The brakes on the motorhome stopped working - what should we do?

Writer: Helena Bergström

The brakes of the motorhome stopped working ...! It did not come completely suddenly, but a little stealthily, but while we were looking for a workshop, it suddenly became ... urgent! We stopped along a road and felt that, now it is no longer possible ...

The problem already started in Corsica

The first time we remember experiencing problems with the brakes was in Corsica. Well, we didn't have problems then, but we started to notice a faint noise from the brakes that didn't sound quite optimal. It is very steep to drive a motorhome in Corsica and we experienced a few incidents where it felt like we were going to "stuck" with the motorhome, because it was steep and crowded at the same time.

The search for a workshop

In Sardinia, the problem escalated - the brakes sounded worse and worse - and Peter spent a lot of time looking for and emailing different workshops to book an appointment. He translated his emails into Italian, but we still didn't get a reply.

When we arrived in the main town, Cagliari, it happened to be a special holiday, and then a weekend. So no point in looking for workshops. We decided to wait until we reached the Italian mainland.

Suddenly the problem is acute - the brakes on the motorhome have stopped working!

We went to the campsite in Pompeii, Camping Spartacuswithout major problems, but when we were leaving it was really Bad. A loud screeching sound began to be heard constantly, as if the brakes refused to release. Whenever Peter tried to brake, it felt like everything was going to collapse completely.

Hot traffic of course, steep slopes and people everywhere ... Peter tried to motor brake or brake with the handbrake, but no, this was not possible. It's dangerous to drive if you can't brake.

We stopped at the side of a road and thought, what do we do now? It was Friday and some kind of workshop was a few hundred metres away. We rolled over, carefully, carefully ... Oh no, it was closed! We asked at a tyre changing place just next door and they replied "Lunedi" (Monday). Ok, what should we do now ...?

How should we solve this?

We felt we could not drive on and considered staying in the small car park outside the workshop until Monday. However, it was not a fun solution. We would be standing in blazing sunshine, right next to people's houses and we had no idea if the garage would be able to accommodate us. (Their garage doors were too low for our motorhome though, so the odds weren't in our favour).

I checked the "Park4Night" app and found a small campsite 2.5 kilometres away. Would we be able to wait there for three days, and at the same time get help from the campsite to book a workshop? Peter hardly dared to drive to the campsite, so we decided to walk there first - to check any steep descents and make sure there was actually room.

We walked along all the rubbish (as is unfortunately the case in Naples and beyond!) and suddenly an Iveco shop appeared! "Maybe we should ask them for advice?", thought Peter.

We took a chance and one of the guys in the shop spoke really good English. He offered to call around to workshops (so oh how grateful we were for this!) and one of the workshops said yes! Yay!!!

A workshop takes delivery!

The workshop Car. Tom. is in Scafati outside Naples, about 3 kilometres from where we parked our motorhome. Never three kilometres felt so long! Peter tried to sneak up on us, while he applied the engine brakes and handbrakes. Everywhere, people wanted to walk or drive out right in front of us. A huge lorry accelerated towards us so fast that we had to drive onto a pavement to get away.

But finally it appeared, the sign with "Car. Tom." and we promise it was welcome! The owner waved our huge car into his tiny workshop, shone his torch under the car and announced via his young Moroccan assistant (who spoke Arabic, French, Italian and English) that we could come back and collect the car at 8pm. Fantastic!

A day in Scafati waiting for the motorhome

The owner of the workshop told us, through an interpreter, that we could take a train to visit Pompeii while we waited. But we had already visited Pompeii and we weren't excited about the sights either. We just wanted our motorhome FREEDOM back! We simply spent the day, from 12:00 to 20:00 in the municipality of Scafati. We started with a pizza and a beer at a local hangout.

The fact that it was a baked pizza was not planned, but it worked out. 6 euros for a pizza and 3.5 euros for a 6 cl bottle of beer can not be complained about either. Prices are much more modest when you get outside the tourist areas!

What would we do for the rest of the day? I googled a bit and saw that there is a park in Scafati. So that's what we did! On the walk to the park we got to see a bit of the town on the way. Tourism in a non-touristy place so to speak.

The park in Scafati turned out to be really nice, with lots of tall palm trees and other lovely intense green trees. We each lay down on a bench and dozed for a while (we are sleeping hard these days!) and then we sat and worked for a while on our computers.

The motorhome has new brakes ... and we can drive on!

When we came back at 8pm, the motorhome was ready and the owner was eager to show the brake discs. Extremely worn out! Both brake discs were now replaced as well as all brake pads. So nice!

The price? We were owed €500, which we were happy to pay. It meant a lot to us to be able to run FREEDOM again, without any problems. What's more, it was great that we got help right away on Friday!

When we drove out of the workshop, the city was getting dark and we don't like driving in Italy in the dark. Therefore, we had to find the first best "Park4Night" parking, which was a large car park next to a sports arena. Here it was noisy all night, from both ball kicking and partying, but we still slept quite well. All's well that ends well, so to speak!

The next morning we woke up early and left before 08, when the free parking is converted into a paid parking. The streets were broken and potholed as always in this part of Italy, but we had working brakes, and we were so happy!

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