Buying a new (or second hand) caravan

[Chrisgr31]

We currently have a 1990 Dethleff caravan which was purchased by mistake. Well to be precise my wife wanted it and I thought it would be outside budget so told her to have a look and find out how much it was. When she reported back £500 I couldn't really argue it was out of budget!

Anyway it has served us well for a couple of years but I am beginning to think that we could do with something a bit more modern (eg that has hot water!).

In all reality any replacement is likely to be second hand and my Sante Fe can tow up to 2,000kg so the world is potentially my oyster. Unlikely to replace it until the end of the current season or maybe even this time next year but what is the process one should go through when choosing a new (or second hand) caravan.

How does one decide whether to go for single or twin axle? What are the pro's and cons of each?

How does one decide on the layout? Come to that hw does one know what layout each van is?

How does one decide on the number of berths? (eg our current van has 5 berths but theres only 3 of us)

Do Caravans have a trade in value? Or better to sell on Ebay or online?

How far should one travel to find a new one?

Is there a magazine somewhere that gives guide prices like What Car does for Cars?

Part of me thinks that we should be dropping in to caravan sellers for months to look at caravans to get an idea of the available layouts but I can see my daughter getting bored of this plan very quickly indeed!

So how did you choose your van? I don't really want to do what a neighbour did which is buy a new van, and then change it 4 months later as the layout wasn't right!

[surveyor]

Chrisgr31 said:

We currently have a 1990 Dethleff caravan which was purchased by mistake. Well to be precise my wife wanted it and I thought it would be outside budget so told her to have a look and find out how much it was. When she reported back £500 I couldn't really argue it was out of budget!

Anyway it has served us well for a couple of years but I am beginning to think that we could do with something a bit more modern (eg that has hot water!).

In all reality any replacement is likely to be second hand and my Sante Fe can tow up to 2,000kg so the world is potentially my oyster. Unlikely to replace it until the end of the current season or maybe even this time next year but what is the process one should go through when choosing a new (or second hand) caravan.

How does one decide whether to go for single or twin axle? What are the pro's and cons of each?

How does one decide on the layout? Come to that hw does one know what layout each van is?

How does one decide on the number of berths? (eg our current van has 5 berths but theres only 3 of us)

Do Caravans have a trade in value? Or better to sell on Ebay or online?

How far should one travel to find a new one?

Is there a magazine somewhere that gives guide prices like What Car does for Cars?

Part of me thinks that we should be dropping in to caravan sellers for months to look at caravans to get an idea of the available layouts but I can see my daughter getting bored of this plan very quickly indeed!

So how did you choose your van? I don't really want to do what a neighbour did which is buy a new van, and then change it 4 months later as the layout wasn't right!

We have a story from when we were kids when my parents did choose the wrong layout. That caravan was used twice before being changed.

We had a head start in that we knew a fixed double bed does not work very well with kids - whom you want in bed first. We spent an hour looking at second hand caravans at a dealer, and decided that fixed bunks worked really as the daughter can get to bed. Bottom bunk is useful storage space or space for a friend at a later date...

That then led us to twin or single axle. The twins were available at similar money, and I could not see why you would not go for more space when it's available, and the tow car can cope. Difference in fuel consumption is negligible.

Twins impossible to move far by hand, but that's what a tow bar is used for.

On the face of it our van is way bigger than we need - 6 berth for 3 of us, but it gives us space.

[Chrisgr31]

surveyor said:

We had a head start in that we knew a fixed double bed does not work very well with kids - whom you want in bed first. We spent an hour looking at second hand caravans at a dealer, and decided that fixed bunks worked really as the daughter can get to bed. Bottom bunk is useful storage space or space for a friend at a later date...

Our current caravan has fixed double bunks, daughter goes in top one, wife in bottom, and I sleep on single bed on the basis that its a lot easier to set up the single bed than the double! Dogs also pleased as she gets to sleep on the sofa that would make up the double!

The issue of fixed double beds had occurred to us, really want a kids bedroom, not adult one.

[surveyor]

Chrisgr31 said:

surveyor said:

We had a head start in that we knew a fixed double bed does not work very well with kids - whom you want in bed first. We spent an hour looking at second hand caravans at a dealer, and decided that fixed bunks worked really as the daughter can get to bed. Bottom bunk is useful storage space or space for a friend at a later date...

Our current caravan has fixed double bunks, daughter goes in top one, wife in bottom, and I sleep on single bed on the basis that its a lot easier to set up the single bed than the double! Dogs also pleased as she gets to sleep on the sofa that would make up the double!

The issue of fixed double beds had occurred to us, really want a kids bedroom, not adult one.

There are some out there now, but it's a recent design so quite expensive. I suspect it's a rare layout also.

The modern doubles are easy to make up. Put out the slats which are on a roller, chuck the backrest down over the slats and add sleeping bag or sheet. Takes 2 minutes (or 4 if you have me doing the sheet as I'll try it three ways until I find the right way round!).

The 'standard bunk' layout is opposite the door down one side in the twin axle, or across the back with a single. The base normally folds up to add extra storage also. The single ones normally have an extra door to load the floor on the bottom bunk also.

[Chrisgr31]

Thanks for the thoughts, looks like could be spending some time looking at vans. Might need to investigate how east it is to get in to the parking space on the front garden. Whilst it all looks relatively flat the gas bottle enclosure hangs down around the A frame and catches across the pavement as a result. So tend to move it in by hand. Be rather embarassing to get a new van and discover it cant be parked!

[Petemate]

Chrisgr31 said:

Thanks for the thoughts, looks like could be spending some time looking at vans. Might need to investigate how east it is to get in to the parking space on the front garden. Whilst it all looks relatively flat the gas bottle enclosure hangs down around the A frame and catches across the pavement as a result. So tend to move it in by hand. Be rather embarassing to get a new van and discover it cant be parked!

Motor mover.......

[Happy82]

When we bought ours (bailey pageant sancerre), the main criteria were

Fixed double bed
Usable end washroom with separate toilet/shower

We just went to the local caravan dealers and nosed around their stock, the one we bought was actually the first we saw and we went back to buy it in the end (after going to about four dealers) The bonus was that it had a motor mover fitted which is a god send, no more struggling on my own to push it into position

I think the best thing to do is to decide a budget, decide the types of beds you want and the style of washroom you require and take it from there as these are the layout items that have the most difference from caravan to caravan the washroom was important for us as I am a fairly broad chap and I can shower in our caravan, some of the designs were just too small for me to squeeze into! And some of the combined toilet/showers require you to be the size of a small child

Good luck with your search!

[Lunablack]

We thought a caravan with a fixed bed would be an ideal solution for us (only 2 of us) so bought a Bailey Virginia....

Reality was, it was dead space, and made the rest of the van to small...... Yes it was convenient, but when I'm away I want to spend as little time in the van as possible, but when I have to be in the van, I want to be able to have room to move around.....

The fixed bed took up more room than it offered in time saving benefit......