WE HAVE A NEW VAN!

This was a real BIG decision for us - as we just love(d) Urvan SO MUCH and we've had the best 4 years with him touring all over the UK. I cried my eye's out the day he left (Gary you best be looking after him!)

(If you'd like to find out more about Urvan you can here, on the Vlog or by searching #urvanthecamper on insta).

But alas, due to us wanting to travel abroad for multiple weeks/months in the future, and Dave’s car lease coming up for renewal too, we thought it was the better time as any to upgrade (minus the COVID cost increase due to popularity of staycations and people not going abroad over the last 18 months). 

We knew this day would be coming for a while (albeit a tad sooner than we'd planned for) so we had been researching /thinking about what our options were for a good year an half prior, whilst also keeping an eye on prices and visiting various campervan and motor home shows to get a feel for what size, spec etc we’d like next, and I cannot recommend this enough!

This is because we'd originally thought the next vehicle we'd get would be bigger, with a toilet inside, shower and maybe even a permanent bed fixture. But after seeing the sizes in real life, we quickly changed our minds for a number of reasons, but mainly because we didn't really feel like we were gaining that much and we would actually be losing much more (freedom).

Firstly - the Ducattos/Crafters/Sprinters etc would no way fit on our drive and we cannot afford to pay for storage! They'd be too large to use as a daily, and we didn't want to be limited to what car parks we can stay in due to height restrictions/ car parking bay size. It would also take me a very long time to feel comfortable driving something of that size.

The mid-wheel based vehicles were another option we considered, but we felt that this would still be problematic for a daily driver. We also found that the standard build conversions were quite 'cramped'. Many people may disagree here and if we were to self-build - I possibly would also, as there are a lot of clever spacious things you can do on a self build - but for the standard conversions we looked at, you couldn't actually bend down to get in the fridge! So we decided we were happy with a short wheelbase panel van and sacrificed having a toilet/shower inside for that extra spacious feel.

So basically - we've opted for the same set-up we had with Urvan, but a lot newer and for apx 5x the price. 

This was a massive shock to me what with coming from a caravaning background, and I was adamant the next van we had would have a loo indoors - but the negatives outweighed the positives and fair to say I'm happy with an outdoor toilet tent! 

You can read more about the sizes of vans and the pros and cons here.

So drum roll please and the bit you've all been waiting for.... 

We've bought a 2016 VW Transporter (T6) short wheel base.

I know, I know I've always said I wouldn't have a VW as they're not worth the money and you're only paying for the badge - well I caved...

So, why VW?

Dave has always had a love affair with these and he proper geeks out about them especially the older models - but that's not why we got one... and we were actually eyeing up the Fords, but for the age we wanted, they were coming out at a similar price, if not more expensive as the VW's.

The reason for shortlisting VW's and Fords is just because they are popular and familiar vans all around Europe so parts would be easy to find if we broke down either in the UK or abroad.

Who did we buy from/who converted it?

As mentioned above we'd been researching for a while, and the company we finally decided to go with was Woodstock Campers.

Why didn't we just buy a cheaper 2nd hand VW off Ebay/Facebook/Gumtree?

There were a couple of reasons.. The first being that unless you're a mechanic, you never really know what you're getting and the prices have just skyrocketed this year making it an even more risky time to buy. Especially a VW as people tend to add an extra £5000 on just because of the badge.

IF this is the route that you chose to go down - please ensure you check all MOT and service history, and always ask the seller if they would be willing to have it checked over by a mechanic of your choice, if they aren't - there's probably a reason for this. The AA can be booked in to complete an inspection for around £150-£200 depending on what type you are looking at.

The second reason was that we wanted the reassurance of knowing that everything was done and converted properly. Sounds silly, but as Urvan was a Japanese import it was so complex to try and rewire, alter or adjust anything, and Dave's VW beetle has had so many 'quick fixes' that have ended up taking so much more time and money to try and put right - we quite frankly couldn't be arsed with this. We wanted something with a warranty, and that would be straightforward to fix/upgrade.

why we chose Woodstock?

12 month warranty

The whole conversion comes with a 12 month warranty and I am so happy we've got this - if you continue reading you'll learn why

The price

As mentioned we'd been keeping our eye on prices for a while now, and we know VW's do tend to keep their value due to their following - and they most definitely weren't going down in price any time soon. Looking around, Woodstock were one of the best companies that we could find in our price bracket - whilst still looking like a decent build,  more extras as standard than you normally get, and obviously having the warranty on the build helped sway our decision.

They source the vehicle for you

I personally found this reassuring, as all the vans they convert they put their name on. Because of this, they want to make sure they were all 'top notch' decent vehicles and not going to explode (slight exaggeration), or have any silly issues that could have easily been avoided. Because otherwise, this would result in bad business for them in the long run. They also provided us with a complete service history and MOT certificates etc.

