Tell you what I’ve just discovered… that a BRAND NEW Renault Trafic crew van is only £12,292 (plus VAT).

http://www.renaultretail.co.uk/vans/new/trafic-van-crew/

That changes things a little…

Agree with all of the comments about ridiculous prices based on the cult following….
I too was heading down the route of a T5 then stumbled across a 2007 Transit Sport with 51,000 miles, full service history, leather seats, air con, heated screen blah blah blah for 10K +VAT.
When I looked at what you could buy VW wise for that money I couldn’t find anything with less than 100K on the clock with varying amounts of customising (crap ill fitting wheels etc…)

Would definitely recommend the transit, 130 BHP, 44.1mpg (cos the computer says so!!) and if you don’t like the stripes remove them…

😀

Gotta love the stripes. Lol. Sweet looking van the Tranny sport. Great deals on the few remaining stock vans at the mo.

yes I love it, sold a 2007 Mitsubishi evo 9 FQ360 for my van, thought I would miss it but driving a van is ace!!

There are great vans out there to be had – you just need to be damned lucky to find them.

If they are on the market already then it is too late 😉

Sage point above ^^^.

I’m currently wrestling with whether to buy a van that has already been converted to a full camper, or just buy a van and convert it myself slowly. The big question is whether I need a full-on camper or jsut a van that I can stuff the bikes in the back of, add a cheap bed frame and drive off for the weekend.

Obviously, option 2 would be cheaper in the short term, but long term I suspect option 1 would win out. The only problems I can see are getting the use out of it to justify the additional extra cost and lack of internal space for bikes and dogs. A normal van with a bed in the back would work well for those two requirements.

Might depend if you want a woman in the back of your van also…

You will pay more for the T5, but it will lose not very much, whereas the others will freefall, if that’s important to you.

We actually made money on our T5, after owning it for 4 years & 60,000 miles. That’s crazy.

Annebr… It’s more whether I want to be able to convince my wife to come away with me for weekends. Having something posh and proper camper-like would make that task more easy. Having a van with muddy bike tracks on the floor and an Ikea bed in might make that trickier, but would probably be a more useful thing if I’m going to be using it more than “us”.

It’s not going to be a daily drive, so will spend a lot of time parked up, but I do want to use it for trips away and our location means that most interesting places are a ways a way. That means it has to be a nice thing to drive and sit in for extended period of time. It also needs to be relatively economical (have seen reports of Vitos being poor compared to remapped T5s).

I’m happy to spend money on a van that ticks the right boxes, but a van that ticks all the boxes is hard to find.

Yeah I suspect a reasonable camper conversion would be prefferable for the wife to camp in.

You may not have to do the whole gingham curtains and picnic basket conversion though. 🙂

You’ve not met my wife then… I was even obliged to put curtains in our allotment shed.