Quote: Originally posted by Beki + Loli on 31/3/2009
What would be a more realistic budget do you reckon?
hi,about £1000,less than this there is every possibility you will be sold a damp caravan.you can still get damp ones at three year old.there are dry ones out there.how small is small? ie.two berth.
------------- the only silly question is the one you do not ask.
Everybody has their own preferences, personally I prefer Swift. The Swift Silhouette is a good 2 berth. Its compact and easy to tow but has all the basic mod cone (shower, toilet, etc - but no oven). Thats what we started with. There always seem to be plenty of them around. Our first one which we bought 5 yrs ago was a 1991 model but was perfectly dry and we had many good weekends in it. We paid 1500 for it and got a 1200 trade in when we changed it 3 years later
------------- hawk
"Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone"
I have the body of a greek god - its in my freezer
im afraid id have to agree on the budget thing and put it at a min of a grand, ur at risk of getting something a bit dodgy with anything less, whichever make u prefer just make sure u take a damp meter and check all tyres and as much of the running gear as u can, good luck!
If you want a small caravan to tow round Europe & dont want to pay too much get an Eriba, an old 70s-80s one will still be in good usable condition. Plenty on ebay at the moment, put Eriba into ebay search.
------------- Sell my camper? I'd rather eat school semolina!
A very important factor here is what are you intending to tow with? Has part of your budget got to be earmarked for a towbar and electrics? There's plenty of advice on this site about getting a good match for your tow car especially if you are new to towing.
You can get nice cheap vans out there - try looking on the advertising boards in your local supermarket, or put an ad up there yourselves! We bought our first van this way - and it was sold to us by a real enthusiast, who loved it, but was having to give up caravanning because of poor health and age, so we got everything we needed with it, including awning. We saw an even better one which was so original it still had the fitted cups and saucers, and the original curtains - unfortunately it was too small for what we wanted. There's one for sale in our local post office at the moment - sounds very similar - you can tell be the way it's described - and thats £300 with loads of extras, all inspections welcomed! OK, it may well turn out to be no good, but definitely worth looking around the boards where you live.