Hello MOJO,
I think now that you've started to see forum members making the case for the SE/Ocean, I feel it would be worth making some comparisons and pointing out some of the short falls. However, before that, it's worth stating that with a budget of between £20 - 30k you will have a choice of an older and more complicated SE or a much newer simpler Beach without the same potential for problems. Stretch your budget slightly and you are into nearly new Beach territory, albeit with basic spec. These are complex vehicles, especially the SE/Ocean so it stands to reason that the older the vehicle the more chance you have of experiencing issues, some of which have the potential to be very involved and therefore expensive to fix.
The Beach is disproportionally more expensive to buy with similar features/options to the SE/Ocean. Whilst i have my own theory, you'll have to ask VW for an explanation as to why that is so! So there is no doubt if comparing both types of vehicles, you do get more for your money with the full fat Cali. However, there is much more to this issue than cost.
We started with a three month old ex demo SE with all the bells and whistles including 4motion. I then bought an ex demo seven seat Beach to replace our aging family car. We have lots of grand children so the Beach was intended to run along side our personal escape capsule SE. I should point out that when we returned to the dealer to buy the Beach we were actually looking to buy a Caravelle. However, the price of the Beach wasn't that much different to our preferred Caravelle spec and you get so much more flexibility with the Beach. Anyway we quickly discovered that for us, the Beach was the more flexible vehicle by a country mile and whilst fantastic the SE was the more compromised of the two versions. The following are purely my observations and are intended to help you see past the rose tinted specs that are often worn when Cali shopping.
1. The obvious compromise is the fixed kitchen, fridge, wardrobe. Whether you actually use it or not you still have to cart it everywhere, 365 days a year. Not so with the Beach where everything is easily removable leaving a much more flexible space.
2. The SE/Ocean both have electro/hydraulic pop top roofs. You only have to use the search function to realise that these roofs can go wrong. Problems with the control panel, leaking hydraulic oil, roof not going up or coming down evenly etc etc often feature in forum threads. The Beach has a simple manually operated pop top roof. I don't recall seeing any threads featuring any serious problems with the manual roof. So unless you are physically unable to operate the manual roof then it represents a far better long term ownership prospect than the complex, noisy and frankly unnecessary alternative.
3. Water system - yes the SE/Ocean has a sink, tap and fresh and waste water tanks. However this is cold water only in a van costing in many cases way north of £60k. Then there's the maintenance. The fresh water tank has to be regularly sterilised and must be emptied along with the pipework to avoid suffering frost damage during the colder months. IMO the sink is too small to be of much use for doing any more than very basic washing up. It's also in the way when you swivel the passenger seat! This system has pipes, tanks, a motorised pump, tap etc all of which add complexity and do create problems from time to time. Consequently, some owners don't use the tanks, sink, tap etc preferring to do the washing up in the campsite washing up block or taking it home instead.
4. The cooker - a great little cooker but ask yourself if you will ever actually use it for making anything more than a cup of coffee or a Cupasoup? Just look in the Calis For Sale section and you'll often see "never been cooked in" mentioned. You can cook in a Beach if you wish to or outside which many prefer as any cooking device isn't permanently bolted to the van and taking up space whether being used or not. If the weather is grotty then there's always the pub. Under those conditions, we'd probably end up eating there regardless of which version we owned.
5. Fridge - it's a great little unit but it is only a fridge. It is possible to freeze the odd thing against the black wall of the unit but it isn't a freezer. These fixed units also provide problems from time to time and therefore often have to be removed to be fixed. Then there's the main compromise. It's a top loader which is great as the cold stays in the fridge when opened unlike the front opening variety used in some conversions. Alas it is also a right old pain in the @r$€ because every time you need anything you have to move everything off of the work top before gaining access. After a while that started to annoy me. With the Beach your Fridge/freezer can be removed and our's runs on 12v or 240v so can be used elsewhere. With a capacity of 32.5 litres it isn't that much different to the fixed unit. It can also be used as a freezer at down to -22 degrees.
6. Wardrobe - I always found it an awkward space to use. Consequently, we just used to stuff the bedding in there.
7. Bed size - Whilst we always found the bed ok, it could be better if the kitchen isn't in the way. With either version of the Beach you can do everything that you could do with that SE/Ocean sink, kitchen, fridge, storage range but without having to compromise the bed space. Accordingly, the Beach has king size bed instead of the somewhat cramped version in the fully fitted Cali.
8. Storage space - the SE-Ocean has plenty of useful storage however I found some of it rather irritating to use. If you are prepping a meal and you have failed to get everything out before hand it isn't that easy to access either the under bench drawer or under sink cupboards without bailing out first. People might look down on the boxes that are an inevitable feature of Beach storage but in practice they work very well indeed.
9. Accident damage - the presence of the fitted facilities provides added complications should you be unlucky enough to suffer accident damage to the near side. As members have reported the whole kit and caboodle often has to come out for the damage to e dealt with. Alas, it would appear that not all accident repair centres are as good at putting them back again.
I personally wouldn't even consider converting a Caravelle because it is a complicated conversion to put a pop top in a Caravelle. The ceiling in a Caravelle is rammed full of ventilation ducts, vents and lighting bars. That is not going to be that easy to re-route to a good standard. A friend of mine actually has a Caravelle with a pop top conversion and it's really isn't that well finished inside. Then there's the cost of the conversion. It's probably this last factor alone that's responsible for there not being more converted Caravelles around. So any conversion will be complicated and expensive and at the same time your vehicle will not hold it's value like a Beach will. Basically don't go there.
The Beach undoutedly doesn't have the same allure of the SE/Ocean but what it lacks in the glossy fully fitted kitchen brochure department it more than makes up for in it's extremely flexible multi use capability. You can be taking seven adults and their luggage to the airport one day, moving a double wardrobe the next and spending the night camping in your king sized double bed in the evening.
I stress that I am in no way trying to pursued you to buy one or the other version but merely trying to cut through the gloss to expose some of the issues that I have found. Better to have them pointed out now than discover them after you've laid down your hard earned. In the end buy which suits your life style the best but do it with your eyes wide open.
Good luck in your quest.
We are all different.
