pug expert/fiat ducato/citroen dispatch
long enough to sleep in, easy to get bikes in and out. like mine. 🙂

Are you intending to go abroad, if so watch buying a van

oh – the pug also fits in car parking spaces so cheaper on the ferry i am told

Now looking at berlingo type mpv’s instead of vans.

I have a 12 mth old trafic, its my second one. Bed built inside it, with storage underneath, sleeps two of us with the bikes inside for security when necessary and have a drive away awning for when a campsite is an option. Did 2 weeks in the alps last year and the year before and 2 weeks surfing in Portugal the year before-different vans obv! A mate has an older one with a similar setup (a 53 plate I think) which was about £2500. He made the same trip last year and he was fine. The year before he did it in a Passat estate that cost about £3500 and the engine blew up. My point is a) Trafics are a good van option and b) anything “used” carries a risk of letting you down.

My old transit was bought for around 1k, home converted for another few hundred and took me on a 2500m euro trip, aviemore and a bunch of other domestic trips… tempted to do it again but may just get a caravan…

Dales_rider – Member

Are you intending to go abroad, if so watch buying a van

Can you explain this?

composite – Member

Dales_rider – Member

Are you intending to go abroad, if so watch buying a van

Can you explain this?
go on say P and O ferrys
look up the price for any crossing with a car, then change it to a van>
Report back your findings

Ahhh cost, I wondered what you were on about. 😀

go on say P and O ferrys
look up the price for any crossing with a car, then change it to a van>
Report back your findings

channel tunnel. van with no commercial goods ~£140 return.

Going on a euro trip next year and have £2000 to spend on an estate car or cheap van to transport myself and a mate, and with enough room for me to sleep in the back for a week.

A guy I was at school with had a similar plan when we left. He and a mate were going to the auctions to buy a van, service it, tour europe for the summer, service it again, and reasoning that they’d only have put a few thousand miles and it’ll only be a couple of months older, sell it again for the same price or even a profit if they were lucky.

They went to the auctions – and being giddy 17 / 18 years olds came back having spent more than their budget on a Triumph Spitfire convertible. So they toured Europe sleeping in it. 🙂

channel tunnel. van with no commercial goods ~£140 return.

With a transit sized van (something not longer than 5m ircc) you can book it on most ferrys as a car – I’ve even done so with commercial loads.

Hmmm so the journey I tried it for it went from £39 to £85 each way (I put in the dimensions of a T4). Although as a percentage sure that’s a good deal more expensive I don’t think that is actually makes it hugely more expensive when considering the cost of a whole trip.

Over the course of a year you would have to be going backwards and forwards a lot times for it to really be a consideration on which type of vehicle to buy IMO… and as thomthumb points out there is a cheaper alternative anyway.

Try the journey I’m doing Friday in my van.
Hull Rotterdam returning 23rd, its a T5 2m x 5 m

Price difference is £450

Buying a van with seats in and some glass and it being on the registration document as anything but VAN.

With £2K, like one or two others, I’d say diesel Mondeo estate and buy a tent. Recently, to Italy, we had 3 adults, 3 bikes and all the camping/biking paraphernalia inside, with room to spare. You get a lot of car for your money and they’re cheap to run/maintain, we pretty accurately worked out 53mpg (2.0L TDi) Bingley to Dover, fully laden.

Volvo 960 estate. Very old, very reliable, very cavernous, very cheap. If a bit thirsty.