Could get weary / seizure inducing for the driver.

Christ on a bike. Who’s idea of cool is that (one can only hope not Wiggo).

Some nice vans on the site though, will look properly later. Thanks.

Not sure if has been mentioned yet, but have you seen the Danbury Doubleback ??

DaveyBoyWonder – Member

Interested – where?

Taking the model the OP had, and VW’s list price of “from £48,547”

Chappel, no mains water, but then neither has a T5, £13,547 change to spend on C&H and anoy the former occupier.
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/commercial-property-for-sale/property-61078310.html

And another, apparently gods own county is a little godless.
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/commercial-property-for-sale/property-61109963.html

Offers over £50k, but in an area where houses tend not to sell in ahurry I’d bee cheeky.
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-43780773.html

1 bed in Lazenby for £18k (would be worse, could be Grangetown or Eston)
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-61683719.html

2bed terrace in loftus, meteres from the boundary.
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-55666048.html

2 bed in Brotton, ok we’re going downhill again, but I’ve proved my point.
http://www.rightmove.co.uk/property-for-sale/property-55666048.html

£60k for a California is a bit ridiculous, but £20k for 2nd hand builders van converted to the spec of your choice is far more realistic. Im dropping T5 off on Saturday to get converted, can’t wait! 😀

It was one of those SportHomes we considered chopping the Cali for, they are stunning. I met a guy with one in the NW Scotland, purely for the garage !
EDIT: Right, who wants a 2014 4motion California !!

4 berth sport home on that mclaren page – yes please!

I’m with epicsteve. When you can get a coach built motorhome cheaper than a T5 conversion it is a no brainer if you have the space for it. I have a T5 Multivan for daily use to ferry our four kids about and I couldn’t imagine camping in something that small (even though I used to go camping across Europe in my old T2 with three others). We have one of these which we use to go to South Europe in. It’s so much quicker to set up camp and pack that we ended up going on holiday twice this summer. Something we wouldn’t have bothered with without it.

What Neb says. Everyone jumping on the 60k price, cos it suits the agenda.

Well, my agenda has always been that they aren’t worth the money, so yes it does suit quite nicely 🙂 If they were £15k I’d have one.

Stop fannying about, and treat yerself to something from these guys 🙂
http://www.scsporthomes.com/index.php

You can quite easily do one for 15k. 10k for van, off the shelf conversion kit for less than 5k.

Don’t think the OP was after saving money unless I’m wrong.

You really have to want one. I justified our van on the flimsy pretence that we can carry more crap on holiday, camp pretty much anywhere, and it’s free and easy to sleep over on long journeys pretty much wherever in mainland Europe.

That it would be cheaper to hire a suitable vehicle and/or stay overnight in hotels when required, is hardly rocket science.

I wish people would stop saying ‘oh you could stay in a hotel for that’. Hotels are totally different things to camping in whatever vehicle you use, the experience is totally different. A hotel holiday with the kids would be awful. Hotels don’t tend to be in the middle of huge fields with trees, streams, woods, farms and so on, for starters.

A friend of mine has a Tribute 669, £38k fixed beds (basically double bed bunks), cooker, toilet/shower. At just under 20ft it fits on his drive and he uses it as his vehicle. Quite a lot of luxury with no real compromises.
I wouldn’t buy a Cali if I were you for the following reasons,
There’s 4 of you and the kids are only going to grow bigger, much bigger.
The Cali is too much money.
The other model you mention has no cooker, fridge or toilet! That’s just ridiculous!
That 3 seat bench seat looks impossible to sleep on as a bed, good luck with that one.
I know where you’re coming from with the VW, it looks cool but it’s just style over substance in my opinion.
Check these out, it won’t do any harm to look
http://www.tributemotorhomes.co.uk/motorhomes/tribute-669

All the best, hope it works out for you. 😀

Nobeerinthefridge – Member
You can quite easily do one for 15k. 10k for van, off the shelf conversion kit for less than 5k

seriously 10k for the van? What mileage do you get on that? here in switzerland they keep their value terribly… 10k gbp would get one from 2005 with 150000km at least..

