A £82.5k California - OUCH!

[MarkVw2017]

So just playing with the 'build your own Cali" configurator and just wanted to see if you add EVERY option, how much it comes to in 2019 prices and its a whopping £82.2k. To save money, i didnt add the £85 flashlight option

I know it would be lovely but £82.2k, but wow VW, thats some serious cash!

 

[Borris]

I wonder what te payload would end up being if you went for every option on a 4motion?

 

[DrJuanKerr]

Crazy money

 

[WelshGas]

Bit difficult sleeping a family of 4, or making a cup of tea.

Horses for Courses.

 

[Velma's Dad]

To save money, i didnt add the £85 flashlight option

Cheapskate.

 

[Volkywagen]

Can’t put a price on quality

 

[willwander]

Blimey and that’s before you start on the Brandrup

 

[Elmo3]

View attachment 41139

Bit difficult sleeping a family of 4, or making a cup of tea.

Horses for Courses.

And it will, without doubt, have more things go wrong with it than any Cali, along with the most dreadful dealer network. Makes a Cali look like a bargain.

 

[Stuart]

@MarkVw2017 you must have missed something

 

[MarkVw2017]

@MarkVw2017 you must have missed something

View attachment 41167

Mine was a bargain then

 

[2into1]

The old psychological £50k barrier seems well and truly behind us!

 

[Velma's Dad]

The old psychological £50k barrier seems well and truly behind us!

Just like that old psychological 12-stone barrier in my case.

 

[ArunAlec]

I wonder how many years these high cost, high tech vehicles will be cost effective to keep on the road. The old days of being able to keep a car on the road by DIY and trip to the breakers yard are fast disappearing.

 

[Eber123]

Good afternoon,

I went to the German VW web page and configured the California Ocean as if money is not an issue. But fair enough I did not add everything, just what I would like to have.

The price was almost EUR 97,000 .

The good thing is, that even if I wanted to, not everything is available in Ireland. Have I said that I would never be in a position to get a California Ocean in a dream configuration (I guess that is the reason why it called dream).

I agree to ArunAlec that there is so little DIY that can be done on this vehicle. It seems to me that a VW technician's most used tool is the laptop to update software. I wouldn't even attempt to change the batteries somewhere else then VW.

On the other hand, if the technology works it is nice.

Regards,
Eberhard

 

[Scorf]

..... and all thats before any Dealer fit options..!!

I feel better about 'only' having ordered a £60k Beach now

 

[Eber123]

Good afternoon,

I would love to have the California with the 4motion, differential lock and DSG. The rest could be the same as it is in my Ocean.

I don't need the big radio (well, better speakers would be nice) or the LED lights.

I still hope that I will be "rewarded" in the future with less costs for service (no DSG, FWD and the smaller engine).

Regards,
Eberhard

 

[MarkVw2017]

..... and all thats before any Dealer fit options..!!

I feel better about 'only' having ordered a £60k Beach now

£60k, flaming bargain ;-)

 

[tuono001]

I looked the other day, after reading this thread, I managed to spec my ideal beach to just shy of £63k
And why is it that you can't spec certain things for the beach that you can on the ocean? If you could that would really blow the budget

 

[ChrisB]

The UK prices are very high and overall spec' choice tends to be sold as a package, rather than as individual items. I thought the UK system was s bit like Sky TV a few years ago, where you paid for a 20 channel TV package but only really wanted 4 of them. I managed to sweet talk the salesman into allowing me to configure my cali' under their 'business customer' arrangements, which was really flexible. I took delivery in late 2017 (2018 MY).

I went for an Ocean 150 DSG 4 motion, with difflock, all season tyres, an 80 litre fuel tank, immobiliser and a detachable tow bar. Plus a few other bits & bobs. The final price at the time of order (July 2017) came to 61500 euro quids, which at the time of exchanging the money in Sept 2017 worked out at about £55,500 coin of the realm.

The killer for me was the exchange rate. In Nov' 2015, the exact same vehicle would have cost me just £43,930)!

