Any VW T4 experts in the house?

Friends have asked me to come and look at a 96 T4 camper they are thinking of buying as I used to be a mechanic and still do all my own repairs but I have no personal knowledge or experience of T4s. If anyone can point me towards any regular well known faults to look out for I would be very grateful. Cheers!

Rust around the side load door and arches is the main one for bodywork.

Depending on the engine the 1.9 had issues with fuel pumps and also shearing woodruff keys. The 2.5 main ones are belts and idler pulleys done at reasonable intervals.

Cheers @keith74 it says this one has just had an engine rebuild, pictures look very clean externally so I supect a respray especially considering the corrosion advisories on  older MOTs.

There’s a few on the caravelle forums. Rust, rust and more rust seems to be the order of the day.  Take a magnet and a tyre lever or plastic trim tool to jab things with. Inner arches in the rear especially. Depending on the quality you can hide a lot of stuff with a respray.  If it’s been done properly I’d expect someone to have documented it with many photos and receipts galore.

Ive one. Also ex mechanic.

Rust.  Check it well  rear arches and sliding door step especially.

They can be hard on ball joints so get it on a rough road and listen.

What engine is it?  Ive a 2.5tdi 88bhp Ajt engine code. Its on bosch injectors and a 5th gear mod will do 40+ on a run.

Mine Randomly snapped the clutch pedal last week.

They can crack the mount for the master cyl. So look. You can add a reinforcement plate for about a tenner.

Other than that bar usual wear shes been good.

Body wise, yeah rust in all the usual places, 20-30 year old vehicles now that for the first few years weren’t looked after as was just a work van.

1.9 or 2.5. I have a 2.5 with many mods. THe downfall of MOST of them, is people who do the belts and especially the timing belt do not have a **** clue what they are doing, resulting in weird timing issues (top end not timed right compared to bottom end, and then fuel pump timing way adv/rtd despite ‘showing’ correct on the gauge. People reusing the single use crank bolt, diamond washer and most commonly, not tightened enough, you absolutely need 3/4″ tooling to do the crank pulley on this engine. IF the mechanic doesn’t own one, he hasn’t done the job right and needs to be redone.

Internally the 2.5 (various codes) is an absolute UNIT, I replaced cam shaft and hydraulics (worn lobes due to garage putting wrong oil in it and age) at 275k miles and went to to do an in frame rebuild just to satisfy the inner perfectionist in me. Mains and big ends, literally barely measurable difference from new specs. Neighbour is an ex sulzer engineer and machinst of 5 decades experience. Looked at all bearing surfaces, oil pump, measured the bores, looked at the rings, his advice ‘remove squirters so that can clean every orifice, clean everything, fit new rings, refit those original bearings, they are totally fine’.

In stock form they will do 0.5m miles no bother. Saw one for sale with 715k miles on it, rust was insane, engine was fine!

Modified you can make modern amounts of power on them without spending a fortune and internally they don’t really mind unless you are going in to triple original power territory, then you need a block girdle and some other internal works.

The VAG guys are buying them up for the block, crank and other goodies for very high power 5 cyl petrol applications (same block as 80’s/90’s audi 5 cyl turbo that everyone loves).

Its just rust and old vehicle stuff you’ve got to keep on top of.

Newer T5 engines seem to be pretty weak (and gearboxs?) by comparision, and they also LOVE TO RUST! Newer doesn’t mean better.

I’ve had my 2.5 for nearly 15 years now. Its got more power, and is well looked after. This year is the year of sorting the bodywork out properly, as opposed to the tarting up it has occasionally recieved.

Rusty sills, arches, lower step/roller area. The step paert wasn’t too bad but in for a penny in for a pound, eh…

The majority of the floor is good throughout the van, apart the back corners.

And all that is on an 03. So the van you are looking at has either been properly fixed by now or bodged to buggery.

We had one that we drove all over Europe. It was the 2.4 non turbo and it was slower than a week in the jail. Lots of good memories of the places we got to, but it was a horrible van to drive! It ended up going off to Africa. Riddled with rust. The sills were still fine, but everything else was getting frilly around the edges. Front panel and the front outriggers especially. And the sliding door rail.

Things that are essential? Captain’s chair for the driver. If it’s a Caravelle rather than a Transporter then there’s a higher chance of it having aircon, which is a proper ‘nice to have’.

