Market economics

blondebier · Sep 10, 2021

I've been watching the prices of nearly new vans as we're considering a replacement for ours. I know this year has been a pretty poor time to buy if you're in the market for a California or any campervan come to that.

Our current thinking is that we either buy new discounted through DTD/Autoebid OR something nearly new i.e. less than 18 months old. We really want a new one in a two tone colour that's not available in the UK (But the colours are available in Ireland and South African RHD markets. Grrr...).

We're not in a rush and would be happy to wait. The reasons for waiting are that the colours eventually become available and secondly the T6.1's face is a bit of a dog and will probably be facelifted at some point. It really needs it! But the two tone colour does offset this a bit.

Anyway, the title of this thread was "Market Economics"...

I saw a nice two tone T6 advertised privately on here last week. It looked great. I emailed the seller, asked all my questions and he responded saying that he'd had a viewing booked on Wednesday and would let me know after that. I didn't hear anything, it disappeared from the classifieds on here and Autotrader. It must have sold.

I've just seen it reappear on Autotrader through a VW dealer for 12.5k more (Yes - TWELVE AND A HALF THOUSAND POUNDS MORE) than it was advertised on here.

I know there's been a lot of kite flying going on, but that's stratospheric.

Alan Andrews · Sep 10, 2021

Personally I'm not convinced that VW will develop another facelift for the T6...after all that is the T6.1

The next 4-6 months will dictate where we are with Covid, and if we are ready to go abroad again on foreign package holidays. If we are, then the situation with campers will ease and the prices will stabilise and start to return to pre covid levels.

I agree that the vw 2 tones are attractive and I'd be tempted to upgrade. But I would not be put off by having a bottom half wrap. This will have the benefit of providing a little chip protection and provide the 2 tone look.

As we go into the Autumn/Winter period, then the camper buyers will revert to looking and there might be some deals around.

Cali-ABZ · Sep 21, 2021

We just bought our new (to us) van second hand (through an advert on here) and sold our old van through here as well. I was amazed when looking at the official VW second hand website that they were selling used vans for massively more than the new cost, as quoted by a local dealer. I appreciate the current wait time is pretty long, but that can't be a good way of keeping your potential long term customers happy.