"I made a HUGE mistake buying a campervan"

He made a big mistake.

Watch here or read below

“I bought a campervan, but made a big mistake and now i cant sell it”

What an awful situation. Losing so much, on what was meant to be a top of the range campervan.

We will discuss that today, but look at this watch. (I show a watch)

How much do you think this is worth? It’s a Tag Heur Carrera

I will come back to it.

That question is relevant, to the conversation we are having about Campervans.

Far too many buyers DO NOT know they are making campervan buying mistakes. And these mistakes are being further compounded by others who also don’t know, as they reinforce the superlatives relating to these vans. - NO NO NO -

People are being fooled, led down the wrong path and spending silly money, too much money for what they are buying.

I’ve been seeing a van pop up on social media all this week, that further proves this point, which i will discuss in a minute.

But, if you have bought a budget van, with cheap parts, components, fixtures and fittings and paid a BUDGET price. Then that’s great, SO LONG as you knew it was Basic and Budget and you paid what it was worth then I DO NOT HAVE any issue with that.

Well as long as it’s built within regulation

I have said many many times, it’s not about what you drive, it’s about the lifestyle, the experiences we can have and people we can share it with. Whether you have a new van or an old van, it doesn’t matter, it’s about enjoying.

What you buy doesn’t make ANY difference to me. I just want people to make informed choices and not be missold Campervans. I want to reduce the number of mistakes people are making.

The internet can very easily and quickly spread false information. Take for instance The New VW California. The amount of comments that are made such as “nice Ford” “Ford transit California” “Ford wagon” and lots more.

People read it, believe it and start saying it themselves. The New California is NOT a FORD, it’s built on the Multivan platform, by Volkswagen.

The same can go for the New Transporter, which is built in Turkey alongside the Ford Transit, part of the Alliance. This is NOT the T7, confusing as it is, the Multivan is the T7.

More on these vehicles in future videos.

The point is people believe untruths and begin to spread them.

The campervan market is littered with vans that people have paid too much for. Buyers being misled into buying something it isn’t.

There are currently advertisements on various market places which are selling full conversions for about £2,500. These can include a rock n roll bed, kitchen units, hob and sink, even a fridge.

Poptops can also be seen advertised from about £1,500.

But with these cheap components, cabinets and structural components, what really is the quality of them? Have they been tested AND actually passed? That’s another story, when something is said to be crash tested, what was the result of that test?

Has there been any structural strengthening, seat belt anchorage upgrades. When a pop top is fitted, the majority of the roof is removed. Has the pop top you are having fitted been tested so you know the integrity of the structure has been maintained?

There could well be nothing wrong with these cheap components and they could make a fantastic addition to your budget van, your lower cost option campervan, BUT if these were included in the top spec conversion you paid BIG money for, you wouldn’t be too impressed would you? This happens and people aren’t aware.

Going back to this watch briefly. What would you pay for it? It looks great? Look at that mechanism, it feels like it’s worth a decent price.

Well the retail price is about £4,750 for this model now, IF it was real.

Just because it looks like a good watch to the untrained eye, it doesn’t mean it is one.

This watch is not real, it’s a copy, a rip off of the original and perfectly to prove the point it’s broken as not built to the same quality as the real model. The knob has come off and the mechanism is broke.

If someone thought they were buying a high quality watch, with high spec components and precision engineering and therefore paid top money for this, meaning thousands of pounds, then that is a real problem. The person would be paying far too much.

However, if they knew it wasn’t the high spec timepiece it looked like and were paying a small fraction of what the genuine price would be, then that’s ok. Well apart from I can’t condone fakes.

But people are doing this with vans.

Paying far too much for vans that aren’t the top quality craftsmanship, not high level components, the modern technology they think it is, they are being sold to and being convinced into buying a campervan that is far from what they are being told.

That also can also even include them being misled regarding the credentials of the converter.

The current list of Volkswagen Qualified converters is on the website and as of today’s date there are only 6.

Yet I know there are others claiming to be so, when they are not.

There are many many good people in this industry, but there are also poor ones. Telling the difference can be difficult, like i say, some certainly talk a good game.

I’m going to try and help this year. I have some brilliant ideas, even if i do say so myself, some plans to help everyone. I do pretty much mean everyone, a wide range of budgets, styles, brands and manufacturers.

If you are not subscribed yet, now is a great time to do so.

Some people said a few times recently that i should have more subscribers, which is a nice thing to say, but i very rarely ask people to do so. So i will now ask you to subscribe if you haven’t already, as there genuinely really is going to be some exciting things coming this year. I am hoping to announce some plans in the next few weeks.

Anyway back to today’s video and the Campervans. Having a cheap campervan, with cheap components could be a choice for some people and I will be showing you some good cheap ones in upcoming videos, oops., thats one of the plans out the bag.

If you buy a budget conversion, for a budget price, if it’s been safely and in regulation, then brilliant.

