Who lives in a van? Or wants to?

[Sweet FA]

Ooh shiny!

Is it already converted?

It is very shiny I don't want a camper yet; more of a day van. I've got a few more years actual camping before my old bones need a camper hopefully. It's pretty much where I want it now: soundproofed, bulkhead out, cambelt/water pump done. All I really need is a diesel heater and the electrics sorted - leisure battery+ 240 volt plugs+ a couple of USB ports. And a decent sound system. And a set of winter tyres. And a ski rack. And more storage. And a proper immobiliser.

 

[David Clapson]

This whole living in a van thing will probably be necessary when a load of people find themselves homeless. For a lot of people like me though, it's not affordable and never will be.

We should be able to claim housing benefit when living in a van.

 

[David Clapson]

Bit the bullet and bought this

View attachment 256735

Swank! Spec, age, mileage, price???

 

[David Clapson]

Just look at this monster. Yours for £2250 1981 Extra Long Mercedes 508D Guaranteed to have the locals sharpening their pitchforks when you arrive, even in Moldova. The seller said it had to be collected by 23rd Jan. I wonder what transpired.

 

[existentialist]

Just look at this monster. Yours for £2250 1981 Extra Long Mercedes 508D Guaranteed to have the locals sharpening their pitchforks when you arrive, even in Moldova. The seller said it had to be collected by 23rd Jan. I wonder what transpired.

That bulge on its arse really uglies it up nicely...

 

[David Clapson]

I really, really hate the SUV-buying section of the public. But if I buy a pre-82 van to avoid ULEZ, am I as bad? Or worse?

What if it's a petrol one, and I convert it to LPG and burn LPG or bioLPG...does that make it acceptable? I don't know the CO2 numbers, but with LPG on a big old van the MPG would be equivalent to about 40.

I wouldn't be poisoning London with it much.

And when I'm travelling in it I don't have the domestic carbon footprint of central heating and mains electricity and a bathroom. I would usually be in warm places where there was no need for a van heater either. Or a water heater. My electronic gadgets would be mainly solar powered. Shower water would also be heated by the sun. My toilet would be a composting one which uses no water and doesn't put sewage into the drains.

 

[Sweet FA]

Swank! Spec, age, mileage, price???

T30 SWB Highline 4Motion manual Kombi with just over 100k - £16k.

 

[existentialist]

I really, really hate the SUV-buying section of the public. But if I buy a pre-82 van to avoid ULEZ, am I as bad? Or worse?

What if it's a petrol one, and I convert it to LPG and burn LPG or bioLPG...does that make it acceptable? I don't know the CO2 numbers, but with LPG on a big old van the MPG would be equivalent to about 40.

I wouldn't be poisoning London with it much.

And when I'm travelling in it I don't have the domestic carbon footprint of central heating and mains electricity and a bathroom. I would usually be in warm places where there was no need for a van heater either. Or a water heater. My electronic gadgets would be mainly solar powered. Shower water would also be heated by the sun. My toilet would be a composting one which uses no water and doesn't put sewage into the drains.

When people are quoting mpg like 40 on LPG, is that taking into account the lower cost? Because, litre for litre, I thought LPG was slightly poorer than standard 95 octane petrol.

 

[David Clapson]

Yes, I think so. They're saying what the cost would be if it were petrol, IYSWIM.

 

[existentialist]

Yes, I think so. They're saying what the cost would be if it were petrol, IYSWIM.

Hmm.

 

[David Clapson]

I've been given access to most of Japan's auction results for the last 3 months. Let me know if you want some info. I'm looking at 2nd gen Alphard/Vellfire hybrid prices. They were released in 2011. (The 2nd gen non-hybrid Alphard/Vellfire was released in 2008, but Toyota didn't offer a hybrid version until 2011.) There are very few 2nd gen ones in the UK and the prices here seem to be stratospheric. There's a 2015 one with 47,000 miles going for £29,995.

I'm looking for cheapies which are scruffy or have had accident repairs. There's a 2012 one with 72,000 miles which had the rear tailgate panel replaced. It sold for £4,800. Fees, commission and shipping to Southampton would have added a maximum of £2,600. VAT and duty would have added a maximum of £2,800. Grand total about £10,240 excluding IVA test and registration. And there's another 2012 one with 80,000 miles and new tailgate panels for a grand total of about £12,050.

Gen 1 hybrids are far cheaper.