You give them a call and let them know the rough spec of what you want (Millage - Trim level - Aircon etc...) and they give you a rough estimate in price and will search for the right van to fit your specification. We were quite lucky here as when we called to explain our needs/wants - they happened to have a van in stock and everything was spot on for what we wanted. However, I do believe if you're not happy they continue the search until you are - this just obviously delays /increases the waiting time until you have your vehicle.

customisation

Sounds silly, but it was great to be able to pick our own style/colours and make sure it was 100% what we wanted for the price we were paying - a lot of other companies don't give you this amount of freedom. You get to pick everything - Flooring style, cabinet unit/splashback/worktop colours, the wheels and even the stitching style you have on the seats and bed.

More about Woodstock CAMPERS:

Woodstock campers are based in Fenny Compton, just between Banbury and Coventry and at the time of writing this (2021) are a relatively new company, so their prices were coming out at quite a bit cheaper than the other companies we'd looked at that probably have a greater name behind them.

They are managed by Harry who was just 24 years of age when we bought our van - but don't let his age put you off. Harry's very well versed in all things camper as his uncle ran Big Wave Campers, where Harry learnt all he knew before deciding to start his own company doing the same thing. 

How it worked was, we told them our 'wish list' for example we wanted a vehicle with no more than x amount of miles, in x,y,z, colours, parking sensors, air con etc and what our budget is. They then let you know if this is realistic or not and set to work on sourcing an old lease vehicle that meets your spec and budget best they can.

Once they find one that you are happy with - you pay a £500 deposit to secure it and they send you out samples and a build sheet to pick and chose your interior options.

They say the process can take anything from 6-9 weeks but this all depends on how easy/fast it is to source the van that meets your requirements.

OUR EXPERIENCE

We'd been in MANY conversations with Harry over the phone asking so many questions before we'd finally decided 100% on what we were doing - and I'd like to just say that Harry was amazing, he always had time for us and was so patient and helpful.

And, luckily for us - the day we actually decided to go for it - they happened to have a near on perfect vehicle in the forecourt waiting for his new home.

• He was one of the 3 colours we wanted (Grey, Black or White obviously the goths we are!)
• He was a little older than we'd of liked - BUT had a lot fewer miles than we'd specified
• His service history/spec sheet was fantastic - recent cambelt change etc
• and he had rear AND front parking sensors - which made me SO happy!
  

Aircon was unfortunately just out of our budget - which we may regret one day - but with having a dog and liking walking we don't plan on travelling in stupid hot conditions anyway, and if we did we'd make sure they were short journeys near to lakes, or take the portable Air conditioner with us. You can read more about dogs in hot cars here.

So we paid the deposit and excitedly awaited the samples and build sheet.

What was great for us, was that because they had already sourced the van it meant that they could begin the build sooner, thus meaning we'd trimmed weeks off the waiting time and the collection date fell a week before my birthday (June 22nd).

It was here, however, that the bad luck unfortunately started to happen. A lot of it is just what it is - bad luck - but some of it I hate to say could have been avoided.

As I mentioned above, Woodstock are a relatively new company - with not many workers, with the Covid 19 pandemic and the demand for campervans being so high right now - and their prices so good – I think they were run off their feet!

incident 1:

There was a bit of a miscommunication of our 'order' being confirmed and so it never went through on the system resulting in us not receiving the spec sheets when we were supposed to - this nearly delayed the build as Harry was waiting for our decision on cabinet colours etc to get them ordered, but we were waiting for the samples to arrive in the post. Cutting a very long story short - we ended up picking everything by looking at photos of past builds they've got on their Facebook/website and a PDF that was emailed to us. 

we went with:

Wolfrace Vortex wheels

Anthracite grey carpet lining

Light grey and Black seats/Rear Rock and Bed with Diamond stitch

White speckle worktop and splashback

Gloss Grey cabinets

White wood effect floor

We Also opted for some added extras, which cost us a little more:

A panaramic sun rooof

A diesel heater

Awning multi-rail

and a solar panel - which we defo recommend getting if you can afford

It took us a while to decide a few items as it was hard to imagine and not being able to see any physical 'swatches' but I imagine IF we'd received the sample pack this would have been easier/less nerve-racking but we didn't want to delay the build.

And as you'll see with the pictures below - we've gone very minimal and grey on grey and it's quite dark - the reason for this was because of having the dog - and camping in the wet, muddy UK conditions we do, we thought we'd get less 'splatter' marks showing up and be easier to keep clean 🤞 .

We did ask for progress shots to be sent over during the build - one so we could relax a little as we'd be reassured knowing it was all going to plan - but mostly for the blog. Unfortunately, we never got any of these - just the before and afters you can see below.

