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hello  people i am in process of trying to purchase a second caravan but should i buy from dealer or private is there any advantage from a dealer   PX, comeback, etc

in case i dont get in over the weekend cos im out there on the hunt thank you in advance

Buying Secondhand

with a dealer you will have a warranty but non at all with a private saleas said take a damp meter and use it even if a little embarrassed save a lot of heartace later

Hi there Jim - I agree with Kev, always take a damp meter and rempember you have to push it through the paper - we bought a van from a private seller and although we got a very nice van all the accessories you require incl awning all the way to salt, tea and coffee!!!! and at a good price it has shown to have faults we were unaware of which would have been detected by a damp meter and is going to cost us more to get them fixed. We decided as this is all very new to us we would learn from our mistake and get them fixed asap so it is going in tommorrow and hopefully get it back next week or the week after. This way it won't worry me so much and we know we can take it back until it is repaired properly.

When we were looking we looked at both private and dealers and you could not compare the prices so I do feel that although it is going to cost us more than we originally thought, it is still going to be cheaper than it would be buying from a dealer.

Write down your requirements and the layout of vans you like and take a list of questions, make sure you are shown everything working both on the battery and with the electric attached and the switch put to 'caravan'. We were shown everything working on the battery not the electric and when this ran out we discovered the transformer in the van was broken.

- we went to see loads and not one we were told had damp but you could not miss it in most of the vans.We even found mushrooms growing in one which I was assured was completely dry - fairly amusing though as my husband said he was nearly knocked out by the perfume the woman was wearing and had not realised she had sprayed the van with some pretty pungent stuff before we arrived.