Find your van

Choosing the right van for your build will depend on your personal preferences as well as decisions made in your original design planning and budget planning.

Once you have planned what you’ll want in your van and decided on your budget then you can appraise the various vans on the market to see which ones are suitable for your plans. If you’ve already decided that you want your van to have a transverse bed across the back of the van but you are 6ft tall then it’s no good you buying a van that’s only 5ft 10″ wide, no matter how lovely it is to drive, so you’ll have to go shopping with your practical head on!

There are many ‘Auto sales’ publications to look through both in paper format and on the web, and internet auction sites often have many vans for sale. When you find a likely looking van, do as much investigation into the vehicle as you can. You could, where possible, contact the previous registered keeper to ask questions. What type of life as it had? If it’s high mileage, were they motorway miles with regular servicing? If it’s low mileage, was it a builders van, on and off sites lugging heavy loads, or a decorators van stood in the road outside a customer’s home for almost all of its working day?

An obvious source for used vans would be van dealers. Many people prefer to buy from a dealer as it is often possible to obtain a van with some kind of warranty, so you can buy with more confidence. One downside of buying from dealers is that prices are generally higher than you would pay buying privately and there is also the consideration that many dealers will have to charge VAT on top of the sale price of a van. You may also have to pay VAT on a van in what seems like a private sale if the van is being sold by a business, so be sure to check that the price you see advertised is the price you can expect to pay, after a little bartering of course!

DVLA requirements for a van to be classified as a ‘Motor caravan’