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Quote: Originally posted by savanne1 on 09/10/2011

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we've gone for the demo van. Its immaculate with just a couple of minor bits that need attention. It will get checked over by Lunar before we can take it away as they dont want demo vans sent out with faults that will only come back to haunt them. Just got to sort a collection date now

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Sounds great Savanne.  Shouldn't need to wait that long before collecting - in fact, I reckon you would be able to test it out at Half Term??   Let ua know how it's going.

Best wishes,

Quote: Originally posted by Dave11 on 09/10/2011

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Hi Savanne 1
We were in exactly the same position in June, just bought a new Crusader. We could have had a demo from another dealer for £1000 less than a brand new one ordered from our local dealer. After much thought and travelling about 150 miles to he dealer with the demo, we decided to buy the new one. One of the buttons on the fridge had been pushed in and broken, the carpet was dirty and curled at the edge where people had been opening the kitchen pull out unit and it wouldn't go down where it had been shut in the unit goodness knows how many times. They had it in the showroom with the lights running all the time, goodness knows how many hours the mains unit had been on. It just didn't feel brand new inside. We had decided to pay for a new crusader at just over 23k and to be honest spending that sort of money in the end felt that I didn't want to buy a 'new van that had perhaps hundreds of people pushing buttons , messing about with switches catches and the worst of all which I have seen whilst viewing caravans at dealers is the people who let their children jump all over the seats and beds of a demo van with their shoes on. I decided to push my local dealer for a better PX instead and got extra for my earlier model Crusader. am I glad I did, walking into the new van, with everything 'brand new' was worth the extra and the new van had that lovely 'brand new smell' which it still has, something that was lacking inthe demo one. At the end of the day 'I suppose it's down to personal choice, but if I was choosing again, I would still buy the new one unless I was saving at least 2k.

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We bought our 2010 Crusader earlier this year, it had only been used for 4 nights, one of the beds was still in it wrapper, none of the curtains had been used either, and we got about £3k off list price (with awning, side skirts, battery, loads of pegs)

I think you did the right thing because you lose so much just driving it off the forecourt, as you quite rightly say with the warranty you have nothing to lose everything to gain!

Enjoy.

not sure when we'll be picking the van up as dealer 2.5hr away  and waiting for date for daughters op. Hoping we can collect half term week and have a night local to the dealer to try van out before bringing it home.

We did hope to find the van more local to home but the price and the fact its a dealer special (Lunar Ultima from Robinsons Caravans) sealed the deal. Could have gone for a Highbridge Lunar Conquest but £800 more for same van and still over an hours drive away (and maybe even more in the summer with the M5 the way it is)

Our first new van had been sitting on the dalers forecourt for a season as a show van, I take it this is what you mean by a Demo van. I wouldn't buy one that'd been used but to have just sat on the yard wouldn't bother me one bit. We did have punctures in  both tyres with the first season, whether this was due to them sitting unturned for so long on his yard I don't know but, having the tyres checked for perish marks & replacing them if any are found will stil leave you a nice portion of your £900 saving.

Most display vans don't have the removable carpets fitted until they're sold these days but or carpets were fixed and quite qorn in places so we did get the dealer to relace the carpet in ours before we too delivery but as far as the van was concerned it was briliant. We kept it for over 12 years & sold it to my niece when we bought another new one. The dealer had tested it for damp and found nothing & the van's still fry as a stick today. It's now 17 years old.

It's down to personal choice at the moment, the future value of your van will depend on its year of manufacture so confirm with the dealer when it was made otherwise you might just have to accept less for it when you come to sell it. As we're not people who change our vans almost as often as we change our clothes it doesn't bother us though.

BB

thanks BB, the carpets are brand new in the packaging. I think it was made late 2010 (but still a 2011 yr van)  so I guess it'll be worth less than a 2011 made in 2011, does that make sense?

Going to get dealer to check tyres, thanks for the advice.