We’ll it’s been a right royal PITA so far as we have been trying to buy a new Eriba Feeling. Of all the dealerships, all but 1 refused to order one for us. The remaining 1 has been ok but it’s been a drawn out process (not their fault) but today some further details from them. We had always agreed that a larger deposit would be required but today it was confirmed that we can reserve a build slot for a deposit of £2000 with no details of the date just sometime next year. Then to confirm the build I would need to pay 50% of the purchase price when I confirm my specification. As it stands, there is no confirmation of prices, just that they’ve gone up, no confirmation of the spec or options and to be clear, this is not the fault of the dealer, they are trying to be helpful. All of this with a company 5 hours drive away that I’ve never visited so everything is by phone and email.
We’re now not sure, how safe is my money? What if the dealer goes bust? Is the deposit unreasonable and do I really want them to have £14k for at least 6 months if not a year?
I think I need a lie down…

No way I would ever consider that deal. I want to see it in front of me before parting with any money. I'd find a different hobby first !

Is that same dealer imposing similar terms on factory order Touring range vans? I can't think that a Feeling range order should be any different. The only justification can be that they feel that there's a possibility you won't complete on the deal and they'll be left with a hard to sell model, whereas a factory order Touring might be easy to sell. Red Lion certainly seem to be finding difficult to move their 2022 Feeling stock on and Feelings traditionally haven't sold too well in the UK>.

Hi, I owned a 2010 Feeling 390 which i believe is discontinued now. It had a rear kitchen and front seating/ bed conversion. We wanted a fixed bed in a Feeling but we were offered such a good trade in against a new Touring 535 that was in stock at ALV we took the decision to change. I have not, thankfully, noticed any of the build quality problems with the Touring that have been expressed but I do feel that the 2010 Feeling was on par if not slightly more “solid” than the current Touring.
Ours was a 2010 model and a large part of the internals were directly taken from the Hymer Nova range,(we owned one previous to the Feeling)
The new Feeling now seems to be more akin to the Hymer Nova Light, with the roof chopped off ! And I feel perceived build quality has dropped slightly because of this.
David

The original range of Novas were much heavier vans and I'd say for a similar size to the equivalent Nova Light you're talking about a 1300kg versus a 1500kg one. The difference in material to achieve such a weight reduction makes all the difference in perceived quality.