Fownd wun..

How else could you explain why people worry about the cars that OTHER people choose and make ridiculous assumption and sweeping generalisations about people they don’t know?

Hmmmmmmmm…… where to start……? They’re sort of a microcosm of our advanced capitalist consumer society aren’t they, I suppose? But taken to the nth degree, as they disappear up their own arse?

I had a capitalist consumer society campervan once.

Had to sell it.

Bloke next door bought a Winnebago.

perchypanther – Member
Hmmmmmmmm…… where to start……? They’re sort of a microcosm of our advanced capitalist consumer society aren’t they, I suppose? But taken to the nth degree, as they disappear up their own arse?
I had a capitalist consumer society campervan once.

Had to sell it.

Bloke next door bought a Whineybago.

POSTED 1 MINUTE AGO # REPORT-POST
FIFY
I’m sure that’s what you meant

Nah it was intended to be a scathing pastiche of modern consumerism.

I meant Audi Q7.

[video]https://youtu.be/wEZ-NvSKJLI[/video]

I is simply mystified as to why you’d spend this frankly enormous sum of money to sleep in the back of a van in a field! Thats all. When, as has been pointed out by plenty on here, the same sum of money opens up a whole world of non-field related destinations, and none-back-of-a-van luxury accommodation.

I’m going to break with tradition and answer the question – I didn’t spend an enormous amount (2K plus a lifetime of skipped services) and I like sleeping in fields 🙂

Non field related destinations are also partaken of. Just without the kids!

I is simply mystified as to why you’d spend this frankly enormous sum of money to sleep in the back of a van in a field! Thats all. When, as has been pointed out by plenty on here, the same sum of money opens up a whole world of non-field related destinations, and none-back-of-a-van luxury accommodation.

You keep banging on about these enormous sums of money, but how many people really pay that? How many on here have been posting threads on converting fairly cheap vans? The whole point of having a van conversion, which has been reiterated time and time again, is flexibility, the ability to just bugger off somewhere when an opportunity presents itself, without having to scour the interwebz for a B&B that’s handy, and isn’t going to cost £70-80/night, and to take a chance on a little pitch that you see in passing for a night, just in case, and move on if it isn’t, or stay for a few nights if it is.
B&B is fine, but often there are restrictions on returning during the day if the weather turns to shit, whereas with a van, especially if you have a largish tent or awning for longer stays you can just doss around reading, listening to music and making endless brews.
I’ve stayed in a lovely B&B, in the pub where I eat and drink in the evenings where I camped last year; the rooms are beautiful but I really can’t justify £65/night, possibly even more now.
Well, I’ve just checked the Cricket in Beesands, and they’re fully booked at the moment, but I found a place eight miles away in Dartmouth, and for nine nights like I did last time, it would cost me £1145, compared to the £90 I actually paid to stay in a field!
Ok, the breakfast that’s included might be a bit better, but as I never have more than a bowl of cornflakes and maybe a couple of slices of toast, which I can do myself, the £1045 I save will more than cover the £40 I spend on a fabulous meal and a couple of pints in the pub.
Obviously, someone as loaded as you are binners wouldn’t bat an eyelid at that; I, on the other hand, have to watch what I spend to get real value for money.

We had a T5 before we got our caravan.
We spent the amount of money they cost (12k for the T5, 23k fur the current caravan) because we can afford to. I’m sure that’s why other people buy their van or what’s of choice too. I’m sorry if you’re too poor to be able to do that & as a result are resentful but maybe if you worked harder you’d be able to afford one too?

I think there are two points being mixed up here
1) people not understanding why you would want a camper van
2) people not understanding why some folk are prepared to pay a huge premium for a VW.

1) I love campers – but if they don’t suit you fine. They have their advantages and disadvantages

2) I have no understanding. Even a VW does not drive as nicely as a car and for the same money as a top VW you can buy a much better equipped more flexible camper that is far better to live out of

You missed

3: some people can and will spend more than you think is necessary*

*See houses, bikes, cars, stereos, climbing gear, holidays, phones etc etc etc.

