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.
[i]A £60k Buerstner or Hobby would drop £20k in the first year (ish) [/i]
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.
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.
Maybe I just need to reset my expectations. A Golf GTI is £30k, a decent 3 series tourer is £40k and so on.
You aren't comparing like with like, a Golf GTI isn't a family car. You need to go back to the drawing board and work out what you want from a family vehicle and a budget.
I'd expect most motorhomes to be a bit like horseboxes in their depreciation, if it cost £20k to convert a van into a camper then pretty much the cheapest you can buy one for is £20k.
We had a 3.5t horsebox for a few years, it lost less than £1k pa. We originally looked at buying a van and having it converted, worked out at £10k+vat for the conversion, consequently you really can't buy a decent 3.5t for less than £12k.
tbh If I was looking at a camper, I'd want one with separate beds (and one that was always made up), so whether it was with the wife and we could just stop. Or if with biking mates I'd have my own 'room'.
Also want a garage too, for the bikes.
Although not sure of your age, are you licensed for bigger than a 3.5t?
You aren't comparing like with like, a Golf GTI isn't a family car. You need to go back to the drawing board and work out what you want from a family vehicle and a budget.
I realise that, I wasn't suggesting I'm buying a California or a GTI, I was just trying to illustrate relative value. My 1-series was £35k and although it's got a nice engine it's a pretty budget car from a build perspective: compared to that you get a lot more in a California and maybe £60k isn't that bad compared to it...
@br. I'm 41, so have C1 entitlement. Hard to argue with nearly every point you've made in the thread, but after a couple of days to think about the pro/cons, I just don't think I want a bigger van and I need to decide on what compromise I prefer.
I'm definitely still leaning towards a new California/Beach/T6 conversion with an awning and an emergency toilet inside the awning to save the kid's 3am poo dash across a campsite in the rain.
My local dealer has the Tribute 669 in stock, so off to see that this weekend, as pointed out much earlier in the thread.
http://www.tributemotorhomes.co.uk/motorhomes/tribute-669
No question it'll still be cramped if we're forced to stay inside the van because of weather, but it's a lot of van for the money if we can make it work.
It's your choice but I'd look for something with a rear lounge rather than a fixed bed.
With a small van and 4 people (the kids will grow) you need versatile space and you lose a lot of floor area/sitting space with a fixed bed that could be used for another purpose during the day.
I'm definitely still leaning towards a new California/Beach/T6 conversion with an awning and an emergency toilet inside the awning to save the kid's 3am poo dash across a campsite in the rain.
With young kids it's also a very significant advantage to have a useable toilet inside the van. Great for when they decide they need the toilet when you're driving.
It's your choice but I'd look for something with a rear lounge rather than a fixed bed.
I wouldn't. I'd look for one with rear bunks - much more useful than a rear lounge when you've got young kids.
The Tribute 7 series look good, with the high-level bed.
Our horsebox was Ducato based, good to drive.
The thing is, you could buy a newish van and convert it into something very similar to the California for much less, and pick you seat coverings, your kitchen unit, the hinges/catches, the colours, etc. I completely agree that a California isn't good value for money (especially in the uk) there are so many reputable convertors that you really can get what you want for significantly less than a California.
Go to one of the van festivals to see the options, you'll be surprised how much you get compared to a standard Vw spec California.
For example www.uberbus.co.uk
My 1-series was £35k
You paid that for a 1 series 😯 Then no wonder you think £60k on a VW camper van is good value.
Can I just say "Hi, I have a 2016 T6 Ocean". <ducks>
We have had older camper vans, a coach built motorhome and aftermarket conversions over the years. We love our T6, it is perfect in every way for 2 of us and in particular we love the small design features of a van built as a camper rather than converted. Such as the top opening fridge that lasts days on 12v and (in our view) the well thought out storage.
I paid under £50k for my DSG model with a lot of extras, good haggling is what is needed. I 100% agree with the comments on stock furnishing which we were disappointed with as we've marked the rear seats too easily. The swivel seats also need a "technique" to be mastered. Apart from that I'm well happy with my investment which is worth the same after 4k miles as new.
As a kid, we used to go skiing in Scotland in a T25 transporter, five of us camping in a braemar carpark in february. No room for wet ski boots indoors so they had to stay under the van where they froze solid. I still remember the dread of putting those boots back on again the next morning.
One year the camping gas froze inside the van, reckon it was about -18 inside.
Both my parents were teachers so we'd spend the entire summer holidays touring Europe, all half term holidays in Scotland and Christmas down south visiting relatives. I still feel I had a privileged childhood, despite my parents being poor.
Campervans are ace!
Neb, we did same in a caravan, but with more space. And a heater. Caravans are ace too 🙂
Lolz @ Neb and his poor teacher parents and summer long trips abroad! 😆
Good joke.
When I reread it, I see where you're coming from! My mum never went back to work (odd supply jobs now and then) after I was born and my dad had to retire for medical reasons in his mid 40s, so was on disability. So I guess money poor but time rich would be a better description. The camper van was a scratty old thing that kept breaking down, parents and 3 kids crammed in it for 6-8 weeks at a time. Really good times and happy memories.
I like the idea of the freedom of a campervan which can carry your sports gear and just pull over and kip up for whatever you are doing the next day, for short breaks. More of a mobile sports storage / somewhere to kip. Just take a tent as well if you are needing more space.
I also see the attraction of a larger family motorhome but what I don't get is the parking up in what looks like a car park.
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This is a lovely spot, Witches Craig, below the Ochils on the outskirts of Stirling but it is quite pricy and it looks like you are staying in a car park.
http://www.britz.com.au/campervans-australia/Pages/default.aspx
for other inspiration have a look at the van set ups in here
Cheers Mike, I'll have a look.
We went to see a Tribute 669 last week and I reckon it's about perfect for what we want. It doesn't have much living space, but only weather will have us inside the van. That said, the rear lower double does fold away to convert to two sofas (albeit with limited head room) and you could also use that space as secure storage for a bike if you were walking into town...
Beds are otherwise permanently made up, limited headroom up top but the boys are young, half decent fuel economy and I can spec an auto (which I think I want). Definitely not as cool as a VW, but £40k brand new and has everything I want - the only negative is the upholstery is gopping and there is no alternative. I'd just get a little Smart car or similar for duties through the week.
If the offsite storage works, and we get proper use of it, then we'll progress to a bigger van as the boys get bigger with an integrated garage/dirty store.
There's a place in Aberdeen when we can hire a 669: it's a bit of a hike but we'll do that a couple of times over the autumn and spend some time in the Highlands.
Definitely not as cool as a VW,
Thing is the cool was a van from the 60's... the new ones are just vans - probably one of the reasons everything small here is done in a High Ace. The bigger ones seem to be in Crafters here so the Transporter price probably isn't the issue. I keep walking past one of the crafters up for sale each day...
I accept that, I suppose I'm saying as far as motorhomes go, the Cali is the least beige...
I think they would do well with a factory Crafter, was just saying this last night actually (I'm certainly not the first to say this, I'm sure)...
there is a company here in Bavaria, Pössl, who seem to be quite popular when it comes to Ducato sized vans.
if i were ever to have kids the T5 would be a touch too small for long trips away, especially if the weather were inclement. i'd look at a Sprinter/Crafter/Ducato.
