Forum menu
I have been offered first dibs on a VW van before the owner (work colleague of my wife) puts it on eBay. It is a 51 plate VW caddy van (two rows of seats with windows, then panel at the back). The family used it as there main vehicle and the husband used it for work (sparky). It has done 257k miles and he wants £1500 for it! He has kept it well maintained as he needed it for work, and did welding etc when required.
Should I run away screaming before even looking or is it worth a look? It won't be our only car, and £1500 is a very good deal (he is getting a new model so just needs some cash and knows we are after one, on a limited budget!)
I am not particularly mechanical adept, and have no idea if 257k for a van is middle aged, or knocking on deaths door!
"did welding etc when required" - do you mean the van required some welding?
Its 15 years old and has done mega miles. I think its pretty overpriced!
I am not particularly mechanical adept
Guess it depends how happy you would be to spend money on it [s]if[/s] when things start to go wrong. At that kind of mileage then it's likely you'll need to spend big on it fairly soon, unless the previous owner has already done the spending.
Definitely overpriced for a caddy. I saw a similar caddy kombi for sale for £600 the other day with 150k.
wow serious scene tax on that .
£1500 on a van that has done over 250k miles? No way is it worth that. Just wait until he puts it on ebay and bid on it will probably only go up to £400.
That's a lot for any van that's done a quarter of a million miles.
trail_rat - Memberwow serious scene tax on that .
Is there even a scene for that vintage?
Too expensive, massive miles, rear seats potentially make it rubbish as a van. Pass
rear seats potentially make it rubbish as a van
to be fair it's easy enough to remove the rear seats, guy in work did that recently and sold the seats on ebay.
I recently sold a 51 plate car, half that mileage, value was about a third of that van.
No way. For the same price get something else with a third of the mileage and about 6 years younger, with no welding done or needed.
Head to Auto Trader or eBay and filter on less than £1,000. Just try not to buy something with 8 cylinders
And while you're on ebay having a look at the sold prices of similar vans - you won't find any at £1500.
If its needed welding then its already on borrowed time.
Wrong size van for you. You need a panel-van based combi of some sort I reckon. I would hold out for a transporter/traffic/vivaro size van. Your stuff-to-transport volume is only going to go up!
I am an idiot! Not caddy, kombi! Basically like yours only older yak!
But given what everyone has said it is the welding/ miles I should be scared of!
51 transporter combi!
Aha!
Had a look on van trader and nothing comparable at that price/ mileage. I'd imagine it's all about condition and work done so far. T4 at that age or early t5?
Buy it . You won't lose any money on it at that price . Tart her up a bit, add a bed and triple your money 😉
That's about as cheap as you're going to get into a reasonable T4 or T5. But they can be money pits...
The world is full of people waiting to blow money on transporters, my mate sold one and someone literally put their foot through the rusty floor and he still had 2 nutters offering money on it stood on his driveway.
Buy it, you are very unlikely to lose money. The mileage isnt necessarily a problem if its been well maintained
Remember to set aside some money for spoilers and big wheels; a van looks really good with these installed.
Still over priced.
It'll still sell though because folk want a vw transporter at all costs.
If you can't weld buy it and flip it or it will drain you dry.