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Have a walk around local dealers, this will give you a good grounding in the formats available such as end lounge, side lounge, end bathroom etc etc.  Do you want it for every day use too?  This may govern engine size and actual size or will it be for hols only?  I believe turbo diesels are better than non turbo as the latter tend to be very slow to pull away in.

Do you want a VW type vehicle or a coachbuilt or a C class?  I would buy motorhome monthly magazine too and read their reviews as you will get an idea of the sort of things that can niggle and to avoid.  Water ingress is an issue as it is with caravans so check for damp.  Lots of cheaper vans appearing now but I am told the quality is not always up there with the best.

If it is a small motorhome consider Mazda Bongo conversions, similar to VW but much much cheaper! 

Sounds like great fun to me, enjoy the experience and happy hunting!

Ali

Hi there,

For us the main thing we had to look at was size. Where will you keep it? will you have height, width or length restrictions? Our first van cost us the princely sum of £7.5k and for that we got a Talbot Highwayman 4 berth coachbuilt 2l petrol. It had everything we wanted at the time, cooking, eating, sleeping, toilet and shower facilities.

We brought it privately after seeing something similar at a dealers for almost £10k. It happily went where ever we wanted it to go albeit a little slow on hills. We had lots of fun in it.

Decide what you want to use it for and then go looking and take your tape measure. Dont be afraid to thoroughly examine and test drive anything you might like, after all you would test drive a car if you were spending that much on it. If you dont know much about engines/chassis, take someone who does with you so that you know that the basic vehicle is sound as well as the living area. If buying from a dealer get an upto date MOT done.

One thing I would also add is that if you find the perfect van and hate the colour scheme inside, a new set of curtains and some throws work wonders. ( the Highway man had salmon pink velvet curtains and orangy brown upholstery, not my thing at all )

Happy hunting

Tina

that kind of budget should buy you a very nice van indeed and if buying from a dealer don't forgrt its mid season so don't be afraid of making what may seem to be a silly offer he won't want too be stuck with it over the winter..............

I didn't even have to make an offer i just told him i was a bit disapointed that a m/h he had the week b4 had been sold i told him my budget was lower than the rest of the vans on his forcourt and and that i would have to go looking else where rather than to have me walk of the forcourt he dropped the price of another van without even blinking they must have so much mark up on these things.......i paid £9.500 for the granduca in my gallery photos and are chuffed to bits with it  

Our first van was a 1994 talbot elddis 6 berth cost 14k the only thing that we were`nt happy with was the power as it was a non turbo diesel which really strugled when going up any hills, if possible I would suggest trying to get a turbo diesel, we part exed the van after 5 months for a brand new CI Mizar and got 17.5k for her which we were chuffed with, good luck looking I`m sure you will find the right van if you take you time, it took us 18 months before we took the plunge and we have`nt looked back.

Tony

Hi.a good start point is to buy a copy of the mmm magazine.there are dozens for sale in there, have a look at autosleeper symphony a very good model for two berth.

      you should be able to get agood one for that sot of money.royell.

We found that motorhomes need to be big on the inside, to get us and the junk in and small on the outside so you can drive it off site, for transport to places,  to do the shopping and get into carparks.

Spend a lot of time on your research before you take the plunge. We had 3 different one over 10 years and never got the above compromise right.

PS We nearly bought a Winnebago so we could tow a car behind!

Just an observation, but if you intend doing alot of "foreign" trips, why not consider buying a left hand drive in France, I couldnt help but notice the hundreds of them that I saw in lots beside motorways on my travels.

Joe