caravan: how cheap is too cheap?

[LeftmostAardvark]

I'm going to move up from a folding camper soon (£395 beer fuelled ebay purchase which has been far better than i could ever have expected). Obviously i wont get anything for £395, but neither do i want to spend £20k+ on a new one. It will need to see fairly heavy use (i have 13 weeks in which i can use it through the year) but it seems the price drops fairly heavily between new and 10 years old. Is a 10 year old caravan worth anything or is it getting towards end of life?

also, do the prices drop sept / oct? I'm assuming there must be a seasonal fluctuation, but how much? Is it worth waiting until November?

[marshal_alan]

you can get a decent van for a grand, under that you are looking at the usual damp repairs, service and tyres. there is some peaches out there but a heck of a lot more lemons tho. go to a dealer and part with 5k upwards and you will get a good spec van with warranty and servicing, part with more than 10k and you are looking at modern ikea travelodges on wheels

if you are good with diy then yeah buy a project, you wil need joinery and spannering skills, if you want to hitch up and go then visit a friendly dealer but beware lemons can be polished up to look like peaches, you do get vans in dealers that may only be a few years old but are rotten. if a van is taken care of then its lifespan is indefinate, dont care then it is a few years

[Chicken Chaser]

Id rather buy private, you get to see who's owned the van and you generally don't pay dealers prices on top

[mike9009]

We bought a 12ft 1970s caravan for £250. Lived in it for 9 weeks or so. Then sold it for £250.

It was tired but clean and dry.

Mike

[Chrisgr31]

Our 5 berth Dethleff is a 1994 model and cost us £400 4 or 5 years ago, been away in it every year since. Just pondering changing it. Bought it from the owners of a campsite we were staying on!

[EddyP]

We started looking 6 months ago for a £1K van, then we started looking around at what you could get for your cash, what had damp problems, what was nice etc…
In the end we spent 4x the budget and ended up with a 2004 van, which is really nice, has an unusual layout and all mod cons etc..

One thing to be careful of, the earlier vans had the Carver Cascade water heaters, which are apparently quite tricky to fix now because Carver got taken over by Truma, and they no longer make spares for it.

[marshal_alan]

gary at arc systems http://www.arcsystems.biz/ for all carver bits, alternatively the propex malaga water heater is a straight swap http://www.thecaravanshop.co.uk/water-heaters/prop...

[GreatGranny]

We have 2 friends whe have bought recently with varying success.

One paid £2k from a dealer for what looked like a decent van but he discovered damp in the washroom. Good job he's a joiner!

Another paid £250 for a 14ft 4 berth, with nearly new bradcot awning and has got a bargain. No experience before but just got lucky.
Yes its old but dry inside with no funny smells. Everything works and they use it regularly.

You can normally tell if its damp when you go inside.
Take a damp meter if possible.
Springy floor walk away
Check all electrics work or at least the important ones.
Buying private will normally get you all the equipment as well.