I said in the last message anyone interested in a open day event at Danbury with a free bbq and parts discounts, advise and offers...just e mail me your details to : beetlesukltd@yahoo.co.uk and I'll advise you when its all planned. A great way of Danbury supporting everyone and hopefully having some support back :-)

Hello All

My experiences so far with Danbury have been very good, our van had its first service in January this year, during which Danbury replaced the complete elevating roof. The fabric had a hole in it from day one. There was no fuss and we were dealt with very nicely thank you very much.

We have not had a need to buy spare parts yet but i have no doubts that Danbury will be able to supply what we needed. (By the way, do Danbury supply a locking fuel cap for the small tank?)

No one gets it right every time, i am sure that all suppliers of the Brazilian are making every effort to provide what the customers want. We all learn from our experiences, good or bad. The choice is with us the customers, we should be promoting the vehicles and the services of who ever else is looking after our vehicles (be this Danbury or JK or who ever).

i am looking forward to the Danbury open day (and discount offered!)

all the best

Dave

Wow...wot a post! Almost as heated as my firewall one! BTW - Jason, any answer on why the firewall was not fitted to the aircooled? I am really interested in that one.

Well, I would like to be neutral. Matt was very helpful to me too - so well done Danbury for the free advice, and taking the time to help me - that's much appreciated.

And I understand that Danbury has to make money - and so there is profit margin on parts, and labour has to cover more overheads than the back street garage.

I have spoken to Paul at Downunder, and he loves to run down the opposition. He criticised both O'Connors and Danbury to me, saying both did a far a inferior job to him. Well, he would say that, wouldn't he.

I have issues with the quality of some aspects of my van - right from poor paint and factory fittings from Brazil, to crappy wiring from Danbury, to poor finishes from o'Connors. No one has met my expectations.....but I still love the van. Would I spend money with Danbury? Yes, if they have the parts I need. Would I go back to O'Connors? Well, they have offered to rectify a fault I emailed them about. Can I argue with Brazil about the lack of firewall and shockingly poor gearbox? No....I can't. Would I buy another T2...YES!!!!

I agree dartmoor