Hiace prices are very strong. They depreciate far less than the Alphard/Vellfire, I suppose because they are bought for commercial use. The Super Long high roof version looks very camper-worthy...5.4 m long, 2.3 m high and 1.9m wide. The nearest thing I can find to a bargain is a 2013 2.7l petrol one with 15,000 miles, and new wings, bonnet and driver's door. £16,000 grand total.

eta Here's a nice 2nd gen Alphard Hybrid in the UK for £15,500. 2012, 84,000 miles. Looks like the dealer imported it and probably put a 2-3k profit margin on it. Which seems to make sense. Toyota Alphard Hybrid Ref AA147 - Algys Autos Imports Ltd

 

[David Clapson]

I'm off the Alphard. Now I want a Nissan Elgrand. Substantially cheaper at the auctions, and better as a camper because the rear doorway is bigger and squarer and there's a selectable 4WD version with a diff lock, whatever that is. Apparently it's just the thing for getting out of a muddy field.

 

[David Clapson]

No Alphard means no hybrid. I'll probably get a 3 litre V6 Elgrand. But the Alphard hybrid wouldn't have achieved much greenness unless I drove it in town. What matters is LPG and bioLPG. There's a guy in the Elgrand community who does very highly rated LPG conversions for about £1500. For an extra £250 you can have a stove connection so you can cook with propane. The tank would be about 85 litres, located in the spare wheel wheel under the car. I'd probably also have a second tank inside the car to help get around the LPG scarcity problem. Maybe I can even find bioLPG in the London area.

This is the kind of thing available. 2010, 3.5l, selectable 4WD, very high spec, 96,000 miles, it's been repaired and has a few small scratches, condition C inside and out, £2,300 at auction, £6,400 including shipping, commissions, duty and VAT.

Here's one being gutted.

 

[existentialist]

No Alphard means no hybrid. I'll probably get a 3 litre V6 Elgrand. But the Alphard hybrid wouldn't have achieved much greenness unless I drove it in town. What matters is LPG and bioLPG. There's a guy in the Elgrand community who does very highly rated LPG conversions for about £1500. For an extra £250 you can have a stove connection so you can cook with propane. The tank would be about 85 litres, located in the spare wheel wheel under the car. I'd probably also have a second tank inside the car to help get around the LPG scarcity problem. Maybe I can even find bioLPG in the London area.

This is the kind of thing available. 2010, 3.5l, selectable 4WD, very high spec, 96,000 miles, it's been repaired and has a few small scratches, condition C inside and out, £2,300 at auction, £6,400 including shipping, commissions, duty and VAT.

Here's one being gutted.

I'm not sure I could bear to spend very much time in a 'van I couldn't stand up in.

 

[David Clapson]

It will be a new experience for me. I can always add a high roof if I go mad. And i'll be off cycling much of the time.

 

[Boudicca]

It will be a new experience for me. I can always add a high roof if I go mad. And i'll be off cycling much of the time.

And you can get an awning for longer stays.

 

[David Clapson]

Last night I bid for a 2010 Elgrand E52, 4WD, 3.5 litre. 114,000 miles, so I bid low, £7,500 landed, although the forecast price was £8,500. My logic was that I wouldn't be upset if I lost, because of the mileage. The Nissan VQ series of V6 engines has a great reputation for longevity...300,000+ miles no problem. But 114,000 miles is still a lot for brakes, suspension, transmission etc. Anyway, I was content. Sort of.

Then I went to bed and started reading E52 owners' tales of woe in the UK owners' forum. Someone with 3 loose screws in his engine which fell into the cylinders. And someone who had to get their CVT rebuilt for £2,000+. CVT is the only choice for the E52. So I panicked and tried harder than ever to find an alternative fairly cheap ULEZ compliant petrol van of the right size. And I discovered that importing JDM cars from Japan isn't the only game in town...an even better game is importing the Mercedes Viano from Japan. They depreciate to almost nothing. It's ridiculous. I could get the Mercedes equivalent of the Elgrand for £6,500 landed but with 50,000 miles and fewer scratches. Like the Elgrand it would be a thirsty V6 3.5 litre, but I would LPG it, so no worries. (There's one on ebay which has already been LPG'd Mercedes-Benz Viano 3.5 Ambiente (Long) MPV 5d 3724cc auto | eBay 2005, 64,000 miles, £9,990. Ex-Saudi royalty - it even has the luggage net for secure transportation of dismembered journalists.)

