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 Topic: Buying Second Hand Motorhome
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24/8/2015 at 8:50am
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I gave much thought to our 'van' purchase. Decided that cheapest, British, new and local was the way to go. Any problems can then be sorted more easily. You say 4 people to travel. It is the law that 4 travel seats are required. Rear lounge models do not very often offer that unless it has 2 lounges. You need to do a lot more looking. I think you should look at drop down bed options myself. Some such as Chausson, Rapido, have been in production a few years now, and there will be quite a few used models for sale. The number of travel seats debate has been going on for years now. But it is a no brainer. No body should travel unrestrained. In car, lorry, truck, taxi, bus, and even airplanes. Check out interior layouts from your armchair on here....when you find a model that suits the 4 of you.....go take a look at some. One thing.....do you have a driveway, or will you need storage for it. Happy Hunting...but it is not going to be easy on any budget.
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25/8/2015 at 6:26pm
Location: East Sussex
Outfit: None Entered
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We bought our first motor home a few weeks ago (just at the start of the school holidays, when sites are overrun with ankle-biters every weekend lol).
It took us a year to find what we wanted. We decided early on not to look at anything a long way away, and cheap vans (our budget was a lot less than yours) seem to be rarer than hen's teeth in the south-east. It took us 9 months to find one.
We did a lot of snooping before we decided what we wanted. We peered through the windows of parked motorhomes like peeping toms and struck up conversations with anyone we encountered parked up with a motor home who didn't look like an axe-murderer.
We realised quite quickly that we didn't want a monster that would be impossible to park in most car parks, so that gave us a length limit. We then decided we liked the rear lounge layout, as it gives good visibility to the rear when driving and means you can get a panoramic view when parked up in nice places. That narrowed it down still more.(There's only us plus the dog, so number of seats for passengers isn't an issue).
A couple of helpful MH folk warned us off conversions because of insurance complexities and other issues that I can no longer recall.
Mr Fran then researched all the possible downsides and known mechanical problems of the few models we were left with, and by then we had a shortlist of about 4 options.
Daily searching of all known UK websites that list motorhomes for sale yielded nothing in our price range this side of York or Yeovil for months. Then blow me, one day there were 2 for sale within 40 miles. We arranged to see the one 10 miles up the road within a couple of hours, left a message for the other, and bought the first one we saw, having given it a very thorough going over.
Everything on it worked, but it didn't come with any manuals, so we had an entertaining few weekends trying to fathom it all out. It's almost exactly what we wanted: Elddis Eclipse with rear lounge, bang at the top of our price range (£4k) and all that we would want to add are an oven, a canopy and power steering, all of which is doable.
Providing we still like it in a year's time, we'll either do those things or upgrade to a van that has it all already.
My advice would be, in a nutshell, work out what you want and be patient till you find it. We love ours, and don't think we could have done better for the money without travelling all over the place.
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25/8/2015 at 7:44pm
Location: Warwickshire
Outfit: Talbot Express Autosleeper
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To a large extent our experience of buying our motorhome echos that of fran1000, except that we were prepared to travel to get what we wanted. Indeed we did go & see several that were some distance away, and nearly bought one (withdrew following full inspection report which threw up numerous issues -the cost of the report saved us from making an expensive mistake so was worth it). In the end we bought one fairly local to us which just came onto the market at the right price and we were quick off the mark (it was such a good one it wouldn't have hung around for long!)
Yes, I spent months trawling the internet, searching all the motorhome sites I could find. We looked at as many as we could which gave us an idea of what we wanted & what to look for. Generally most motorvans in our low budget were either older than we wanted, or in poor condition, or both and were were getting despondent.
Then we came across our van which was within budget and had only just been put up for sale so we were the first to see it, it was in superb condition inside and out and mechanically, had no signs of water ingress or damp, had low mileage and very full history, drove well, everything worked, etc.
So, research, go & look at loads, and patience - your perfect van is out there somewhere. When you find the van of your dreams, if you are at all unsure then consider an independant inspection - it could save you from making an expensive mistake - it did us on one van we almost bought!
Post last edited on 25/08/2015 19:53:40
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TrickyWoo
I've got a Dragon and I'm not afraid to use it !!
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