I was just going to come back in with that – I suppose its like buying a Chelsea tractor that has a uselessly small boot in a huge car. I don’t understand that either,

Its not like say a luxury watch that does the same job as a cheapo one but in the VWs case you can get a “better” van for less ( assuming better means actually better for camping in)

My mate bought one to go dogging – I always assumed that was the rule after that. Bit of an anticlimax now….

but in the VWs case you can get a “better” van for less ( assuming better means actually better for camping in)

In your opinion, which is fine. But plenty of people disagree. Which is also fine.

My T5 is from the school of camping shop explosion up there. Plus sticks, can someone tell me why my five year old son has a massive and growing collection of sticks mostly stored in the back of my van.

He’s saving up for a woodburner to go with your T5?

NZCol – Member
A moderately expensive estate won’t cost what a VW California does though, unless your definition is an RS6 !
I priced up a new petrol VW Cali Beach – £62k, an Ocean was getting towards £67k. Even with a decent discount that’s nuts.

You’re making exactly my point.

Some posters are incorrectly making out that T5/6 are massively more expensive than cars. It’s possible to spend the above on a top end California, but most are a lot less.

Our camper conversion cost less than half of a top-end California. I stand by what I said: it was roughly the same price as a decent new estate. 😉

If I had the money I would have a camper – but I would need to be able to stand up in it, keep my bikes in it and have a permanent full size bed in it. I have hired one that met that description even to having a boot that the tandem would go in. I totally get campers. I totally get that their are compromises to be made and a smaller vehicle would suit some. I have also hired VW sized ones and ones inbetween What I don’t understand is paying the premium for the VW name. The VW sized one I had was a lovely conversion on a jap people carrier. Significantly cheaper to buy or hire

Edit – actually I do have the money easily to buy one – right now Its cheaper for me to hire one for the week or two every year or two I want one

He’s saving up for a woodburner to go with your T5?

Sold my five to pay for that 😉

If I had the money I would have a camper – but I would need to be able to stand up in it, keep my bikes in it and have a permanent full size bed in it. I have hired one that met that description even to having a boot that the tandem would go in. I totally get campers. I totally get that their are compromises to be made and a smaller vehicle would suit some. I have also hired VW sized ones and ones inbetween What I don’t understand is paying the premium for the VW name. The VW sized one I had was a lovely conversion on a jap people carrier. Significantly cheaper to buy or hire

Now you are just repeating yourself. We get it. You wouldn’t buy one.

jambo – then help me understand what is the advantage to the VW over one based on a similar sized vehicle such as a jap people carrier? ( toyota granvia for example)

why? You aren’t going to buy one anyway 😉

‘cos I hate not understanding things?
*rocks quietly in the corner*

Lol @ Jam bo

*sobs*

Why buy a boutique mtb brand, rather than, say a Canyon? Why spend £20 million on a Rembrandt when you could buy a picture that is almost as good by one of his pupils.
People like to buy ‘premium’ brands. You don’t have to.

I buy Kellogg’s cornflakes to eat in my T5. They taste better than they would in a Nissan.

I’m slightly sentimental about the old T2 I grew up with. I think it my parents not allowing my first girl friend to “stay over” but it WAS OK to borrow the VW Schagin’Wagin for the weekend away…. 😀

Most of the people I know with T5’s spend most of their free time getting them repaired. ‘DPF Valves’ come up in conversation quite a lot, so does oil consumption.

I wouldn’t say no to a T5 though! Or maybe a Transit Custom, quite like the look of those.

Now jambo I don’t believe you – surely it should be waitrose super duper cornflakes

I’m on my second T5 nether were brought brand new, just a few months old. Current one as the last one is a work horse (with a half decent spec) to me. But having a van is so bloody handy for transporting Mtb’s and boards. I’m not keen on the fact that they are considered a ‘lifestyle vehicle’ now and it makes me cringe when I get waved at by another T5 owner.

Dorset_Knob – Member
What do you have against broadsheet Sunday supplements?

