10 Things You Should Know BEFORE Buying a Campervan

Hi everyone, welcome back to the van build series. If you're new here I'm Jessica, I'm Rissi and this is Heidi and together we've been slow traveling around Europe for the last two years to reconnect with nature and grow roots in the wild. As you can see we've got a new van which we bought for me to travel in solo and before we get into the main van building content we thought it might be useful to do a video about all of the things we learned from the van buying process because there are just so many things to take into consideration and think about from whether you're buying the right van for your lifestyle to things you want to know before buying just to avoid having any issues with your vehicle down the line. So this information will be specific to buying a van to be used as a camper van rather than being used as a general panel van because a lot of stuff online is more specifically oriented towards that and obviously if you're converting it into a van then there's very specific things that you need to look out for. Yeah and these tips will also be very specific to buying an empty van to convert yourself rather than buying a finished conversion so if you're thinking of buying a van to convert yourself this video is for you. So the first thing you want to think about before buying a van is whether you want a bigger van or a smaller van. So we started our van life journey with an extra long wall base which was the biggest vehicle Rissi could drive on a normal license and we actually found that really useful because I used to have a lot of stuff and I don't think we could have fitted that in a smaller van and having a larger van just gave me the opportunity to slowly declutter and figure out what I actually needed and what I didn't need. Yeah I think if you had gone straight from living in an apartment to living in the van you would have really struggled to know what to keep and what not to keep so then you end up either throwing stuff away needing to rebuy it or going through a whole bunch of stresses as you try and think that I need all of this stuff when actually you realize you don't after you've been in the van for a while. And this also really depends on the kind of lifestyle that you lead so for example if you're just gonna take your van out on the weekends you can probably do with a smaller van whereas if you live in it full-time you might want to consider a larger van but again that depends on things like do you want a bathroom, how much kitchen space do you need, are you going solo or are you a couple or do you have children with you all of those things will determine how big of a van you will need. When you think about where you're going to use it if you're going to use it on campsites a lot for example you can probably save some space and some money by going without a toilet or a bathroom because a lot of them will have those facilities on site and then you can just use theirs rather than having to worry about firstly plumbing it in which is a pain if you want a shower and things like that and then also the additional cost of needing a bigger van and all of the equipment that comes with that. We found that the difference between a medium wall base and an extra long wall base was really really big especially even between a long wall base and extra long wall base especially if you're going for a high top as well and also that leads us to our second point because the size of your van will also influence how much insurance you're going to pay and that's something you definitely want to find out beforehand before you buy your van. So for the first year of our first van a Bilbo we were spending 300 pounds a month on insurance because a month not a year a month because I was a new driver and it's a very big van so it was actually really difficult even to find an insurer that would cover me initially and at one point we thought we might not be able to at all. Yeah that's really scary and now comparing it to the medium wall base I'm going to be the main driver of this van and I literally just passed my driving license so I'm in a very similar situation to Rissi in our first van and my insurance is going to be 200 pounds a month for my first year of driving so it's still quite high but it's 100 pounds less compared to the extra long wall base so it definitely does help. So what we recommend doing is take the number plate of the van you're considering buying and just call up a few insurers and ask them how much the insurance would be on that van and that will depend on a few factors such as how long you've held your driving license, how many miles you're planning to drive, your range, even your gender plays a role because apparently women cause accidents less often statistically so all of those things are just really hard to predict and we definitely would have benefited from finding out about the insurance first because it hit us quite hard financially and it's not something we anticipated and if we had known we maybe would have gone for a long wall base instead of an extra long wall base. Yeah and I think definitely keep size in mind as much as possible because that's probably the single biggest factor. I mean if we compare when we saw Bilbo, the people that bought it off us, they were spending 1400 pounds a year on insurance. So that was like half of what we were paying. Compare that to my mum's medium wheelbase which is basically the same age they're both 2016. My mum is paying 700 pounds so it's half as much to go from extra long wheelbase to medium wheelbase. The third thing you want to consider is whether you want to buy a minibus or a van and that will mostly depend on whether and how many windows you want in your van conversion. Yeah that's a really big thing because if you want a lot of windows it does add up very quickly. Yeah it's expensive. Even if you're willing to install them yourself if you want five windows for example which is actually not that many if you consider a lot of people have two on the back doors one on the sliding door that's only two others you're going to be spending about 100 pounds per window. Then if you don't want to fit it yourself it's another 100 pounds per window so you can easily spend a thousand pounds on windows just to have a moderate amount. And then obviously a newer panel van will cost you more to begin with so that's going to cost you quite a few thousand pounds more potentially. So we were thinking about getting a minibus but there's also a few downsides to minibuses they tend to be older they tend to have more issues with rust for that reason depending on where they've been stored especially in the UK rust is an issue and also they tend to have less miles which is a good thing in and of itself but it also means that sometimes they haven't been driven for a long time and that can also cause issues with the vehicle. So we didn't want to take that risk and we did have a little bit of budget to play with so we decided to go for a newer van and we're going to have our windows professionally