Hello from Oxfordshire

[JollyGoodShow]

Hello, I'm planning retirement, probably next year, and thinking about buying a campervan.

We have two cars, but hardly use the second one. The main one is an EV, and while that works for almost all journeys, it's no good for holidays in e.g. Northumberland, where we still want a car with long range. Keeping a ICE car just for holidays that otherwise doesn't do anything our EV does seems silly. So we hit upon the idea of a campervan. And the more we thought about it, the more excited we have become. We plan to use a campervan as a second car, to go on holidays, and for day trips. When we go on holiday I don't think we'd stay in the campervan every night, or possibly even at all, but we like the idea of having the option of self-catering while touring around - so e.g. breakfast in a B&B, lunch in the van, and dinner out.

We've seen some second-hand Californias, a Marco Polo, and we went to the NEC yesterday and had a good look round the converters. I was a bit disappointed in the conversions, to be honest. I don't love the California monotone grey interior, but a lot of the conversions don't have the seat flexibility (a lot of the seats are fixed), and some of the seats are ludicrously high, so Mrs GoodShow can't reach the floor. I do like the Reimo Variotech 3000 seat, and that does look to be better than the California's bed, but it only comes on a few vans; I quite liked the CMC ones exhibited at the NEC. Even if I could find a conversion that is unequivocally a better design than the California, it looks like the depreciation on conversions is greater and the sticker prices are like-for-like the same or (in the case of Ecowagens) a lot more.

We've now hired a California for a few days through the VW try-before-you-buy scheme through Breeze in Poole. We'll see how we get on.

I read quite a lot in the forums here and found it useful and mostly entertaining - thank you!

 

[66tim99]

Hello, I'm planning retirement, probably next year, and thinking about buying a campervan.

We have two cars, but hardly use the second one. The main one is an EV, and while that works for almost all journeys, it's no good for holidays in e.g. Northumberland, where we still want a car with long range. Keeping a ICE car just for holidays that otherwise doesn't do anything our EV does seems silly. So we hit upon the idea of a campervan. And the more we thought about it, the more excited we have become. We plan to use a campervan as a second car, to go on holidays, and for day trips. When we go on holiday I don't think we'd stay in the campervan every night, or possibly even at all, but we like the idea of having the option of self-catering while touring around - so e.g. breakfast in a B&B, lunch in the van, and dinner out.

We've seen some second-hand Californias, a Marco Polo, and we went to the NEC yesterday and had a good look round the converters. I was a bit disappointed in the conversions, to be honest. I don't love the California monotone grey interior, but a lot of the conversions don't have the seat flexibility (a lot of the seats are fixed), and some of the seats are ludicrously high, so Mrs GoodShow can't reach the floor. I do like the Reimo Variotech 3000 seat, and that does look to be better than the California's bed, but it only comes on a few vans; I quite liked the CMC ones exhibited at the NEC. Even if I could find a conversion that is unequivocally a better design than the California, it looks like the depreciation on conversions is greater and the sticker prices are like-for-like the same or (in the case of Ecowagens) a lot more.

We've now hired a California for a few days through the VW try-before-you-buy scheme through Breeze in Poole. We'll see how we get on.

I read quite a lot in the forums here and found it useful and mostly entertaining - thank you!

Welcome aboard!
Great idea to hire a California - I'm sure you'll love it. If you can, sleep up top with the heater on and everything set up downstairs, push the bed up in the morning and make yourself a cuppa with the radio on, and let me know if you are smiling inside and thinking there's not much more you need.
Enjoy your time away.

 

[dspuk]

Hello, I'm planning retirement, probably next year, and thinking about buying a campervan.

We have two cars, but hardly use the second one. The main one is an EV, and while that works for almost all journeys, it's no good for holidays in e.g. Northumberland, where we still want a car with long range. Keeping a ICE car just for holidays that otherwise doesn't do anything our EV does seems silly. So we hit upon the idea of a campervan. And the more we thought about it, the more excited we have become. We plan to use a campervan as a second car, to go on holidays, and for day trips. When we go on holiday I don't think we'd stay in the campervan every night, or possibly even at all, but we like the idea of having the option of self-catering while touring around - so e.g. breakfast in a B&B, lunch in the van, and dinner out.