There are even groups on the internet to help you out. Look, you can see this one here, with an example of a cheap conversion.

Now this is a situation i do have an issue with, the safety aspect. Are the Campervans built with crash tested components, built to comply within regulation. There are many that don’t.

I’ve had a van popping up on my social media this week, people are commenting very positive comments, but the van is NOT high spec. The description does not suit what it actually is. It has a number of concerns. I wont go into them all, but one is blatant. The tyres are NOT correctly load rated. You can see on the sidewall it says 93Y. I dont know exactly what the carry capacity of this van is, but the even if it was only a T28, the tyre should be 100 minimum. Also, i would be taking a very close look at whether they wheels are correctly rated also.

As we see on social media, examples of tyre blowouts are there to see.

This is a situation that i do have an issue with and I fully understand that people may not care themselves, they might not be bothered that the van has been built with untested components, nothing may happen, they might not crash and they may never find out whether it really was safe or not.

That’s their choice. Like some people don’t wear seatbelts. Or some don’t wear helmets when riding a bike.

BUT what happens when that van is sold on. The next buyer is not aware that the poptop roof was bought cheaply, untested for safety, not fitted with any structural enhancements for the massive hole just cut in the roof and the structural integrity of the base van was removed.

The seat in the back, that the new owner might be placing passengers on, is just a few welded together pieces of metal that hasn’t been tested, might look good, but what happens to it in a crash and more importantly to the occupants sat on it. Making a bed really strong doesn’t mean it’s going to perform well in a crash test. There has to be flex. It’s not a simple thing to do, when doing it properly.

I’m coming onto the big mistake camper now, but again I wont be naming the campervan conversion company. This is something i do get asked, “why dont you name the bad companies?”

It’s quite simple really firstly, I’m trying to help people, but I’m doing it as a hobby and i dont want to be getting drawn into slanging matches.

Secondly, companies can change. I could make a video and a converter could learn something they didn’t know and they then stop making that mistake. They could no longer be the bad converter they were. Not great i know, you would expect them to be doing the job right anyway, but not everyone does.

Converting a campervan, isn’t a case of finding a good joiner carpenter and building it. There is heating, plumbing and ventilation, electrics consisting of 230v AND 12v. Telecommunications, mechanics, the list goes on.

There are several disciplines involved in the creation of a camper. Building a safe one within the correct regulation does take a lot of knowledge and expertise, which not everyone has.

On the other hand, you do have companies who cut corners to reduce costs, like the one i will discuss now.

A man saw me at the NEC show in Feb and he said he wished he had seen my videos sooner.

The van the gentleman made a mistake buying, wasn’t horrendous, but it wasn’t the best van he could have bought for his money. He paid high spec money, for a budget conversion, that had been sprinkled with glitter.

The sales patter didn’t truly reflect what the van was.

It did have a good roof that was approved, although the pop top bed was a plank of wood, just a board, rather than a sprung bed.

That’s another thing. The amount of requests I’m seeing at the moment on groups, of which topper for my pop top?, will this fit in there?

Buying a van with a sprung bed in the pop top, negates the need to buy a topper generally.

Anyway I digress. The seat bed wasn’t the top of the range as stated, nor was it leather. It was vinyl.

The units were knock on edged, more on that another day and the units above the hob were lower than they should be.

The fridge opened the wrong way, i mean from the front seats, so not the most ergonomic of designs.

Hob and sink were fine, cant really go wrong there, apart from some using rubber hoses which they shouldn’t.

Electrics wise, they were functioning, but let’s just reiterate the point here, he was sold this top spec van. The top of the range van and paid top money for it.

The electrics had physical switches and the control panel, certainly was not one of the latest variants. The charger was NOT compatible with lithium iron phosphate batteries. How is that top of the range? It would need the control, panel charger replacing to have lithium power.

Anyway he wanted a change, lucky him he had only had the vehicle 2 years, but circumstances meant an alternative layout was required.

He had seen another new van he liked and went to view it.

He liked it and enquired about a part ex.

This was when he realised the mistake had been made. The company wouldn’t accept his current van in part exchange due to them only accepting part exchange from certain converters and although this was a brand they knew, they would not accept the vehicle in part ex.

A good example of the good marketing i guess.

I’ve heard of a few companies being more selective, and i know one company got hit badly with 2 poorly converted vans they got in, additional costs in rectifying the problem.

This left the gentleman having to sell by another method, away from the dealer he wanted to buy from. He told me he lost a lot of money on it and it wasn’t what he thought he was buying, “It’s not what i thought i was buying”

He then said he only found my videos after the event and wished he had watched me sooner, as he wouldn’t have made the same mistakes.

Please don’t make the same mistakes. Fact check the information. Check the Volkswagen Qualified webpage if someone tells you they are VW Qualified.

If someone says they are NCC approved, you can check that website.

If you want much more information on how to buy the right campervan for you, then do subscribe because there is some very good videos coming very soon.

Take care.