The OP mentioned that with a smaller van he could be in the Borders by 7pm setting up the BBQ. I live in the Borders and the number of times per year you can BBQ isn’t that many, and no way on a forest camp site would I be wanting somewhere that wasn’t midge free.

Also you’ll need to accept a VW will only work for you with an awning, so I’d be hiring a van and awning at half term and try it again.

I wish people would stop saying ‘oh you could stay in a hotel for that’

I meant overnight stays not holidays, if that was in response to my comment. While neither a French aire nor roadside Formule 1 motel are particularly pleasant stop-offs, the hotels do probably work out cheaper. Anyway, I’m on your side here.

@mitsumonkey
That Tribute looks like a really good compromise: I’ll have a proper look at that later.

The £60k ‘thing’ was more about that, for the money, I thought some of the material choices and durability were poorly thought out, as per the earlier posts. It’s not an expensive van to buy though given the way they hold their values. A £60k Buerstner or Hobby would drop £20k in the first year (ish) where a Cali doesn’t.

The other thing about the bigger vehicles is the mpg and storage. Will I feel less inclined to jump in it and bugger off if it’s not only drive and I only get 20mpg. I suspect the answer will be yes.

Again, that Tribute might be a great middle ground for us, I’ll have a properly look at it after work.

Accept what you’re saying about the midges, b r. I was thinking we’d find spots away from trees and water (higher spots, I suppose).

I picked up an 18 month old van, 27k miles on the clock for £13k, conversion for anywhere between £6k and £15k depending on needs. Much less if doing it yourself. They seem to hold their value well.

OP – the clue is in the name… VW California, not VW Scotland. The fact that it is £60k is irrelevant, it’s designed for temperate climates not the rain soaked, midge infested soggy climate of Scotland.

Buy a base van, get it converted to your spec, save £30k and enjoy it.

A £60k Buerstner or Hobby would drop £20k in the first year (ish)

30% in a year seems quie high – are you sure?

The motorhome we bought had lost £18k over 10 years from it’s new price (about 35%).

Unless there’s major legislation changes on use of diesel in the next 5 or 10 years I expect it to lose less actual value per year as time goes on.

No one’s arguing that VW’s don;t hold their value but they’re not unique in that respect.

hotels are totally different things to camping in whatever vehicle you use, the experience is totally different. A hotel holiday with the kids would be awful. Hotels don’t tend to be in the middle of huge fields with trees, streams, woods, farms and so on, for starters.

You are staying in the wrong hotels.

Reckon my T5 full conversion has depreciated a fair bit. It was 20k all in, 3ys old when I bought the base van 3 years ago and had done 80k (now 115k). Thing is, it was the facelift which had a premium back then.

Never sold a VW camper for less than I paid for it + mods and running costs, do it right and its free ownership.

@pictonroad does appear to be no shortage of idiots in the world!

The other thing about the bigger vehicles is the mpg and storage. Will I feel less inclined to jump in it and bugger off if it’s not only drive and I only get 20mpg. I suspect the answer will be yes.

I don’t believe the MPG is that difference if comparing like-for-like. VWs own claims for a short wheelbase low roof van vs long wheelbase high roof is a whopping 1.5mpg different. Motorhomes are probably lower again than a high-top, but I suspect not by that much – they’re basically a van, with a van engine, and a slightly larger front profile – that might knock 20% off the mpg, but not 50%

Vw campers if you’re careful and buying 2nd hand don’t lose money. We part ex’d our T5 for more than we bought it for after 2 years of fairy thorough use. The T4 lost about £1k in 4 years and 30k miles.

Motorhomes depreciation appears to be random, when we were looking around there appeared to be very little logic to pricing compared to age/spec/mileage. But overall they didn’t appear to lose much in the 1st couple of years (I assume because new ones can take a while to be delivered), then they step down in price every so often as opposed to cars which just gradually lose money.