We've seen some second-hand Californias, a Marco Polo, and we went to the NEC yesterday and had a good look round the converters. I was a bit disappointed in the conversions, to be honest. I don't love the California monotone grey interior, but a lot of the conversions don't have the seat flexibility (a lot of the seats are fixed), and some of the seats are ludicrously high, so Mrs GoodShow can't reach the floor. I do like the Reimo Variotech 3000 seat, and that does look to be better than the California's bed, but it only comes on a few vans; I quite liked the CMC ones exhibited at the NEC. Even if I could find a conversion that is unequivocally a better design than the California, it looks like the depreciation on conversions is greater and the sticker prices are like-for-like the same or (in the case of Ecowagens) a lot more.

We've now hired a California for a few days through the VW try-before-you-buy scheme through Breeze in Poole. We'll see how we get on.

I read quite a lot in the forums here and found it useful and mostly entertaining - thank you!

Try before you buy is the way to go. Todays offers are very good so you might need to make your mind up sooner rather than later. We looked at all the conversions at the NEC after we bought ours but before my sister bought hers. We never found one that beat the Cali and those that were close were actually more expensive when fully specced. She got a Cali. You will find the grey is grey for a reason but we found the wood floor helps lift the interior for us. Carpets will do the same! We prefer it to the caravan interior look that most conversions go for.

 

[Stu@rt]

Hello, I'm planning retirement, probably next year, and thinking about buying a campervan.

We have two cars, but hardly use the second one. The main one is an EV, and while that works for almost all journeys, it's no good for holidays in e.g. Northumberland, where we still want a car with long range. Keeping a ICE car just for holidays that otherwise doesn't do anything our EV does seems silly. So we hit upon the idea of a campervan. And the more we thought about it, the more excited we have become. We plan to use a campervan as a second car, to go on holidays, and for day trips. When we go on holiday I don't think we'd stay in the campervan every night, or possibly even at all, but we like the idea of having the option of self-catering while touring around - so e.g. breakfast in a B&B, lunch in the van, and dinner out.

We've seen some second-hand Californias, a Marco Polo, and we went to the NEC yesterday and had a good look round the converters. I was a bit disappointed in the conversions, to be honest. I don't love the California monotone grey interior, but a lot of the conversions don't have the seat flexibility (a lot of the seats are fixed), and some of the seats are ludicrously high, so Mrs GoodShow can't reach the floor. I do like the Reimo Variotech 3000 seat, and that does look to be better than the California's bed, but it only comes on a few vans; I quite liked the CMC ones exhibited at the NEC. Even if I could find a conversion that is unequivocally a better design than the California, it looks like the depreciation on conversions is greater and the sticker prices are like-for-like the same or (in the case of Ecowagens) a lot more.

We've now hired a California for a few days through the VW try-before-you-buy scheme through Breeze in Poole. We'll see how we get on.

I read quite a lot in the forums here and found it useful and mostly entertaining - thank you!

CMC are close to us here in Kent, so was able to visit them before we ordered our Cali.
Agree with you on the VarioTech 300 - Looked far superior, being able to sleep on the rear/flat side, but giving a bucket type seat for rear seat passengers, looked like a real design improvement.
But I wasn't keen on the furniture to be honest. Too many "DIY" jointing blocks holding the white veneered wood together, as is quite common amongst conversions. All the wood must be heavy too and eat into valuable payload considerations, I'd have thought.
When I mention to the owner about the California, he replied that it was all "old technology" and was a little "anti" the dilemma that I was feeling.
Don't get me wrong there was zero pressure from him and we were left alone for all the time we wanted to look all over his van.
We were really tempted by the fact he was so local and thought it would be great for aftersales service. But ultimately decided the Cali and a 2 year extension to the warranty was better for us,

Good luck

 

[Stu@rt]

Try before you buy is the way to go. Todays offers are very good so you might need to make your mind up sooner rather than later. We looked at all the conversions at the NEC after we bought ours but before my sister bought hers. We never found one that beat the Cali and those that were close were actually more expensive when fully specced. She got a Cali. You will find the grey is grey for a reason but we found the wood floor helps lift the interior for us. Carpets will do the same! We prefer it to the caravan interior look that most conversions go for.

+1 one for the posh floor. Gets lots of +ve comments.

 

[JollyGoodShow]

Welcome aboard!
Great idea to hire a California - I'm sure you'll love it. If you can, sleep up top with the heater on and everything set up downstairs, push the bed up in the morning and make yourself a cuppa with the radio on, and let me know if you are smiling inside and thinking there's not much more you need.
Enjoy your time away.