I avoided too many electric gizmos and LED headlights, which were an astonishingly expensive option. They might 'lightup the moon' and have a claimed 'service life' of 50,000 hours, but they still only have the standard vehicle guarantee, which in Spain is 2 years. Possible repair/replacement costs at 800+ euros a side put me right off. If I 'bust a bulb' in my cali with H7's, it's 20 minutes and a tenner to fix.

I also went for the 150 because I didn't really need the extra 'oomph' as I spent a lifetime driving police traffic cars for a living so I prefer to 'pootle' nowadays. That said, I recently 'pootled' from Orange (France) to my home in Murcia in a day (Just shy of 1000 kms at an average of 39mpg loaded with roofbox and bike rack). Not a smidgin of backache either!

When I was considering the 204, the dealer shook his head and explained that future service packages on a 204 Ocean have to be charged at the 'retail customer' levels as they couldn't class it as a 'business vehicle' for service & maintenance etc.

I am really happy with my purchase. Since then, I have spent another shedload of extra cash on camping extras. Worst thing I bought with the vehicle was the 'comfort mattress' which is a pile of crap.

I don't know if costs in Spain have risen since my purchase, but the costs shown above are accurate and would suggest that UK customers are paying a lot more for their cali's.

 

[MarkVw2017]

The UK prices are very high and overall spec' choice tends to be sold as a package, rather than as individual items. I thought the UK system was s bit like Sky TV a few years ago, where you paid for a 20 channel TV package but only really wanted 4 of them. I managed to sweet talk the salesman into allowing me to configure my cali' under their 'business customer' arrangements, which was really flexible. I took delivery in late 2017 (2018 MY).

I went for an Ocean 150 DSG 4 motion, with difflock, all season tyres, an 80 litre fuel tank, immobiliser and a detachable tow bar. Plus a few other bits & bobs. The final price at the time of order (July 2017) came to 61500 euro quids, which at the time of exchanging the money in Sept 2017 worked out at about £55,500 coin of the realm.

The killer for me was the exchange rate. In Nov' 2015, the exact same vehicle would have cost me just £43,930)!

I avoided too many electric gizmos and LED headlights, which were an astonishingly expensive option. They might 'lightup the moon' and have a claimed 'service life' of 50,000 hours, but they still only have the standard vehicle guarantee, which in Spain is 2 years. Possible repair/replacement costs at 800+ euros a side put me right off. If I 'bust a bulb' in my cali with H7's, it's 20 minutes and a tenner to fix.

I also went for the 150 because I didn't really need the extra 'oomph' as I spent a lifetime driving police traffic cars for a living so I prefer to 'pootle' nowadays. That said, I recently 'pootled' from Orange (France) to my home in Murcia in a day (Just shy of 1000 kms at an average of 39mpg loaded with roofbox and bike rack). Not a smidgin of backache either!

When I was considering the 204, the dealer shook his head and explained that future service packages on a 204 Ocean have to be charged at the 'retail customer' levels as they couldn't class it as a 'business vehicle' for service & maintenance etc.

I am really happy with my purchase. Since then, I have spent another shedload of extra cash on camping extras. Worst thing I bought with the vehicle was the 'comfort mattress' which is a pile of crap.

I don't know if costs in Spain have risen since my purchase, but the costs shown above are accurate and would suggest that UK customers are paying a lot more for their cali's.

UK customers are paying a lot more for most things now due to the £1 having some wobbles due to [whisper]...... b r e x i t*

*sorry for swearing

 

[PeterE]

While an Ocean seems expensive, it depends how you look at it. In my case, it serves also as my everyday car, so the 'extra' is not 100% of the price, but the extra over what I would normally pay for a standard car.
In my case, I bought a 'nearly new' one for 60,000 Euros (I'm in Belgium) with 8000km. It was from a company that hires them out, but this one had only been hired a couple of times. I also didn't have to worry about what to spec. As experts, the company knew just what was essential, or not - and in fact, it has all the options I could wish for, and more.
My motivation? I already owned a T3 Westfalia, which we loved, but hankered for a bit more comfort, AC and reliability. I had a 6 year old Passat Estate, which still felt 'nearly new', giving me great confidence in the sturdiness of VW's in general. My aim is to keep the Ocean for a good 10 years. As I don't have a garage, I was paying 500 Euros a year to keep the T3 in dry storage, plus extra insurance, and we always had to plan ahead to go and collect it for a trip - so no chance of sponteneity.
I sold the Passat for 10,000 Euros and the T3 for 13,000, so that left me with 37,000 to find, making it seem much less painful.
The strongest argument is if you can use it to replace a 'normal' car. It also provides me with a 'van' whenever I need to transport larger loads (not often).