installed. It does break the bank a little bit but I really want windows in the van all round so that's just something I had to accept. The other thing to keep in mind is windows on minibuses are often not tinted especially older minibuses so if tinted windows are a big thing for you there are ways around it but most people if they want tinted windows the best thing do is just get a panel van and have bonded tinted windows installed. Before we continue with the rest of our list I want to say a big thank you to the sponsor of today's video Viofo. I'm going to be the main driver of this van and because I'm also a very new driver I literally just passed my driving test I've been looking for a really reliable dashcam not just for peace of mind but also to feel more confident behind the wheel and know that everything is being recorded. That's why I just installed the Viofo A229 Pro and honestly I think it's the best dashcam out there and it's packed with features which make it perfect for van life and long-term travel. In our last van Bilbo we had a situation where we were hit by a speeding car and they completely knocked off our wing mirror but because they quickly sped away we had absolutely no time to react so we were left with a pretty expensive repair which was not our fault and no way to prove it and if we had had a dashcam we could have just sent the footage to the insurance provider and be done with it and save ourselves a lot of money and hassle. Now this dashcam from Viofo is the first 4k front, 2k rear and 1080p interior recording setup all in one unit. All three channels are enhanced with Sony sensors which means it captures incredibly clear footage even in low light. The detail is really impressive and you can make out distant signs, road markings and even license plates in fast motion. What really impressed me was how well it handles bright sun and deep shadows thanks to full HDR support across all channels. The interior camera also has infrared LEDs which means that you can get clear black and white footage even in total darkness so even when I'm sleeping in a town or parked up in complete darkness it still records sharp black and white footage of the cab which is great for safety and peace of mind. This is some footage that I captured last week and the detail is unreal. You can see everything even distant signs and number plates and as for the installation I expected that to be a faff to be honest because I'm not good at reading manuals but it was super straightforward and took me less than 30 minutes in total. I mounted the cameras to the windscreen in the back of the van, powered it through my 12 volt plank and it was up and running and you can also hardwire it into your van system if you prefer. The Viofo app makes everything easier as well. You can preview footage, download videos super fast and even update the firmware directly through the app and I would recommend using one of Viofo's high endurance SD cards too. They're made for constant writing so you don't lose footage when it matters the most. And by the way Viofo just launched their A329S series. It's a powerful upgrade with 4k front, 2k rear and 2k interior recording and even better parking features. You can view it on the website and I'll drop the link below in the description. So if you're traveling full-time or you just want some peace of mind while driving this dash cam is honestly one of the best investments you can make. You can check out the Viofo A229 Pro via the link in the description and you can also get $15 off with my code ROOT229P. Alright and now back to the video. Number four of things to consider is whether your van is compatible with low emission zones and ultra low emission zones. So the first van that we bought, Bilbo, that was actually compatible with ultra low emission zones. It was Euro 6 compliant which is the the most modern sort of compliance for diesel engines and it's what you need to drive pretty much anywhere in in Europe. You get the green thumbs up and you can drive around without needing to pay any kind of additional entry fee to go into urban areas or city centers or anything like that. Yeah just to be clear it's for towns and cities like you'll be fine in the countryside without Euro 6. So yeah this is also where it comes down to individual preference and where you're gonna be in your van. We went for a Euro 6 ultra low emission zone compliant van for our first conversion because we thought it would be really useful and sometimes we visit friends and cities but in the end we used our EULA's privilege maybe twice in the two years that we had the van. Another thing we weren't aware of is if you drive into a city you only have to pay the charge on the days that you're actually driving the van. So if you're just parked outside someone someone's house you don't actually have to pay the charge and we didn't know that so that makes it even less worth it for us because most of the time we were in the countryside and in the middle of nowhere and I'm planning to do the same thing in this van. So for us it was really not worth it and it does add quite a bit of money to the van. We were considering getting a EULA's compliant van for this one but it was just like a couple of thousand pounds more and it was just really not worth it. I would rather spend the 20 pounds a year to visit my friends and cities because it's really not any more than that and also apps like Google Maps show you where those low emission zones are so it's quite easy to avoid them if you don't want to pay the charge. So in particular if you're spending a lot of time in like northwestern Europe I think they have a lot more low emission zones they're quite common in the UK and they're being rolled out relatively rapidly is my understanding but if you start heading towards eastern Europe if you want to spend a lot of time in Greece or somewhere in that kind of area for example they're very rare. I was kind of thinking about is it gonna cause me any problems in the next five years and I came to the conclusion probably not so I went for a van that was EULA's compliant. It's 2016 so it's kind of the cutoff year between Lez and EULA's but this van is early 2016 so it didn't make the EULA's cut but yeah I don't think it's gonna impact me personally at all but it's a very individual thing. So the next thing to keep in mind is how many miles the vehicle has done. Now to a degree that's probably down to personal preference so we found that there seems to be quite a lot of vehicles listed for just under 100,000 miles which makes me think it's probably kind of a sweet spot between companies who have bought a new van and they're trying to sell it on and recoup a good amount of the money and also for buyers who are looking to buy a van to know that there's still enough legs left in the van for it to be worth their time and effort. Yeah both of the vans we bought were just under 100,000 miles. Our first van was 95,000 and this one was 93,000. We didn't have any issues with our old van. We barely spent any money on maintenance so we thought it was