Hello!

[tomhall314]

Hi all,

We are a young couple looking to buy a California at some point in the next 12 months. Any advice on useful sites for research, and any tips on what to look for in a California would be very welcome, we're pretty new to this sort of thing!
I'm currently trawling through lots of useful bits and bobs on the forum, comparing different models and features, we've camped in the family early bay a few times and realised we need our mod cons.
Our budget is circa £35000, which doesn't seem like much around these parts!
Any advice would be greatly appreciated,

Tom & Bex

 

[Aidy P]

Welcome to the forum. This place has proved invaluable for advice for me for both speccing my new van and then also tips for travel too.

Good luck with the research. It gets addictive!

 

[Hotel California]

Welcome , this forum will give you all intell .
Best to point out in witch direction you are thinking ...SE or Beach
Guess you are looking at a young T5 model then?

 

[tomhall314]

Hi, yes, so we almost certainly want an SE, at the mo we are looking at the pre/post 2010 differences, I'm thinking our target is probably a 12 plate with average miles?

 

[Hotel California]

Hi, yes, so we almost certainly want an SE, at the mo we are looking at the pre/post 2010 differences, I'm thinking our target is probably a 12 plate with average miles?

My beeing from outside the UK do not understand all the plate thing , but i understand is has to do with the date of registration.
Sure others will help you to find and locate Cali's for sale , and bear in mind some have orderd/waiting a T6 and selling theire T5 ...so look at Cali's for sale on this forum.

 

[2into1]

My advice would be to follow used pricing IN GREAT Detail (including how quickly differently priced vans sell). You need to try and learn what they sell for, not just what some are listed at and get stuck. Once you have a PhD in Cali pricing, watch, in this order (i) both car and motorhome sections of Autotrader, (ii) ebay and (iii) lastly here (because prices are the highest) ALL SEVERAL TIMES A DAY.

Bargains do crop up, but there are several dealers doing the above and they tend to bag them, so you need to be quick AND CONFIDENT (hence the PhD) for when they crop up.

Prepare a list of direct questions to ask on the phone and be willing to do an immediate bank transfer for £1k if the responses are positive on the basis you've bought it "subject to the answers being verified in a viewing / test drive".
There will be average mileage mint face-lift 2012's for your budget. They didn't cost much more than that 3 or 4 years ago.
The last one I bought was listed 250 miles from my home at 9.30pm. I did the above, got the guy out of bed (10.30pm). Sent a deposit, and viewed it 7.30am the next morning having set off at 3am. The seller had 35 calls that day.

 

[2into1]

Oh, and if you in the market for an early facelift 180hp, make sure you are up to speed on the high oil consumption issues (until VW formalise a response) of certain engine codes.

 

[larrylamb]

Don't forget the roof corrosion thread on this forum.

 

[tomhall314]

Excellent info, thanks very much! There's a ton of good stuff on here, but it's good to know our budget should get us a decent van. It seems obvious to me to buy in the winter months as lower demand, etc. Is this still true of Californias?

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

[2into1]

I'd say we are already past the low point, but this year is a bit odd with the new T6.....which was coming... Then was going to be 2017.....then it was end of 2015.....now new orders are being pushed out..... So the demand on T5's has been all over the place.

There was a slug of demo miles T5's available too, some at really good prices, some at ridiculous money, which is why you need to follow the prices of one's that sell, not ones that stick.

Demand will spark as soon as Spring shows the first signs of arrival and stay crazy until the start of the summer holidays.