If you buy for 50K, you probably don’t know too much, but you’re buying from a nice garage, so it supports the 50K buy in the guys head. But when the guy sells a few years later, he isn’t a garage so is very unlikely to sell privately for even half 50K. I can only see as a big lose. I’d agree with buy good bay for 18k and use for few years without too much financial outlay, then sell privately again for 18K
What does an ordinary person look for when they buy a van? It’s a bit easier when like us having owned and worked on them, Just for an example if I had to go tomorrow and buy a 3D printer or something like that if my life depended on it I wouldn’t know where to start So buying a 50k van to some people would be a similar experience with the right salesman Yes yes ok ok that’ll do shut up
I was in a petrol station the other day, filling up the camper; when I got back having paid, a young woman gestured from the car on the other side of the pump ‘Was it okay to come over?’. She said her and her partner had always wanted one, and given my time again Would I still buy one? Of course I would, no question. ‘What were the down sides?’ Deep pockets, being able to fix it yourself or at least have a tame mechanic that you trust to do it for you (at a price), lack of fuel economy puts the cost up, that kind of thing.... but that the social side and joy of driving, love of camping etc made it totally worth while for me. But what surprised me in the conversation was that she seemed completely fine with the fact the few that they’d seen advertised were all in the region of £15k, and that (in her words) the holiday to Disney had cost £8k so it would be cheaper in the long run! Maybe people just have more disposable income these days? I was really surprised.
I try to say that to lots of folks, borrow the money and pay it back whilst you camp in your useable camper , rather than never camp in your resto tjsy was a “bargain”
Took me three years to pay off the loan for mine, and in that time I was able to camp and enjoy it. There was other smaller expenses in that time obviously - and there will continue to be - but for me it was the best option: buy the best I could reasonably afford to pay back in a length of time that wasn’t seemingly eternal!
In a kind of way it is logical. The Disney holiday would have cost 8k and plenty people go on them. Two American holidays and there’s the cost of the bus, and you can still sell it on after you’ve done with it! Financial sense. As we all know though , and if purchased they will fit no out, classic vehicles are not something you can park on your drive and when required turn the key and go. This is the bit folk don’t want to hear or don’t comprehend
That was my thinking about demand this year. My ex- in-laws started renting out their nice, fairly large apartment in Mallorca at £2.5k a week, and that was 10 years ago... that’s when I started to realise just how much people pay for family holidays. I guess it’s all relative, I like my winter snowboarding holidays and they’re not cheap, but as a non-parent I’ve never had to pay for a whole family so that kind of big expense isn’t something I have to consider. But as a holiday substitute this year the cost of buying a camper of some sort for family staycations doesn’t seem so dramatic considering it lasts for more than one holiday. I just hope they buy a T4 or something and avoid the disappointment that might come with the. T2 ‘rustic charm’. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Always wanted one but never getting one usually means they only like the idea of having one, rather than the reality of it. The first flat battery or hot start failure at a petrol station would shatter the illusion, as would a long weekend camping in the rain.....
Personally I park mine in a car park and use it every day, turn the key and go. And £8k for a holiday? Not in my world!
'We' are a peculiar breed that don't mind having a go ! There are far more people out there who will assume exhausts and brakes can be done at Kwik Fit while they wait and their local VW dealership will happily service it...... I'd love to know what % of people who have hired a bay for a holiday would ever hire one again, let alone buy one to use as a regular holiday option?
The people who spend £8k going to Disney Land aren't the same people who want to be crammed into a tin can on a drizzly campsite. They may think they are; but after a couple of camping trips they'll wonder what the hell they've done.
I had very similar feelings to this after a long weekend at eurodisney. Never again. It looks like a Disney park, it smells like a Disney park. But it has all the charm of a bad case of the trots. Give me a drizzly camper van any day over that. Now Florida. That’s a different thing altogether.