probably okay. Also diesel engines can just go on forever. They can do at least 200,000 or 250k miles before they need serious kind of maintenance or repairs and we've also met people whose vans have three or four hundred thousand miles and they're still going so as long as you really look after your van and you're very diligent with your maintenance they can go on for a really really long time. Number six and this is something you want to ask the question you're buying the van from is does it come with a full service history? So the van that we bought this time, our most recent van, actually didn't come with a service history because it was owned by a telecoms company and they just don't give out that information when they sell their vans on. I don't think it's particularly an issue if it's from a fleet because they tend to be very well maintained anyway and they probably have their own in-house mechanical team that will be doing it all fairly regularly anyway. The first van we bought, Bilbo, actually did come with a full service history which was super useful to reflect on just when we were when we were actually buying it knowing who's done the work, what's been done and it does give a certain element of accountability perhaps if we had an issue with the brakes and they say whoever did this last time did an awful job and they didn't know what they were doing at least we can kind of see who it was and I doubt that they would do much for us but at least we can perhaps understand what the issue was a little bit better. Number seven is very related to this and it's also a question you always want to ask before buying a van and it hasn't been treated for rust and we ask this question literally with every van we look at even if it's a newer van because if it's been stored outside in a humid country like the UK it can definitely have rust issues and that's a big risk. Rust is one of those things that can get really expensive and because rust creates more rust once you've got it you've kind of got it you're either going to need to spend a lot of money trying to deal with that ongoingly and it's not going to go away anytime soon it's not like an issue with with the engine or the brakes that you can fix and then it's fixed it's pretty much going to be an ongoing issue for the remainder of that vehicle's life so you have to accept that that's either going to lead to ongoing high running costs or you're just going to have to let that go. So my mum used to have a Peugeot Boxer which admittedly was quite an old vehicle but that had a lot of rust issues and they got to the point where they were having to spend an awful lot of money every year to get it through its MOT because they just had to weld huge pieces of metal onto the bottom of it to keep it structurally sound and stop it just rusting apart. Number eight and nine are very interconnected and they're how many previous owners has the van had and who were the previous owners? So I think it's really good to have a relatively short list of previous owners just because it gives you a little bit more confidence that you know what state the van is in, what's been done to it, how it's been treated and what it's been used for. Both vans actually that we've bought have only had one previous owner minus the dealer that owned it in between and that just let us know exactly how it's been used and that gave us a lot more confidence that it hasn't been used for anything that is going to have particularly hard-wearing impact on any of the mechanical elements of it or cause issues to the essentials. Yeah so our first van used to be an environmental services van and this one was a BT van and they were not fairly new but they were like what nine years old and they had quite a few miles just under 100k so that also made us think that a lot of those miles were probably motorway miles which is also better for the van than city driving for example so that gave us a lot of peace of mind and also businesses tend to look after the vehicles better because they can't afford to break down on a job and all that kind of stuff so yeah we really like buying ex-business vans they're sometimes just random stuff you have to take out of the van we had a lot of BT stuff that we had to take out of here but it can also come with perks we had a diesel heater in the van already which we may or may not use so and a last thing to consider which is a personal preference but we would recommend it is to buy the van from a dealer so buying from a dealer does come with the drawback that you'll have to pay sales tax which I guess is more or less of a drawback depending on where you are in the UK that's 20% which is quite a lot and I can definitely see the appeal of going to a private seller who isn't charging VAT because it either saves you a much better van for effectively the same price but it comes with the drawback of having a lot less accountability and also a lot of dealers do provide a warranty of at least three months sometimes even longer yeah and the thing is when it's sitting at a dealership they don't really drive the van so there could be like small issues that they've overlooked so it's really good to know that if something comes up in the first three months the dealer's gonna pay for that repair so for example with this van there's there's a tiny little thing with the driver's side door that's broken and they're gonna pay for that which is really good but if you buy from a private seller it's sold a scene so if you encounter any issues once you drive away with the van that's your fault and obviously if you know a lot about cars or you've got a mechanic friend that you can take with you to view the van you can minimize that risk but if you're like us and you just don't know that much about vans and cars in general buying from a dealer can definitely give you a lot of peace of mind and extra security i think for me personally i just wouldn't want to risk seven eight thousand pounds on a private vehicle that like who knows what's gonna happen yeah if it breaks on the drive home then you've lost all your money and that's what happened to your parents once right my parents did buy a car once and on the drive back from from the people they bought it from the cam belt snapped and at that point the cost to repair it is far more than the car was worth so they had to discard the car the sellers actually were nicer than they needed to be about it and they agreed to give him half the money back which is nice i guess but it still it still means he's spent a whole bunch of money on essentially nothing yeah so definitely not a risk we personally want to take okay that's it those were our 10 tips for buying a van if there's any that we may have forgotten about do add them to the comments and we really hope that this was useful for you if you're thinking of buying and converting a van if you enjoyed this video do leave it a thumbs up and subscribe for more van life content and our van build which we're gonna document here on youtube until then take good care of yourselves and we'll see you next time bye