Incident 2:

Plans were all in place to collect and to go away camping on the following Friday with friends for my birthday. But 3 days before we were due to pick up the van we had a call from Harry to tell us that the upholsterers had messed up - and the wrong seats had turned up. They were 'similar' to ours - but these were for a higher spec vehicle - so came with armrests - but they were a different colour, stitch and pattern to what we'd chosen. We got offered these as an upgrade if we wanted them, and some others they happened to have but as the colour/design of these didn’t match our scheme we politely declined and said we'd rather delay pick up by a week and have the seats we'd picked. Unfortunate - but these things happen and for the price we were paying we wanted it to be perfect.

Incident 3:

Woodstock doesn't offer finance but they had recommended a Finance company called Total Leisure Finance. We spoke to a guy called Terry multiple times before finally deciding on what we were doing - and again he was so helpful and understanding - I cannot recommend him enough. He was so clear and open about what they can/cannot offer you - and they also ran prelim checks so to ensure nothing would affect credit scores.

We'd had all our checks done - and were told everything is set up and in place and all we had left to do was ring up 2 days before pick up and they'd press the button on the final paperwork which would release the funds to pay Harry.

However, before we could do this we had a call to say that our deal had been pulled.

Now, this wasn't just our deal - it was everyone's deal that hadn't been 'officially signed for'.

We're still not 100% sure what happened, but it was something to do with the banks deciding that they wanted to get/charge more interest on their loans. We put it down to Covid due to the timing of restrictions being lifted and the popularity of people wanting campervans/loans. And I won't lie I was fuming!

We did get offered an alternative deal - but it just wasn't feasible for us due to a 'balloon' payment at the end so we opted to source the money elsewhere and luckily were accepted.

Incident 4:

We had the money in place, and we were all rescheduled to collect and still make the birthday camping trip, however... A friend we'd seen the weekend prior came down with COVID and we got pinged by the NHS app.

Luckily our tests were negative but it was still a legal requirement to self isolate for 10days - so we had to reschedule the collection of the van AGAIN, and I spent my birthday indoors. Obviously this is nothing to do with Woodstock - Just stupid COVID being all stupid!

COLLECTION DAY AND ONWARDS

Collection day finally came (Wednesday 23rd June) and this was also the FIRST TIME we'd seen the van in real life. You do have the option of viewing the van prior - but due to covid and the distance, we were happy with photos - plus our old van was 30+ years old and this was 4 - we were expecting a few nics and scratches and we know full well we would be adding more to it, so weren't overly worried. We were however pleasantly surprised - it looked gorgeous and we were blown away!

Harry gave us a tour and showed us everything working – to a certain degree – and then gave us the keys and let us go for a test ride. We drove for about 10mins and then found a lay by to pull up in and have a good look over the van on our own.

As always with things like this you view with rose-tinted glasses due to the excitement and things get missed. But the great thing about Woodstock - and one of the reasons we picked them was that the conversion came with a years warranty - so any issues we found/find we can take it back and they'd rectify for us and fair to say we've had a few so far, Firstly:

INCIDENT 5. The Fridge wasn't working

INCIDENT 6. The internal water tank was leaking

INCIDENT 7. There was a small gas leak and the regular was too low to fit the sized gas bottle we had - this wasn't too much of an issue though as they do make smaller bottles

Harry was ace though, and drove over to us at his earliest convenience, did a direct swap of the fridge for us and fixed everything else there on our drive for us. The gas, however, he said we needed a new pipe and that he'd post one out to us - which you guessed it - never arrived - even after chasing for a week – so we just bought one from Go Outdoors in the end.

A weekend later we noticed more issues:

INCIDENT 8.  One the curtains kept falling off its track due to the end bung falling out

INCIDENT 9.  One of the screws weren't level on the curtain track causing a 'snag'

INCIDENT 10. The wastewater hose was too short, meaning that it caused an issue draining into the waste tank

INCIDENT 11. The bed wasn't 'popping up' like it was supposed to - and it had come away from the frame

...and the gas was still leaking even with the new pipe in - to be honest - we're lucky we didn't explode that weekend!!

There were a few other bits we've noticed after having it and using it a while too - like a few error screw holes, the pop-top isn't as 'black out' as we'd of thought it would have been, and the spotlights can't be on without the main bright strip light being on - but these either aren't major or aren't something we're able to fix now - but still I thought worth mentioning on this blog.

I also think a lot of the issues we've had are all down to them rushing to get it completed and out the door so they can start the next build. Which is a shame, but also as mentioned this company was apx £10-15,000 cheaper than the other companies we were looking at, we do have that years warranty and it is a gorgeous van we're just being really picky!

So anyway, we arranged to take it back to them this time with a list and got them to fix all they could. We also requested that they raised the height of the gas regulator in the lock box, which they did and we can fit a larger bottle in now too which is great. They also re-delivered it back to us 5 days later and even washed it and filled the fridge with beer for us!

However - This leads me onto incident 12 - due to them washing it, this resulted in us finding that the rear window or the pop-top holes for the solar panel were properly sealed and the van was wet inside and the carpet lining was saturated.