The main thing I find is that the van sits in the garage pretty much ready to go all the time, after every trip we restock and get it clean, bike rack is on it. A few weeks back the Wx forecast changed to be good, I left work at 3:30, rode home 20 minutes, bikes on back, quick shower and change – was sitting in the sun eating fish and chips in Oban at 7:30, we’ve done a lot of that which if it was elsewhere or a faff would make it harder. Considering you don’t like camping (!) then a campervan seems an odd choice. A small van (T5/6, Renault traffic, Merc etc) will all be a massive compromise – they pack a decent amount of living space into something the same size as our Q5. Expecting some sort of tardis won’t happen, even the coachbuilts I have used have been a compromise – storage, driving them even living with them. But its all about being realistic how much you will honestly use it, I get more out of my Cali as a day/ 1 night van than I do for long holidays. Depends where you live as well, expecting a 2 week Scottish holiday that you have to pre-plan for time off to have great weather is a lottery, if I live in the S of England I would be in france for my holidays and furthersouth would have more surety on weather. Smaller the van the more outside you will be. On the Beach, I had one briefly as a borrowed van, it was nice, with the 2 seater bench though so I could see how it would work for me.
Theres definitely heaps more californias than ever, my first one was in 2007 and there were none really, I was in southern Ireland a couple of weeks back and there were 5 on the campsite – all foreign as well.
EDIT: I’m def not a zealot, we hate ours sometimes, best holiday we had was when we had the car as well (for work reasons – I needed to go to an airport mid holiday) and that worked well, we debated a caravan at that point ! In fact, I always reckon a Cali (or equiv) and a caravan would be awesome.
EDIT2: Mines on a company lease, basically over 4 years I pay negligible interest (0.1% !) and I get some tax benefits from it

I’ve been told by a couple of different owners that on a lease from VW a California works out cheaper than a mid range Golf over 3 years.

Old campers (not just VW’s) seem to bottom out in value as well – even a shitty old camper with high mileage will be worth proper money while a car of the same vintage would be unsaleable.

A £60k Buerstner or Hobby would drop £20k in the first year (ish)

30% in a year seems quie high – are you sure?

The motorhome we bought had lost £18k over 10 years from it’s new price (about 35%).

Out first C-class motorhome, bought new in 2004 and traded in against the our current one in 2010, only lost £5K on it’s new value during that period (and I could probably have got more if I had sold it privately). The current one will have lost a bit more but still won’t be more than about 25%, also over a 6 year period from new.

May as well chip in as this thread has a few owners. I’m in the UK and looking at T5s but will be moving to Geneva for two years as of Feb 2017. Not sure to buy in the UK and drive a RHD abroad or buy a LHD in Europe – or any other combination. Are prices still level in Europe ?
( yes I can look up on abay but local knowledge is appreciated )

I don’t believe the MPG is that difference if comparing like-for-like. VWs own claims for a short wheelbase low roof van vs long wheelbase high roof is a whopping 1.5mpg different. Motorhomes are probably lower again than a high-top, but I suspect not by that much – they’re basically a van, with a van engine, and a slightly larger front profile – that might knock 20% off the mpg, but not 50%

With the C-classes we’ve had a lot depends on how you drive it. My current one, on a 2.4 turbo diesel Transit, is quite quick – it can cruise at 85mph on the autoroutes. It does drop to below 20mpg if you do that though, but more sensible speeds see an average of into 22-24mpg region. Not great, but actually about the same as I manage in my car.

on and on – Member
May as well chip in as this thread has a few owners. I’m in the UK and looking at T5s but will be moving to Geneva for two years as of Feb 2017. Not sure to buy in the UK and drive a RHD abroad or buy a LHD in Europe – or any other combination. Are prices still level in Europe ?
( yes I can look up on abay but local knowledge is appreciated )

prices are faily high… try autoscout24.ch for a tester..

