Hello from Dublin

[Mehdime]

Hi everyone,

Just joined from Dublin, Ireland. Looking forward to participate in the community. We ordered our California Ocean at the end of April. ETA... March 2022 At least, we'll have time to read the entire forum before it arrives and be ready for it...

For the little story: we've wanted to have a camper van for our family of 4 for as long as we can remember. But we could never justify the cost and hassle of having a camper van in addition to our car. We also live in an area where only on-street parking is available and parking a large camper van here wouldn't be an option. Which would mean having to find an out-of-town storage space - more costs, more hassle.

We've always known about the California. But always dismissed it as little more than an outrageously expensive car. How can you call yourself a camper van when you don't have a bathroom with a toilet and a shower?

But a few weeks ago, as she was browsing through old magazines, my wife came across a California brochure we'd picked up from a VW dealership a while back. I'm not sure what had changed in our thinking but as soon as we saw it, it made sense. That's exactly what we had been looking for. The fact that a California is really just an expensive car isn't an issue. It's the whole point. It means that we can sell our car and just have the Calfornia. Which makes the cost a lot more palatable and removes all the hassle of having to own two vehicles. It means we can park it on-street in front of our house - and go on a week-end gateway whenever we feel like it without having to plan everything in advance. And it means we won't have a problem driving through the famously tiny streets and cliff-side roads of Ireland.

As for the lack of shower and toilet... I'm sure we'll be fine

Can't wait...

 

[Karlos]

Hope you enjoy your Cali and some pics please.

 

[Mehdime]

Hope you enjoy your Cali and some pics please.

I will - but it’ll be next year at the earliest

 

[Graham T]

 

[Eber123]

Hello Mehdime,

Welcome in the forum.

The very long lead time is terrible. I can imagine that, after the deicison is made, you count the weeks until it arraives. From where did you buy it?

I fully agree of what you mentioned in your post. The biggest strenght of the California is the flexibility. It can be used as a daily drive (which I do), for day trips (having a coffee after walking with the dog in Donadea), weekends and longer trips (which we did in 2019 through Europe).

But be aware of car insurance. When we bought our camper in November 2017 I spend a lot of research - exept car insurance. We bought our camper in Frank Keane, Liffey Valley (demo model), contract signed and sale closed. Then I contacted my car insurance to arrange the, well, insurance to collect the camper.

To my horror the car insurance did not insure campers. I spend half a day to ring all know car insurance in Ireland (16x at the time). The outcome was that, for the best of my knolwdge, there are only 2x brokers who insure campers 1.) Stewart and 2.) Dolmen.

To insure the camper as a daily drive is difficult. Again from my experience Stewart declined to insure the California as a daily drive. That left me with Dolmen. They are ok and I managed to get insurance. But please be aware that if there is no other car in the household it can be rather expensive.

If you wish you can send me a PM and we can discuss this in more detail.

Kind Regards,
Eberhard

 

[Mehdime]

Thanks Eberhard! That's super useful info.

We ordered from Stefan at Bright Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles. We also contacted Frank Keane but they didn't seem all that bothered to be honest (a month and half later, we're still waiting for them to get back to us with a quote for our car if we were to trade it in). Stefan on the other side was completely on-the-ball and so got our business.

Before we ordered, we went and got a quote from its4women (our current insurer) and they listed the VW Calfornia on their list of vehicles. The quote was €530/month, which was very reasonable. Only issue is that their site only quotes for vehicles worth up to €70k and the Ocean is worth more than this. But I assumed that I could just give them a ring when the time comes and get a quote for the correct car value. Maybe I assumed wrong

I'll find out when we have a delivery date (I guess there's no point worrying about this when it'll be at least a year before the van shows up) and will send you a PM if we run into issues there. Thanks for your help!

 

[Eber123]

Hello Mehdime,

You are right there is a bit of time ...

But when it is time to insure the campter make sure that they know that it is your daily drive. When I contacted Stewart Insurance it certainly was an issue for them.

On all email communication I made sure that I mentioned that the California is my daily drive.

EUR 530 (I guess not per month ) is a good price for a California without another car in the family. Dolmen asked for a good bit more. But also make sure that if they only insure the camper to EUR 70.000 that they further down the years not deduct the difference when the value of the camper is less.

All the best and enjoy the reading here on the forum. There are a lot of ideas that I picked up and a lot of help from people with a lot of experience - I learned a lot.

Regards,
Eberhard

 

[Mehdime]

Ah yes, it was per year - ooops

Yes I’ve already spent way too much time reading posts here - but it’s been super useful.

 

[sapto]

Welcome here family of 4!
A California is such agreat way to drive, travel, camp and use it as everydaydrive! Enjoy the year full of reading, comparing, adding&sell (your other car). It's a wonderful process.
I only had the chance to visit Dublin once - fall in love immediately (culture, people and landscape). Look forward to see some Van pics!
All the best
sapto

 

[Bobbyjean-IRL]

Welcome to the California forum and the VW family,
I have had VW camper T25 for the past 12 years and initially got insurance from Stewart, and later on, with Carole Nash (Classic), granted I had a car and it was not my daily driver.
I sold the camper in Feb after being told that the California Beach would be delivered in May which now it looks like we have to wait until Sept/Oct.

 

[Perfectos]

Enjoy the extensive research of this forum during your wait, and the inevitable purchases that follow.

your profile can now be updated to the vehicle you have ordered.

what colour / spec did you go for ?

 

[Joker 1299]

Dublin… the friendliest capital city in the world

 

[Mehdime]

your profile can now be updated to the vehicle you have ordered.

what colour / spec did you go for ?

It's a good point. Updated now. I'll have to think of a profile picture to add too.

It's a green & white Ocean with davenport wheels. I call it the Playmobil trim It truly is the cutest thing you've ever seen.

In terms of specs, it has:

• 204PS engine (same power as what we have in our current car. After years of driving under-powered cars and stressing every time we had to overtake someone on those tiny Irish road, we swore we'd never drive something that doesn't let us overtake quickly and safely again)
• All the safety features (assistive cruise control, lane assist, park assist, individual tyre pressure monitoring etc. Again after years of driving 15 year old plastic cars, we swore we'd never drive anything again that doesn't have every safety feature you can get).
• Shower attachment. This is a going to be a game changer. Getting into our wet suits and going in the sea is what we do all year round (the benefit of living on the coast). But it's always a mess to clean people up before getting back in the car. Really looking forward to this one.
• Safe box. No need to worry about loosing passports and driving licenses again.
• The wood-style floor. It just looks too good.
• Induction charger for the mobile phone.
• Comfort mattress - I need my sleep.
• And probably a few more things.

What we didn't go for was the tow bar (there's no way I'm ever towing anything) and 4Motion (looked into it but just couldn't see the point for us. I can't think of a single time in 20 years of driving when 4Motion would have been needed for us. And we definitely won't be doing any kind of off-roading with that van).