But when I woke up there was a congratulatory email to tell me I'd bought the Elgrand for £7,370. So my fate is sealed. It will be here in 10 weeks or so.

The auctioneer's description says: "2010 elgrand highway star premium, Both side power sliding doors, Power back door, Rear monitor, HID headlight,
Remote Engine start, Genuine lip spoiler, Interior worn, Rust underneath, Rear wiper missing, Aftermarket shocks, Drive shaft grease leak". Sounds OK for an 11 year old, 114,000 mile car. A bit of a gamble though. It's quite nerve-racking.

 

[existentialist]

The auctioneer's description says: "2010 elgrand highway star premium, Both side power sliding doors, Power back door, Rear monitor, HID headlight,
Remote Engine start, Genuine lip spoiler, Interior worn, Rust underneath, Rear wiper missing, Aftermarket shocks, Drive shaft grease leak". Sounds OK for an 11 year old, 114,000 mile car. A bit of a gamble though. It's quite nerve-racking.

Speaking as someone who has lately been bingewatching campervan conversion videos, I'd say...

The power doors are neither here nor there, but remember when you do your conversion to preserve access to the mechanisms, in case they do go wrong.

The lip spoiler and aftermarket shocks make me slightly queasy - is this a bit of a DIY "pimp my ride" effort? You may want to have someone look over the running gear (and elsewhere) for any dubious mods.

Rust. Above all else, do not accept "that'll do" regarding rust prior to conversion. You are going to have to strip out as much as you can, and get to it with grinders, welders (hopefully not necessary), and sprayers to make sure every last bit of rust is eliminated before you start putting stuff in. First-hand anecdote - the 25 year old Iveco I am the current custodian of has some severe lower bodywork rust. But it's a camper van, which means that to do any kind of welding work to the floor or upper bodyside, I am going to have to strip out cabinets, interior fittings, and quite possibly the walls. Be positively anal about eliminating every last vestige of rust, and then going overboard on ensuring that no potential weak spots remain. Once you start building out, you basically don't want to have a rust problem for the life of the vehicle, and anything you spend getting it right to start with will pay dividends. I'll send you a photo of the Iveco if you need proof

I would recommend that one of the first things you do is to give the engine a gold standard service. Replace all filters, check all belts and anything that looks dubious, replace it. Consider getting the cam belt done (if it has one) regardless of what claims might have been made for its recent replacement.

The drive shaft oil leak might be a big deal, or it might not. A lot depends on how bad it is, and what the impact on engine oil levels is. With what decent engine oil costs, you don't have to spunk too many 5L cans down the spout before the cost of having that sorted starts looking like a realistic proposition, so maybe better sooner rather than later? One thing to bear in mind, though - one thing it won't do is to spontaneously get better by itself. So you're going to end up needing to replace it sooner or later.

Which reminds me - this hadn't even occurred to me before I looked into all this...I think you said you were planning on living in your van. Remember that you will need a fallback plan if the van ends up needing to be in the garage for a couple of days (eg to replace a drive shaft bearing ), and you suddenly don't have a home.

 

[David Clapson]

The rust was indicated just with the letter S, which should mean superficial. Proper England-style rust would be described as Corrosion. They use water to de-ice their roads, not salt, so it shouldn't be too bad, but I will attack it properly, from the inside as well as underneath.

Same for the shocks. Maybe they're an improvement? The stock ones are known for having too-short springs and hitting the bump stops all the time on English roads. Or maybe they're just cheap rubbish which were thrown on when the stock ones rusted. We shall see. I'm keeping an open mind on shock replacement, as I want to do wild camping on dirt roads. There are lots of Elgrand owners in Australia - they always get new shocks made and have lots of good info.

I'm keeping a room at my place, not going to be homeless, no Sir.

I'm puzzled by the lip spoiler - it looks stock. Might be a translation error.

As well as a full service I'll be taking it to the Elgrand LPG boffin, who's a massive enthusiast and knows everything. He'll have it for three days. His assessment of the engine, transmission, cats etc will be very valuable. The Elgrand can have severe cat problems. There are four of them, and the two front ones can only be got at with much removal of things in the engine bay. He'll decore the two rear ones which are easy to get at. The LPG will make the remaining two run cooler, with fewer impurities to burn. So the emissions will be acceptable and they will be less likely to fall apart.