The main thing I find is that the van sits in the garage pretty much ready to go all the time, after every trip we restock and get it clean, bike rack is on it. A few weeks back the Wx forecast changed to be good, I left work at 3:30, rode home 20 minutes, bikes on back, quick shower and change – was sitting in the sun eating fish and chips in Oban at 7:30, we’ve done a lot of that which if it was elsewhere or a faff would make it harder.

It’s not that much of an extra faff to be honest. We also keep ours ready to go and the storage place is only 10 minutes drive away. If we’re going away on a Friday evening we’d normally bring it to the house the night before (I sometimes cycle out to get it our sometimes take a car and leave that at the storage place). If we decided to go on the Friday we just chuck the stuff we need (clothes and food) into the car, drive out to the storage place (which as it happens would be on-route to Oban!) and exchange the car for the motorhome. We even leave bikes in the motorhome garage so don’t have to bother sorting those out.

If heading far north we’ll leave after work on the Friday evening and just overnight on-route (we’ve got a couple of spots we often use). The advantage with a fixed bed C-class being that we can be in bed pretty much immediately after stopping and can still have showers in the morning without needed access to any facilities.

@wwaswas I reckon it’s about right. We looked at a one year old Buerstner that was £62k new, but retailing on a retailer’s site at £48k used on a 15 plate and 9k miles; I guess trade on that would have been somewhere between £43 and £45k, so nearly £20k drop. I do think depreciation from there on in will be very low, but I’m most likely to want to get out of it in the first year or so if we just don’t get the use out of it.

@5lab We got 39.8mpg on the California up to Pitlochery and back, cruise set at 60 or 65mph, not much traffic apart from around Edinburgh.

We run LWB Ducato 130 or 140bhp at work, and no matter how carefully it gets driven it’s never bettered 26 to 28mph when loaded with a 400kg load. Add on a proper conversion like the Hobby T765 I mentioned, and I reckon with the added drag and weight you’d be very lucky to see 25mpg, and more likely much less.

@Neb Again, the £60k thing isn’t me moaning about the size or facilities, but the choice of some of the materials, layout, features and build: the seats mark really easily, the internal table should extend, the windows were delaminating, the rearmost bench should lift from both ends so you can access the contents from inside the van, the diesel heater isn’t routed in a way to get any of the air to the top bunk of the van, the diesel heater vents into the drive away awning (if you ran it all night, any drive away awning would smell terrible I imagine), the sat nav is hopeless, the catches on the doors under the sink kept popping off, did I mention the seats mark more easily than any other material in any car I’ve ever had and so on.

I sound like a right fanny, totally aware of that, but before taking it away I’d been unable to find anything really negative about the build quality of the ‘factory’ conversion in any of the forums I’d beeen on, but I was disappointed given the cost.

Maybe I just need to reset my expectations, though: I think I do. A Golf GTI is £30k, a decent 3 series tourer is £40k and so on. I think I just need to try it again with different expectations, and a drive away awning (or buy that Tribute, which looks perfect for us, and a small cheap car as a daily driver).

May as well chip in as this thread has a few owners. I’m in the UK and looking at T5s but will be moving to Geneva for two years as of Feb 2017. Not sure to buy in the UK and drive a RHD abroad or buy a LHD in Europe – or any other combination. Are prices still level in Europe ?

Left hand drive motorhomes used to be cheaper and plentiful – not sure what the score is now.

Switzerland is somewhere we tend to avoid with our van as it’s plated to 3800kg so more of a problem with the motorway charges etc.

epicsteve – sounds handy, nearest storage to me would be a good half hour away which creates a bit of a barrier, all depends on circumstance. What does your storage cost annually ?

epicsteve – sounds handy, nearest storage to me would be a good half hour away which creates a bit of a barrier, all depends on circumstance. What does your storage cost annually ?

Can’t really recall but I think it’s under £400. That’s near Edinburgh – suspect it would be more if I stored it down here in London.

I’m in Edinburgh too. Will drop you a mail.