Hi California People - Now purchased!!!

[T2-Haz]

Hi Cali lovers,
I've just been to the dealer in Guildford to see a lovely Ocean in their showroom. We are hoping to place an order soon, just need to sort a house move out first!

We are long time campers, I've had by T2 for about 18 years now and love it dearly, we still get away most of the time, and are about to set off on a two week jaunt around Brittany soon with him.

We call him Trigger, after Triggers broom in only fools and horses. Same van, just everything's been replaced as it's dropped off over the years!!

I dearly love my old van and I've had it for too long to even consider replacing it! So the plan is buy an ocean for daily use and quick getaways, and long euro trips, and save the T2 for slightly more special occasions, with 2 kids now, 2 yo & 4 weeks! I am looking at this from a safety point of view as well, we have done our best with decent seat belts, anchor points for luggage etc etc,,.

my son is completely in love with the old van too his first camping trip was at 3 weeks old and now he loves sleeping in his hammock across the front seats!

So the spec I want is - Ocean, DSG, parking sensors, maybe camera....awning and cruise. That's really about it.

Look forward to reading up on the forum and seeing all your lovely photo's. I'll become a VIP member shortly.

In the meantime here's a few photos of our bay.

All the best.

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[Thruxton]

Lovely, you'll have to go two-tone red and white on the ocean ;-)

 

[Hotel California]

Welcome !

 

[Joker 1299]

Loving it! Best of both worlds. Great times ahead!

 

[T2-Haz]

Lovely, you'll have to go two-tone red and white on the ocean ;-)

Haha don't think I haven't thought about it! for my Sons second birthday this year we got him a balance bike, and I painted it with the left over paint I had from the respray 3 years ago!

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[Thruxton]

Did you say you needed to sort a house out?

 

[GillianC]

Hi Cali lovers,
I've just been to the dealer in Guildford to see a lovely Ocean in their showroom. We are hoping to place an order soon, just need to sort a house move out first!

We are long time campers, I've had by T2 for about 18 years now and love it dearly, we still get away most of the time, and are about to set off on a two week jaunt around Brittany soon with him.

We call him Trigger, after Triggers broom in only fools and horses. Same van, just everything's been replaced as it's dropped off over the years!!

I dearly love my old van and I've had it for too long to even consider replacing it! So the plan is buy an ocean for daily use and quick getaways, and long euro trips, and save the T2 for slightly more special occasions, with 2 kids now, 2 yo & 4 weeks! I am looking at this from a safety point of view as well, we have done our best with decent seat belts, anchor points for luggage etc etc,,.

my son is completely in love with the old van too his first camping trip was at 3 weeks old and now he loves sleeping in his hammock across the front seats!

So the spec I want is - Ocean, DSG, parking sensors, maybe camera....awning and cruise. That's really about it.

Look forward to reading up on the forum and seeing all your lovely photo's. I'll become a VIP member shortly.

In the meantime here's a few photos of our bay.

All the best.

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Welcome!
I suspect when you get your Cali that you will use it all the time.

 

[Fast Freddie]

Welcome! We too have a California and an air cooled Van, in our case a Splittie. Both are fantastic fun and we feel really lucky to have both. Enjoy your Cali - they really are great vehicles too.

 

[Dave650]

Welcome, we also have a T2 and a recently acquired Cali.

 

[T2-Haz]

Fantastic to see some more air cooled buses, .


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[T2-Haz]

An Update!

Well we hired an Ocean this weekend for a trip to see some friends in Warwick, we went and collected it from Mark + Kamperhire. Very much recommended Mark, very friendly, easy to deal with and a great spec van. Ours was a 150 DSG with some nice extra's.

Armed with information from this forum we loaded up,,..

Didn't panic when fitting the Isofix child seats, hard work & painful, but tilting the seat back as suggested on the forum made it easier.

Drove off, could hear a few rattles, no problem, pulled over and wound the awning out a few inches and back. Sorted!

Next rattle, folding table, just not clicked in properly, again thanks to the forum I knew what to do!

We stayed at Stratford Riverside for 2 nights, great site with good facilities, a little put off they wouldn't allow us to put out pop up tent up, as it got a little cramped have big bulky child seats piled up inside but we made it work.

So much easier to drive off site for the day with a Cali, no faffing like there is with my T2.

The last night we camped at Chichester C&CC site, small and very friendly. Look forward to going there again.

So we are looking for a van, just got to sort finances and we will be good to go!

Dealer experience - Lookers in Guildford, arrived with the family, ignored for about half hour, went and found someone, they said they would find a salesman, 20 mins later, somebody appeared, looked like I'd disturbed his lunch, started by telling me the door was on the wrong side, things are fragile, yawn.....my wife could see I was getting annoyed......

Then James King appeared to save the day, pleasant, really knowledgeable, demonstrated everything, didn't mind the kids crawling around, happy for us to pull and poke things around. So for that reason I'll be sticking with them for now!

I'll post some pics of our hire weekend next.

Thanks ).


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[T2-Haz]

Finally,,.. sleeping Cali babies!!

Hopefully we'll have our own Cali soon!


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[WelshGas]

 

[jts46]

 

[Ocean Spirit]

Welcome.
Plus 1 for mark@Kamperhire.
At time of writing thats one of his Cali's in my avatar. a 150 DSG T6.
Actually had the option to buy there after but decided on new.
I have had some comms with Lookers in Guilford but was unimpressed.
Lack of knowledge, lack of enthusiasm, lack of deal. 3 strikes and they were out.
Lots of places willing to try hard for your custom. Martin Bareham at SMG Tonbridge made it very easy for us with precisely the opposite to the 3 strikes above.

 

[GrannyJen]

Welcome and what a lovely introduction! So much enthusiasm, sleeping little children, T2's and mention of Mark (my first camper van experience began at Kamperhire).

A big welcome to the forum.

 

[parrot2]

welcome to the forum

 

[T2-Haz]

Hi All!
I'm back .
So nearly two years after starting this thread, I have purchased a 2012 Cali SE and will be collecting it on Saturday. Purchased through a used car dealer in Swansea, who was very helpful and didn't mind me turning up with my gas bottle / hook up lead and a checklist!

We are very excited to be starting our Cali adventure, and will keep the T2 aswell, we spent 1 month living in it last december while travelling round Portugal. I will upload some pic's in the travel section.

I'll stick some photo's of the new van here too, its a credit to it's previous owner.

My 4 year old is very excited. He was up at at 5am on Saturday asking............"daddy,,,.... is it time to get the new van...

Happy travels.

 

[T2-Haz]

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[Borris]

She's a beauty. Congratulations.

You have many more adventures to come in your lovely new van.

 

[Gary&Heather]

Congratulations looks a beauty

 

[Perfectos]

Congrats T2

You’ve got yourself two classics

fantastic colour

Enjoy

 

[capt kirk]

Welcome......
If you need help with anything im only in camberley, welcome to drop in anytime

 

[sapto]

Great! Happy camping and thanks for sharing!