If I don't buy a VW T5, will I die? – Page 2 – Chat Forum

ambientcoast · 2014-05-28T14:28:26Z

Just thinking out loud... I've got around £10k to spend on a van. The purchase has been approved by the missus, I've just got to decide what to get. My last van was an old style LT35 - a proper adventure van conversion, but sold last year - and a few years ago I had a 1973 Bay. Right now, I have a VW Jetta temporarily so I'm appreciative of VWs. Ideally, I'd like something with two rows of three seats and a big space in the back - not necessarily for bikes, but for wetsuits, pushchairs, bags, tents, skateboards, etc, etc. Bikes can sit on a towbar rack and surfboards will go on the roof. It won't necessarily be a daily driver (I bike to work and can walk to my local beach) but it will be used for holidays and weekends, trips inland, etc, etc. When I sold my LT35, I kept a bunch of the electrics I'd previously installed in there, so in the new van I'd also like to drop in my Waeco CR50 fridge, Sterling B2B charger, amp, etc, etc, plus an alcohol stove. That means I'd prefer a van that I can line and board myself with ply if it's not already done, rather than it coming with a load of plastic trim. I quite enjoyed converting the LT35 myself, although family size now means that 5/6 proper seats with seatbelts are a necessity, so it's time for a compromise: basically it needs to be another adventure van only with enough seats to fit the family in from time to time. T5s are pretty much the right size, I could configure one how I want it fairly easily... but what's pissing me off right now is the price of used ones. And I'm fairly sure this is driven by people who buy them to bling up with spoilers, wide wheels, lowered sus and all that useless shit, while washing them 47 times a week, rather than people who want a van for the beach/camping/long road trips off the grid. I could blow the entire budget on a 9/10 year old Kombi with seats already fitted. Or, I could spend £7k ish on a 2007/2008 panel van and use the rest of the budget for getting some seats and windows dropped in. Problem is, these are likely to be high mileage vans, so neither option really seems worth it - especially the part that involves SPENDING £10k ON A TEN YEAR OLD VAN. Alternative (and more realistically priced) used vans include the usual suspects of Trafic/Vivaro, the Merc Vito, and the slightly smaller Expert/Dispatch. They've all got their reported problems, but I do kinda like the look of some of them, although compared to a VW they all feel like there's something 'missing'... if that makes sense? I've spent weeks looking at vans online and I seem to have exhausted every possibility in terms of getting a decent/low mileage T5 for my budget. So, unless anyone can point me in the direction of all the reasonably priced T5s, then I'm most likely going to have to buy something other than a VW. [b]Will I die?[/b]

willard

Posts: 9144

Full Member

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 [i]need[/i] 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.

Posted : 09/06/2014 2:24 pm

annebr

Posts: 0

Free Member

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

Posted : 09/06/2014 2:48 pm

Hob-Nob

Posts: 728

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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.

Posted : 09/06/2014 3:00 pm

willard

Posts: 9144

Full Member

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 [i]all[/i] the boxes is hard to find.

Posted : 09/06/2014 3:31 pm

annebr

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Free Member

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. 🙂

Posted : 09/06/2014 3:39 pm

willard

Posts: 9144

Full Member

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

Posted : 09/06/2014 3:46 pm

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