 

[gt_63]

Fascinating post .....

Allow me to share our story:

After much research and comparisons we built a spec and honed in on the pre-loved option

The benefit for us we felt was that any issues would have (hopefully) shown themselves and be fixed under warranty by now, the initial depreciation of VAT and OTR would have levelled off

So in essence we had a £75k Cali with all the trimmings, 20k miles, extended 12 month warranty and to be fair 3 years older with a couple of scratches to the plastics in the boot space - all for under £45k and that was from a VW Cali dealer! Brobably could have done better but when you fall in love - you fall in love!! Lol

Had been down the donor vehicle route with a personalised conversion option but that was min £50k (mainly due to spec of donor vehicle)

By talking to experience campers like yourselves we listened to what was needed and what was wanted (but rarely used) which gave us a reality check on what we wanted to do and what spec we needed

End result - rather chuffed and looking forward to the adventures ahead and meeting some of you along the way

Don’t get me started on extras/Brandrup/eBay!!!!!
The missus has threatened to take my mobile off me or cancel my credit card!

 

[Esandar#1]

Fascinating post .....

Allow me to share our story:

After much research and comparisons we built a spec and honed in on the pre-loved option

The benefit for us we felt was that any issues would have (hopefully) shown themselves and be fixed under warranty by now, the initial depreciation of VAT and OTR would have levelled off

So in essence we had a £75k Cali with all the trimmings, 20k miles, extended 12 month warranty and to be fair 3 years older with a couple of scratches to the plastics in the boot space - all for under £45k and that was from a VW Cali dealer! Brobably could have done better but when you fall in love - you fall in love!! Lol

Had been down the donor vehicle route with a personalised conversion option but that was min £50k (mainly due to spec of donor vehicle)

By talking to experience campers like yourselves we listened to what was needed and what was wanted (but rarely used) which gave us a reality check on what we wanted to do and what spec we needed

End result - rather chuffed and looking forward to the adventures ahead and meeting some of you along the way

Don’t get me started on extras/Brandrup/eBay!!!!!
The missus has threatened to take my mobile off me or cancel my credit card!

I am just the same... always looking at what little extra I could buy or make to enhance van life. My 11 year old son & I are plotting to make some extra insulation / black out screens for some of the windows (for cold weather camping) but have hidden the raw materials in the garage because ‘if mummy sees us making these daddy she will go mad with us!” Good point son!!!

 

[WelshGas]

I don’t consider the California expensive. It is all relative. As a 3rd vehicle parked on the drive for 6 months + of the year with relatively high service costs/mile if used for summer only, then yes it is expensive but those who buy it in those circumstances can obviously afford it or like that summer lifestyle and are prepared to pay the premium.

But, as a 2nd, everyday family use vehicle I think it is very good value.
Firstly, the cost should be reduced by the cost of an alternative vehicle for everyday use that will accommodate the family + luggage etc:, that besides the daily commute can cope with long distance travel in relative comfort.
Then you have to make a deduction for accommodation costs that would be incurred if using a normal vehicle.
Servicing and Insurance costs be very similar so can be ignored.
The additional 5 yr premium New car tax is a bummer, but not that much all considered.
Then there is the convenience factor of a California, cafe on wheels/cosy place to watch the world go by, spontaneous getaway vehicle.
And the biggest plus - you can travel with/park with and visit the same places as a large car.
I think I have saved substantial amounts having a California compared with the alternative.
Yes a big white has more BUT would have to be a 3rd Vehicle.

I’m writing this as I stare out at my neighbors large Hymer on his drive. It hasn’t moved since last September. Now that would be expensive.

 

[Fergie Collier]

Unbelievable price but they do hold their value - but not that much !