Hmmmmmmmm…… where to start……? They’re sort of a microcosm of our advanced capitalist consumer society aren’t they, I suppose? But taken to the nth degree, as they disappear up their own arse? I don’t really think I need to expand too much on that, do I?

I get the Observer every Sunday, and read the main section, but I’ve learnt not to even glance at the supplement as its full of 200 quid iPhone covers, wooly jumpers that cost a grand, Road tests on Audi’s, recipes involving ingredients I’ve never heard of and more pointless middle class affectations than you can shake a Moschino stick at.

If everyone in the country read the Times Sunday supplement on one given weekend, you’d have a revolution on your hands within minutes[/quote]

Oh – good answer.

Not completey sure I understand it, fully.

I think what you’re voicing is a frustration with the idea that everything must always have a newer, more obscure, more fashionable and, ultimately, more expensive, alternative, to which the media tells us we must aspire? That the media is the machine of a capitalist organ gone mad?

I think I might feel like I tend to agree.

Part of the problem is the system of money – for any given pound they have, banks lend about 5 pound (let’s say). That means there is a constant push for ‘growth’, to make up the interest. Why is ‘economic growth’ better than ‘economic staying put’, given the pressures that growth puts on people, and the environment?

It’s all about interest, at the end of the day. If banks could lend only 99 pence out of every £1 they had, this pressure would go away.

But, these people know what they’re talking about, whereas I am just an internet idiot in keyboard mode avoiding the day’s work. Have a read, you might like it: Positive Money

Sorry, but that is NOT how banks work. They do not lend out money they receive. They create money first and then this becomes a deposit, not the other way around.

But don’t worry, Central Banks only started admitting this about 3-5 years ago. They and textbooks got it wrong for decades!

So there is a magic money tree then? But you can only access it to spend the money wisely 😆

@Dorset that Positive Money stuff is the biggest load of bollix

So the camper van is merely an instrument of the consumerist, capitalist state and a tool of big capital? Without them our society would simply collapse. Who knew.

So there is a magic money tree then?

There absolutely is a magic money tree. Its called Quantitative Easing, its given a boring technical name to try and obscure what it is – printing money.

The best part of half a trillion pounds of QE has been created since 2008.

All this magic money is only a problem when we want to spend it on things other than banks though.

EDIT

None of that has much to do with T5’s though. To be fair I was just hoping this was a thread slagging off SUVs

I’ve been doing some “pie in the sky” looking into camper vans*. I was really surprised that the purchase cost of VW T5/T6 camper is a similar amount to a much larger and better equipped motorhome. Granted both have their various advantages/disadvantages, but I’d assumed the VW would be a cheaper option.

Also, I’m not convinced by the seat/bed then units along the side layout. At least not for anyone who pursues the lifestyle these vans are associated with/marketed with. With that layout, any gear (bikes, boards, etc.) has go outside of the van… sort of voiding the reason for having a van in the first place, i.e to carry stuff in

I still want one though but with a better layout or at least a sliding “Variotech” type seat. It wouldn’t need to be VW either. I like the simplicity of the Amdro Kombi jump

For mega bucks, there’s also the HymerCar Cape Town that deviates from the “traditional” layout:

*Pie in the sky due to lack of funds

Also, I’m not convinced by the seat/bed then units along the side layout. At least not for anyone who pursues the lifestyle these vans are associated with/marketed with. With that layout, any gear (bikes, boards, etc.) has go outside of the van.

Agree. With my recent (Trafic) conversion I still have the full length of the van, from passenger seat to rear door, to carry a bike or two. It still means they have to be left outside when the van is being used for camping though. To get away from that requires a bigger vehicle which introduces it’s own issues.

Yup, every camper is a compromise, it’s whatever suits your needs tbh. My current camper of choice, big enough to sleep in, on a full size single mattress, and bike fits inside too!

Ard rock by [/url] – Flickr2BBcode LITE

@Dorset that Positive Money stuff is the biggest load of bollix

Oh, OK then.