10 year campervan ownership: Newer/high mileage or older/low mileage + running costs?

[signtoo]

Hi folks,

I'm doing some rough maths here for campervan ownership and would love some advice on which direction to go. We've *almost* decided that we're going with a campervan now, given we've borrowed one off a friend multiple times and to our surprise, we loved it.

First predicament: If we're to own a campervan (professionally converted), for 5-10 years time, is it better for depreciation to have an older van with less mileage, or a newer van with more mileage? We assume we'll do 5-10k miles per year.

Second question: I've done some rough napkin costs, and I'm finding that with about 10 trips a year (300 miles, £30 p/n campsite x 4 nights), it's coming out to about £3500 per year ownership costs. Does that feel right for a once a month long weekend trip ownership?

Below are my rough workings:



I'd love to hear from someone who's a weekend/monthly camper, what their actual costs are per year...


Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks!

 

[ChrisBell]

Hi @signtoo exciting times! I like your thinking.... Not sure but I think the 'Fixed Costs' seem a tad light. As many will say here, owning a van can be costly and although the T6 forum membership is great value, the more you browse the more you spend.

I'd likely add a bit of inflation onto costs, insurance in 10 years time will be who knows! Can't speak for others but I know my yearly costs are unpredictable. Brake discs and pads all round last year and major service was just shy of £1k. Then last month had power steering pump go which was another £550. Out of the blue! Whatever you do good luck and enjoy!

To answer your first question I'd say older lower mileage... Assuming you are keeping same van worse case a new van with 80k miles will have 180k miles... As opposed to a low mileage say 20k which will have 120k. Just my two pennies tho

 

[Chippie1]

Got to love a spread sheet

 

[signtoo]

• I'd likely add a bit of inflation onto costs, insurance in 10 years time will be who knows! Can't speak for others but I know my yearly costs are unpredictable. Brake discs and pads all round last year and major service was just shy of £1k. Then last month had power steering pump go which was another £550. Out of the blue! Whatever you do good luck and enjoy!

I did think about adding inflation but I think everything will just go up in tandem so I just did today's costs overall. I think the way I'm looking at it is if it's going to be about £3-4k per year, if it's 4.5k, it won't matter *too* much, as it's already pretty damn high.

To answer your first question I'd say older lower mileage... Assuming you are keeping same van worse case a new van with 80k miles will have 180k miles... As opposed to a low mileage say 20k which will have 120k. Just my two pennies tho

I have to think about this one, as even the old ones I'm finding for my price range £15-20k base van, the trade offs seem to be:

• 2018 @ 90,000 mi - 6 years old today, 16 years old in 10 years time with 190,000mi. Possibly only worth £10k at that point!
• 2014 @ 60,000 mi - 10 years old today, 20 years old in 10 years time with 160,000mi. Probably also only worth £10k at that point?

Perhaps it won't even matter in terms of resale value for 5-10 years time?

 

[signtoo]

Got to love a spread sheet

Alas, it's the only way I know how to function

 

[ChrisBell]

I did think about adding inflation but I think everything will just go up in tandem so I just did today's costs overall. I think the way I'm looking at it is if it's going to be about £3-4k per year, if it's 4.5k, it won't matter *too* much, as it's already pretty damn high.


I have to think about this one, as even the old ones I'm finding for my price range £15-20k base van, the trade offs seem to be:

• 2018 @ 90,000 mi - 6 years old today, 16 years old in 10 years time with 190,000mi. Possibly only worth £10k at that point!
• 2014 @ 60,000 mi - 10 years old today, 20 years old in 10 years time with 160,000mi. Probably also only worth £10k at that point?

Perhaps it won't even matter in terms of resale value for 5-10 years time?

Like the logic. My wife's on about taking kids for a week in the sun.... I'd rather spend the £4 or £5k on running and enjoying van for the whole year not just a week!

 

[CAB]

I think there's no point in looking at value in 10 years, they could be worthless or could be transformed into 'e' vans for a couple of grand.

For that initial cost, I would ignore the difference in valuation that far down the line, and just focus on running costs.

Which to be honest, may not be significantly different in the long run.