 

[Sweet FA]

#vanlife

 

[bellaozzydog]

My van is entering its sixth month in garage with no work done. I’m starting to despair

 

[existentialist]

The rust was indicated just with the letter S, which should mean superficial. Proper England-style rust would be described as Corrosion. They use water to de-ice their roads, not salt, so it shouldn't be too bad, but I will attack it properly, from the inside as well as underneath.

Same for the shocks. Maybe they're an improvement? The stock ones are known for having too-short springs and hitting the bump stops all the time on English roads. Or maybe they're just cheap rubbish which were thrown on when the stock ones rusted. We shall see. I'm keeping an open mind on shock replacement, as I want to do wild camping on dirt roads. There are lots of Elgrand owners in Australia - they always get new shocks made and have lots of good info.

I'm keeping a room at my place, not going to be homeless, no Sir.

I'm puzzled by the lip spoiler - it looks stock. Might be a translation error.

As well as a full service I'll be taking it to the Elgrand LPG boffin, who's a massive enthusiast and knows everything. He'll have it for three days. His assessment of the engine, transmission, cats etc will be very valuable. The Elgrand can have severe cat problems. There are four of them, and the two front ones can only be got at with much removal of things in the engine bay. He'll decore the two rear ones which are easy to get at. The LPG will make the remaining two run cooler, with fewer impurities to burn. So the emissions will be acceptable and they will be less likely to fall apart.

It may be worth investigating whether air cushion suspension can be fitted. Certainly, on larger vehicles when heavily loaded (as camper vans tend to be), they can make quite a difference.

 

[Saul Goodman]

My van is entering its sixth month in garage with no work done. I’m starting to despair

Start charging the cunts for the hire of it. It's a piss take at this stage.

 

[bmd]

I am seriously thinking about it. Nomadland-style. I couldn't live in a T4 or whatever. That kind of size. Where would my synths go? There's an RV they get into in that film, at a show. That one would be ok as it's bigger than my house.

 

[DownwardDog]

The rust was indicated just with the letter S, which should mean superficial. Proper England-style rust would be described as Corrosion. They use water to de-ice their roads, not salt, so it shouldn't be too bad, but I will attack it properly, from the inside as well as underneath.

Because only three people in Japan can afford garages almost all JDM cars will have spent their entire lives outdoors. They don't use salt but cars from near the coast can have quite a bit of rust. Yokohama cars always seem to have fucked paintwork from something or other - acid rain?

You just can't beat the emotional rollercoaster of buying something from an online auction from Japan. I got my R32 GTR V-spec from one and all I had to do it was replace both turbos, the rear subframe, rear knuckles, the ATESSA pump and every single suspension bush.

 

[bmd]

That bulge on its arse really uglies it up nicely...

Otherwise it looks a peach!

 

[bmd]

The Graun has some words.

 

[David Clapson]

Because only three people in Japan can afford garages almost all JDM cars will have spent their entire lives outdoors. They don't use salt but cars from near the coast can have quite a bit of rust. Yokohama cars always seem to have fucked paintwork from something or other - acid rain?

You just can't beat the emotional rollercoaster of buying something from an online auction from Japan. I got my R32 GTR V-spec from one and all I had to do it was replace both turbos, the rear subframe, rear knuckles, the ATESSA pump and every single suspension bush.

I got my pre-shipment photos. I hope the rust underneath is superficical. We shall see. It will be a new experience to buy axle stands and spend the day under a car with a wire brush.

I'm alarmed by the OEM springs - they look brand new. If they were bunged on just to get the bus through the auction they'll be the cheapest and nastiest available, and it makes me wonder what was done to trash the original ones.

I reckon I'll be ditching the body kit so I can do a few dirt roads and some cheeky wild camping.

 

[Boudicca]

I have just impulse purchased a nearly new and quite posh looking Berlingo.

I'm going to get rid of my car (little Hyundai i10) and get or build a single bed in the back. Not entirely sure it is spacious enough but at least it will get me out and about. And I already have two awnings....

 

[Boudicca]

If any urbanites with vans fancy a stopover in Bournemouth, let me know.

I can't really let you into the house yet as I have lodgers and am encouraging rule following, but I have space on my drive and am about 400 yards from the sea.

Tagging han gaijingirl & mx wcfc as vanpeople I have met, but all welcome. Oh yes and David Clapson, bring that Elgrand down and I will make you some B&W snakeskin cushions to make up for the disappointment of those trousers....