I was thinking more of pulling up at a beauty spot, cracking open the champagne, and putti

CMC are close to us here in Kent, so was able to visit them before we ordered our Cali.
Agree with you on the VarioTech 300 - Looked far superior, being able to sleep on the rear/flat side, but giving a bucket type seat for rear seat passengers, looked like a real design improvement.
But I wasn't keen on the furniture to be honest. Too many "DIY" jointing blocks holding the white veneered wood together, as is quite common amongst conversions. All the wood must be heavy too and eat into valuable payload considerations, I'd have thought.
When I mention to the owner about the California, he replied that it was all "old technology" and was a little "anti" the dilemma that I was feeling.
Don't get me wrong there was zero pressure from him and we were left alone for all the time we wanted to look all over his van.
We were really tempted by the fact he was so local and thought it would be great for aftersales service. But ultimately decided the Cali and a 2 year extension to the warranty was better for us,

Good luck

Thanks - I agree about the DIY joint blocks. Some of the vans were more nicely finished, but they were super-expensive. Others looked like they would cost less than the California, but they all had the inflexible bench seat that’s too high. I feel a bit sorry for the converters because the California sets a very high bar.

 

[NessL]

Hello, I'm planning retirement, probably next year, and thinking about buying a campervan.

We have two cars, but hardly use the second one. The main one is an EV, and while that works for almost all journeys, it's no good for holidays in e.g. Northumberland, where we still want a car with long range. Keeping a ICE car just for holidays that otherwise doesn't do anything our EV does seems silly. So we hit upon the idea of a campervan. And the more we thought about it, the more excited we have become. We plan to use a campervan as a second car, to go on holidays, and for day trips. When we go on holiday I don't think we'd stay in the campervan every night, or possibly even at all, but we like the idea of having the option of self-catering while touring around - so e.g. breakfast in a B&B, lunch in the van, and dinner out.

We've seen some second-hand Californias, a Marco Polo, and we went to the NEC yesterday and had a good look round the converters. I was a bit disappointed in the conversions, to be honest. I don't love the California monotone grey interior, but a lot of the conversions don't have the seat flexibility (a lot of the seats are fixed), and some of the seats are ludicrously high, so Mrs GoodShow can't reach the floor. I do like the Reimo Variotech 3000 seat, and that does look to be better than the California's bed, but it only comes on a few vans; I quite liked the CMC ones exhibited at the NEC. Even if I could find a conversion that is unequivocally a better design than the California, it looks like the depreciation on conversions is greater and the sticker prices are like-for-like the same or (in the case of Ecowagens) a lot more.

We've now hired a California for a few days through the VW try-before-you-buy scheme through Breeze in Poole. We'll see how we get on.

I read quite a lot in the forums here and found it useful and mostly entertaining - thank you!

I know what you mean about the grey. We didn’t like it either so we bought a Coast (cheaper than an Ocean) and topped it up with options.
Coast are no longer available, but I believe the Surf may also have the lighter units. Worth checking when you visit Breeze.
We have the wood floor too.

 

[Wildcamper]

Re conversions have you tried Autohaus in Minehead? They did ours to our spec including interior colour. Also options are, poptop, high top, various sleeping arrangements, diesel heater, hob, oven, hot water, shower arrangement etc. When I last spoke to them they had new vans ready to convert. They are VW approved, van come with full VW warranty and the conversion has a 3 year warranty. As far as possible they will make what you want in the colour you want with the options you want.

 

[JollyGoodShow]

Re conversions have you tried Autohaus in Minehead? They did ours to our spec including interior colour. Also options are, poptop, high top, various sleeping arrangements, diesel heater, hob, oven, hot water, shower arrangement etc. When I last spoke to them they had new vans ready to convert. They are VW approved, van come with full VW warranty and the conversion has a 3 year warranty. As far as possible they will make what you want in the colour you want with the options you want.

Thanks - we saw Autohaus at the NEC. They use, I think, the RIB bed, which is fixed and is high to sit on: my wife, who swears she is average height, cannot put her feet on the ground.

Of the converters I’ve seen, Ecowagon use the California bed, CMC use the Reimo Variotech 3000, and most others seem to use the fixed RIB. Having seen videos on how the Variotech 3000 is installed, and what it takes to make a sliding bed crash-safe, I can understand why converters use the fixed bed. But it reduces the flexibility of the car because I don’t think you can use it as easily as a conventional load carrying van. I think the RIB bed is so high because it is mounted over the wheel arch, but I’m not sure about that.

It seems to me that the California bed isn’t quite as clever as the Reimo Variotech 3000, but it’s close.

I think I might be overthinking it anyway. I’m sure all the popular options work just fine.