£2-£3k will buy you an 80s VW camper in poor to reasonable condition, if you buy one at that price expect to do a bit of cosmetic work & hope the engine/gearbox aint about to expire--if you want to do some serious mileage you will need to spend a bit more than that imho--
My LWB T4 cost me £2300 its a 1996 2.4D and has 160K on the clock but sounds like new.It was a one owner Painters van but the exterior was like new.
I bought a new Fridge, new sink/double hob and new Rock N Roll bed. The units were Ikea cut to size. B&Q insulation behind the panels, Carpet and Zig unit from Rainbow conversions, wiring and relays from Halfords. 2 weeks work and weve got a stonking camper.
I bought a little old Bedford Rascal campervan from ebay for £2000. Yes, it had some probs but they've all been sorted out now (apart from the leaking window - will do that soon). Had some engine trouble, sorted by the garage, fixed the fridge myself, cleaned the cooker so it worked properly, etc. Some of the repairs didn't cost anything as I found out how to do it myself, but the engine cost about £300 to put right with one thing and another. but it's running great now, starts first time and no overheating.
You can get a reasonably good old camper from around £4000, but under than you are going to have to do some work and spend a little! Good luck!
Yes it's the time of year to "bag a bargain"-I did it myself last week and got a £5k van for £1,800 after biding my time and looking carefully.In my case I had to have a LHD model with a shower,cooking facilities and heating as a minimum level of equipment and I had already sold my RHD Fiat Highwayman a couple of months ago for "top dollar" so it was just a case of waiting for the right one to come up.I did look on Ebay for German vans as I particularly wanted LHD and they were about 30% less over there than back here in the UK and even after bringing it back and registering it here on english number plates would still be a big saving.Luck was on my side as on www.gumtree.com there is campervan section and lots of Aussies,Kiwi's and South Africans advertise there rigs at the end of the season when they want to sell up and go back home for Xmas.You can get a real bargain on there if you use your head and wait for the right van to be listed-often they will mention the date of their return flight and you know that they must sell before then as they won't be about to sell it later and will take almost any offer to get whatever they can for their campervans as they must dispose of them before they fly off home.There can be loads of rough ones listed but if you look careully you can find a diamond among the pebbles.If you know the make and model of the campervan you want you can even post a free add asking for sellers to contact you(I personally would not do this though and would rather look at what gets listed for sale because there are many available that would suit without restricting myself to just one model).Lastly I would suggest that you check out any possible purchase very carefuly as "what you see is what you get" No Guarantees are given and you could buy a rot box or a duffer.If you are going to be spending over a couple of thousand pounds i would definately get the van HPI checked before handing over my money as it could belong to a finance company and not the person selling it.Good luck in your hunt for a suitable van,there are "winter bargains" to be had if you look hard and are not in a mad rush to just buy something.Michael