 

[CAB]

Just found an old spreadsheet,

Van costs (including insurance) plus 'campervanning' costs, approx 55 nights per year /6k miles, all UK, was £240 per month in 2022.

Edited to say, we don't eat out or drink much, and haven't included National Trust, English Heritage membership.

Also haven't budgeted for Cambelt, that was in 2023.

 

[CAB]

Also, with a 102ps manual camper, I get average 37mpg (measured, on my spreadsheet!).

But we don't thrash it.

Maybe if we did the EGR wouldn't need flushing every other year

 

[CAB]

Also, tax will be £335.

 

[DXX]

You don’t need a habitation check, campsites are optional (I never use them), I rarely pay for parking 90% free or take a chance, road tax on my van is £335.
£200 won’t even buy one good tyre and you might manage servicing at £400 a year if you do all of the work yourself.

 

[cgtmiles]

Surely putting the costs in a spreadsheet will only tell you it doesn’t make financial sense to get a vw camper.

 

[meza]

If you want an idea of what costs would be for higher mileage and older vans you should check what people say on T5 forum (vwt4forum.co.uk strangely). I know £200 a year wouldn't cut it for my 12 year old T5.1!

 

[DXX]

Surely putting the costs in a spreadsheet will only tell you it doesn’t make financial sense to get a vw camper.

Definitley not worth having for once a month use.

 

[signtoo]

Surely putting the costs in a spreadsheet will only tell you it doesn’t make financial sense to get a vw camper.

Definitley not worth having for once a month use.

Yep, the maths are certainly adding up against ownership at this rate. I think we would use it more than 12 times a year but I need to be realistic with only getting 5-6 weeks off from work, some of those will be far flung underwater photography holidays, and others would be split to do campervaning.

I've not factored in the ability to go away for a week at a time and work remotely, which would change this entirely.

I guess the summary is:
1. you'll spend more maintaining a vehicle that's older/higher mileage
2. It's unlikely to ever be cost effective unless you replace your major holidays with the campervan.

So then the actual question comes down to if we value campervan trips enough to pay the premium, or if we can replace more holidays abroad with the van...

 

[meza]

What do you mean by cost effective?

A campervan is going to be fairly expensive to run, compare to say a car.

But although it's still transport it's an entirely different thing in other ways.

The question is exactly what you just said, whatever the cost happens to be, do you value it?

And judging by popularity a lot of people do! But it's certainly not for all.

 

[meza]

Another view is, the more you put into it (spend!) the more you get out of it.

Mine has been an absolute money pit (although I think it's leveling off now), but spending all that cash on it has made me determined to get the most from it!

So with that view, get an old one and you'll use it more

 

[signtoo]

What do you mean by cost effective?

If I take the cost of running and maintaining a campervan, including camp sites etc, vs just going in the cost effective VW UP and staying in hotels, the campervan would still be more expensive, in a like for like comparison. By a massive margin (roughly an extra £20k+ over the 10 years).

I think for many on this forum, they already know that vw campers aren't exactly cost effective in that comparison, but for me it's been a worth while exercise to see how much I'd value a camper.

With underwater photography I spend on average £1.5k per week for holidays. So that's roughly £6k+ per year on travel, food, diving, all in. If I were to replace all those with say, campervan holidays, it would actually be more cost effective as two of us would share the running costs. I personally wouldn't swap all my travels, but definitely some of them, as we want to do more UK and Euro based travel with the dog

Many people say you can't put a price on it, but you can certainly put a value against it and weigh up the other options.

Perhaps I'm just rambling at this point but I love doing these types of comparisons, as I rarely ever make big purchases with the heart, but this time I may just bite the bullet.

 

[DXX]

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You missed this £12 off the spreadsheet, could be the tipping point.
Plus Carista annual subscription to counter the fault code paranoia factor.

 

[signtoo]

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You missed this £12 off the spreadsheet, could be the tipping point.
Plus Carista annual subscription to counter the fault code paranoia factor.

* More storage space in your media gallery
* Use of videos in media gallery

If I do go ahead you'd be right in assuming I'd post 50MP photos with my camera.