It is almost exactly a year since I was having a chat with Paul - the service manager at AL.
It went along the lines that nearly all my overhead locker doors had split on the hinge fixings.
Also the bottom rail where the hinge mounts fit had also split. No problem - agreed to postpone repair till April at service.
Fast forward to April '19 - left van for a couple of days.
On collection Paul showed me what had been done in terms of bonding a 2mm thick aluminium rail to the bottom front
of the cupboard to reinforce it. Sadly Hymer had sent the wrong colour doors.
New doors ordered and went back in May.
Toddled off for the morning and got a call from Paul later - new doors are the wrong size.

Time passed.

While time was passing I had a long hard look at the way 2 of my old doors which had been re-fitted were working.
One was very stiff to open and I could feel the hinge moving around the head of the screw into the mounting rail with the aluminium strip.
My instinct was that it would only be a matter of time before it pulled something out again.
Looking harder I realised that the new larger screws being used to secure the hinge to the door were causing the roll of the hinge to pull up tight against the door, thus restricting movement.

Returned to AL when new doors had arrived and left van having mentioned concerns re the hinge roll and stiffness.

Went back a few days later to collect - sadly the doors were all stiff and I was really concerned about the long term issues surrounding this.

Paul brought in Cameron and we huddled inside the van during a downpour talking it over.

Cameron suggested piano hinges - seemed like a good idea. Paul went off to research and I went home.

Several days later Paul called to say it was all fixed and ready to go.

In more detail what they had done was to try a couple of piano hinge options and found one that fits perfectly.
This also involved carefully removing all the epoxied aluminium strips which in itself was no mean feat.
Paul did mention that there had been a couple of places where the surface coating of the hinge area had been lost as a result, but they had waxed in to match.
OK, yes if you look you can find it, but it is only when the door is open on a couple of cupboards and TBH I already just don't see it.

In addition Steve, the man who is good with wood, had noticed that the larger screws into the doors did cause a slight bulge - you can see it with very oblique light on the surface of the door. So, during the fitting of the piano hinges the doors were clamped while the screws were being fitted and glued in place. No bulges!

OK the catches still nick the top of the cupboard on the way in. I have identified the bad castings and dressed back the rough bits so that's sorted for now. Just have to develop different habits when closing the doors - i.e. lift the catch!

However, the hinges themselves just work - in fact they look right as well. The side fitting to the bottom rail provides reinforcement and there's no way the screws are going to pull out.

Paul did indicate that the may consider using piano hinges in future rather that the aluminium strip - so who knows?

If we're really lucky and the weather settles next week we may even get away in the van for the first time this year.

The point of all this pre-amble is simply to illustrate that, OK - things happen. However it is how those things are handled that makes the difference and in this case I think that praise where praise is due is important.

In this case - for sheer dogged determination to resolve a problem I think AL deserve the plaudit!

Thanks Colin - I hope so too!

Luckily the only other thing I have that works lose (in the van anyway) is the little glass shield next to the hob that always jumps in its mounting after a bumpy ride.

Fingers crossed!

Sorted the glass shield problem by cutting small pieces of inner tube rubber (free from local tyre depot) to go either side of glass in the fittings. This holds the glass firmly in place when the fixing screws are tightened. Made sure that the little fixing posts were fixed by super gluing.

Quite like the look of this piano hinge solution, any idea where these are available from?

Sad this hinge problem was left to develop, it was shown up very early, my 420GT had one door fall open during our first trip out, I noted the one door above the kitchen area had a plastic retaining strap, I rang AL asking if they were available, they were in packs of 10 for very little cost. I bought and fitted them removed all the hinge screws and refitted them with a little 2 part adhesive, no more problems.