Things that make a massive difference? Fresh engine mounts and gear linkage bushes. Swapping relay 19 for a 99 gets you a programmable wiper delay, and you’ll find a 99 relay in any post mk2 Golf in the scrappies.

Being a 96, is it an early van or later. Pre-96 had weld on wings which is more of a pain if there’s rust in that area, at least with bolt on wings you can pull them off and treat the area behind.

Rust around the windscreen, check for wet patches in the cab. If you can, lift the cab mat.

If it’s an early van with the older style clocks, the fuel gauge & temp gauges have issues with them. It’ll be a dry solder joint, not too bad to fix (although I need to do mine!)

Pre-96 vans also have drum brakes on the rear and I think the rear track is narrower. Not that it makes a difference, just an easy way to tell the difference. The early vans also don’t have a wing vent on the offside.

Others have covered the engine side. Mine’s a 1.9TD, it’s so slow, especially as a full high top camper but to be honest I don’t care. It’s not a daily driver and we only drive it for fun times.

Prepare to find all sorts of horrors on the interior depending on the conversion! Mine was sold as having 4 belted seats…the rear belts weren’t attached to anything but the wooden seat frame!

Basically, don’t let your heart rule your head (I did, and I’ve paid for it). There’s loads of these vans about still and values seem to be low right now.

’96 vans are weird – mine had bolt on wings but rear drums. Older style clocks as well, and a short nose. Had some newer style switches and stalks but still the ribbed B3 passat type pump primer.

don’t forget the petrol! i’ve got a 2.0 petrol. Yes it’s gutless but i’ve had it for 14 years now (24 year old van)
Engine has been faultless and very easy to work on.

Had work done on the rust a few years ago. new wings etc. usual suspects sills, sliding door threshold. Look at ball joints, suspension, steering

the headlights are crap. Go for a loom upgrade

@misteralz

Good point, it’s a bit of a nightmare! Mines on an ‘N’ plate and has the early bumpers, wings, clocks, drums which thankfully makes it a little easier. I had a ‘P’ plate which was a bit of a mongrel if I remember right (the crank pulley fell off)

I’ve got a 2003 T4 had it for 13 years. Minor rust issues, still goes well, went to Málaga and back last year no issues 3000 odd mile trip. I wouldn’t buy a 96 one. I know nothing about them except they are old and if it’s not been replaced the part will soon need to be. Also if it goes bang they’ll blame you if you said it’s ok.

At that age, under body/chassis rust/rot, rotten sills, mechanical fuel pump seal failure, rear brake load sensing.
This is the MOT history for my old T4
https://www.check-mot.service.gov.uk/results?registration=m296xsn&checkRecalls=true
I’m amazed it’s still alive!
I sold it at 238K miles

Bit of an update, I’m going to see the van tonight. I told the seller I needed a good look underneath and he said we could see it on the lift at a local garage owned by a mate of mine. So today as I was passing I called in to see if he could tell me anything about it as the seller seemed to know him well.

Turns out my mate had helped the seller with the mechanical work on the van, engine has been sent away and had a full rebuild including rebuilt fuel pump. Turns out the van has always lived locally and another local garage who I also know have always looked after it and it has recently had a lot of welding done to fix the corrosion issues on the old MOTs and new brake pipes throughout.

It was MOTd a couple of weeks ago at another local place where I get my own van done and I know how thorough they are. It passed with a couple of minor advisories.

He told me honestly that it doesn’t look as good in the flesh as it does in the pictures i.e. it looks it’s age and the interior could be better.

So we’ll see what tonight brings. Cheers for all the tips!

Well, it was a no in the end.

Externally and internally it was better than I expected after what he told me but underneath was a different story. It was solid enough to get through an MOT and the sills did apear to have been done recently but everything was absolutely lathered in a thick layer of underseal which is always a warning sign to me. I found a bit pealing off on one of the rear crossmembers and it was pretty rotten underneath, then I found another bit pealing tucked up behind the side door step. When I gently persuaded it to peal a bit more I found a pretty big hole surrounded by more rust.

My friends had initially told me they were buying it for daughter to use for the summer and then they would maybe sell it on. I told them it would be fine for that purpose but if they wanted to keep it any longer they were probably going to be looking at annual welding bills to keep it on the road so they said no.

Thanks again for the tips.