So many rubbish caravans for sale...

FIAMMA CARAVANSTORE AWNING
by DK42

Camperstop 2010 Book
by aircool

Lake Trasimeno

Italy

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Snelly · Weekender

I just looked at my first caravan today that was for sale. Utter rubbish, damp along the roof, they had even bodged it with silicone and bits of wood trying to cover it up. Thing is I walked away, but there will be someone out there that will buy that!

Oh well, first of many rubbish ones for sale... the search continues.

Langy01 · Rally-er

You will also find that they try to rip you of on price as well.

My first Caravan late 80's Europa ci was traded in for £500, went there the next day to get some bits out I had left and it was marked up at £1500. Now they will sell that as seen with no warranty due to the age.

Paul

Snelly · Weekender

I don't think i'd ever buy one from a dealer. With my budget im going to have to buy private to get anything decent.

Wildfowler · Weekender

Practical Caravanning magazine has a regular feature where they buy really cheapo vans (often more than 10 years old) and give details of what was necessary to repair them (and the costs). I have seen vans as cheap as £1500 in pretty ropey condition being brought up to usable standards for as little as £800 - thus giving a serviceable caravan for £2300.

Maybe worth getting hold of a few back issues of the magazine to get some idea of what is possible.

CLTouring · Part Timer

I don't know how some dealers dare to try and sell some of the rubbish they have on the forecourt. Went in one caravan the other week and it STUNK like something I have never smelt before. The only people that would be interested would be people without a sense of smell. They must have bought it very cheap. The selling price did not reflect the smell tough !

Fisherman · Rally-er

We spent 6 weeks going round dealers and private sellers before we found the right van ( private ) and couldn't believe some of the junk that was for sale. One dealer had 30 or 40 vans in the under £2500 range and only two that I would class as usable and road legal the rest were only fit for stripping for spares.
One had a gap between the sidewall and floor you could get your hand through, ( salesman " a bargain at £1650 if you are good at diy " ).
Don't worry Snelly the more rubbish you look at the better you will be at spotting the bad ones. The right van at the right price is out there you just have to keep looking.

gwc · Rally-er

If you were looking for your first car, and wanted to spend around £500, what would you expect to find? The fact is, second hand caravan values are considerably more than you would expect to pay for a car of a similar age and condition.

Please don’t get me wrong, I am not excusing the shoddy dealer or deceiving private seller, but remember that this is the norm when buying at the bottom rung of the second hand ladder (although I appreciate that this may have been the buying experience of some people at their main $tealers Very Happy

).

Damp is a very common problem in older caravans and caution should be taken when any caravan is advertised with no damp whatsoever. It is commonly known in the trade that anyone advertising a caravan with no damp is either an idiot or a liar! Every caravan will have damp, it’s just a case of assessing the amount of damp against the year of caravan and making a judgement as to whether this is acceptable.

The bottom line is, when looking for the caravan of your dreams, you have to decide how much you want to spend and how long you want to search for. There are little gems out there, but as with all little gems, there’s always a long queue of people in front of you wanting to part with their cash first.

GWC

theflyingscot · Part Timer

hi shane , get yourself a damp meter , its the best thing you could ever do,you can sometimes see it or smell it but the meter never lies,
you probably know what your doing anyway from buying mh/s .
it took me looking for six months at folks shit to find mine and it was end of season before decent stuff became available.
you giving up mhf then? Laughing

CLTouring · Part Timer

It is not just price - folks rightly expect the highest of quality from dealers, for which they are clearly not getting in some cases.

Fisherman · Rally-er

"If you were looking for your first car, and wanted to spend around £500, what would you expect to find?"

High mileage rust round the edges, interior showing it's age, the odd dent and with luck a full mot.

I would not expect to be offered one with no mot, bald tyres, large rust holes and dents in every panel, a blown engine, the exhaust dragging on the floor and be told by the salesman that it's a bargain but that was the equvelant to some of the caravans I saw for sale for a lot more than £500.

gwc · Rally-er

Interesting, there is a poll asking peoples opinion on if a caravan style MOT would be a good idea. The majority are saying no! Maybe your experience is showing that this is in fact a good idea to ensure at least you are buying a safe caravan even it its not cosmetically good?

This may well be the answer to your original statement "So many rubbish caravans for sale..." If there were an annual inspection to ensure a caravan meets a minimum safety standard throughout its life then maybe the standard of second hand caravan would improve. After all it is the previous owners that have allowed, the caravans you are looking at, to get into their current conditions.

Rather than a caravan MOT, I think a compulsory annual service would make more sense. If you have your caravan serviced anyway then you will not be subjected to any extra costs and things like damp would be picked up on earlier and result in a far less expensive repair than is it is ignored over the years. Then, when buying a caravan you could check the service paperwork from past years and have a far better idea of the vans history.

What do you think?

GWC

theflyingscot · Part Timer

hi guys , sorry but i absolutely lothe anything compulsory,i can think of nothing worse than towing my van around for a mot ,sceduling it in,getting humped again by vosa,ive got enough to deal with, i stopped motorhoming to get away from this hassle .
if a buyer requires this then they can look for a regular service history or require/demand it done before purchasing from vendor/dealer , leaving the rest of us to get on with our life/caravanning hassle free .
sorry.

Wildfowler · Weekender

The other thing is that, as long as you take care and go into the deal with your eyes open, you generally expect to get what you pay for.

I have just noticed that Shane did not mention the price of the "rubbish" he opened the thread about.

I assumed that he was looking in the "normal" secondhand price range of £3000 - £8000. Even at the lower end of that range, I would not expect to find a van quite as bad as he described.

On the other hand, if it was only, say, £1000 it might have been very good value for money if none of the faults were terminal. As I said in my earlier post, Practical Caravanning does a regular feature with examples of buying really ropey vans, just like Shane describes, and bringing them into serviceable condition for the additional expenditure of less than £1000.

Like theflyingscot, I do not like compulsion and anyone wanting to buy a van with a service history can choose to limit their search to vans that meet that requirement.

And, as was also said earlier, investing a few quid in a damp meter is a very worthwhile step if you are looking at caravans more than 4 or 5 years old (or maybe even newer).

BIGBILL · Newbie

I also looked around for a van for around £2000.
The dealer ones I would not ep chickens in.
But eventually i found one in the local adds for £500 yes £500 with awning Gas bottles Stabiliser, step, spare wheel,battery ect.
A 1989 Ace Viceroy,owned from new by and Older couple i actually took the plastic off the as new Seat's/bed's.
You can find them it just takes awhile.

BILL

Langy01 · Rally-er

Very nice deal!

Paul