What would my van be worth now?

[Aidy P]

A friend was over at the weekend who was taken by my van and is considering buying one. This prompted me to put my spec in the VW Configurator. I paid circa £60k in March 2016 for my Ocean after discounts. The list price is now close to £72k.

It’s got me thinking is mine under insured?! What would its resale value be now? Circa 16k on the clock.

 

[Gavinskii]

I don't know the specific answer to your question but buying GAP insurance would seem a sensible idea to ensure you could replace with an appropriate vehicle.

 

[RodCouncil]

It's 18m old, why would you expect a new van if the worse happened?

 

[RodCouncil]

I don't know the specific answer to your question but buying GAP insurance would seem a sensible idea to ensure you could replace with an appropriate vehicle.

Why, there are plenty of vans of that era for market value, there is a glut of T6 Calis if you look into the production numbers, a T5.1 would be harder to value and replace.

 

[Aidy P]

It's 18m old, why would you expect a new van if the worse happened?

That’s why I put resale value in my post. I spoke to the dealer who I bought it from a few months ago when it went in for a service who said “Don’t trade it in via VW as you’ll get much less than selling privately”. He was making reference to the high demand for vans. I don’t want to sell. It would just be good to have an idea of it value for my insurance as typically I’d get them to write my cars down each year to save money as I’d expect to buy a similar second hand car for less over time.

Has anyone here sold a T6 and if they have, what % of purchase price did they get?

 

[RodCouncil]

I get the sense tha the T6's for sale on here are the best value vans

https://vwcaliforniaclub.com/classifieds/vehicles-for-sale

 

[blondebier]

Has anyone here sold a T6 and if they have, what % of purchase price did they get?

I have. I'll send you a PM.

Edit: it won't allow me to send you a PM. (It was very good and I almost couldn't believe it)

 

[Gasgas]

I enquired about the glut of California's available at present with my dealer and he inferred that Vw is chasing its end of year target and have changed its demo plan ,letting dealers register as many as they like and getting the full demo discount ,one or two dealers caught on pretty quick and have picked up all the spare Cali's from central stock and pre registered them offering at least 10% ,when these vehicles run out it all should go back to normal with high demand and less supply

 

[Borris]

A friend was over at the weekend who was taken my my van and is considering buying one. This prompted me to put my spec in the VW Configurator. I paid circa £60k in March 2016 for my Ocean after discounts. The list price is now close to £72k.

It’s got me thinking is mine under insured?! What would its resale value be now? Circa 16k on the clock.

Difficult question. However, regardless of what the list price is now, your Cali won't have gone up in value since you bought it, so what ever it's insured value was then, it should still be more than appropriate now. Anyway, should anything happen to your van and it is written off, your insurance company will only offer you what they feel is the current market value for your vehicle taking into account its age and mileage etc. I am not entirely sure what mechanism they use to work out these values but their first offer is always going to be low. If you are talking about taking out GAP insurance then I am not sure where you would stand with an eighteen month old van. Could you even get GAP insurance on your vehicle at this stage? I don't know.

If you really want to know its current value then all you can do is to look at what other people are asking for their Calis with a similar mileage, spec, year and then decide what you could realistically ask for yours if you were going to sell it. Pay attention to how quickly these other vehicles appear to sell at their advertised prices. Over priced vehicles will hang about for a long time.

To help you decide on that value, also check out the VW Commercial website and Autotrader. Look at what the dealers are asking for similar vehicles. Whilst anyone buying would normally expect to pay less from a private seller, the California market is full of surprises. Don't even bother asking a dealer about trade in values and don't look in Parkers or any other car pricing guide as they are works of fiction where the Cali is concerned. There are currently a lot of Californias being advertised so that might have some effect on acheivable second hand prices. Remember that regardless of how many options you ticked when ordering, many of them will not improve the second hand value much over a more basic model at point of sale.

Unfortunately, like anything else, in the end it is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. If you were thinking of selling but are not desparate to do a deal quickly then you could chance your arm and go for a high price. If your van is just what a particular buyer is after you may be lucky and achieve that higher than average price. However, the down side to this strategy is that you may have to wait many weeks or months to find that buyer and in the mean time the market may have changed and the value of your vehicle will also have dropped.

Having recently gone through this exercise, I may be wrong but I would guess that your vans realistic resale value for a private sale would at best be somewhere in the low to mid £50Ks.

I hope that helps.

 

[Azteccamper]

Difficult question. However, regardless of what the list price is now, your Cali won't have gone up in value since you bought it, so what ever it's insured value was then, it should still be more than appropriate now. Anyway, should anything happen to your van and it is written off, your insurance company will only offer you what they feel is the current market value for your vehicle taking into account its age and mileage etc. I am not entirely sure what mechanism they use to work out these values but their first offer is always going to be low. If you are talking about taking out GAP insurance then I am not sure where you would stand with an eighteen month old van. Could you even get GAP insurance on your vehicle at this stage? I don't know.

If you really want to know its current value then all you can do is to look at what other people are asking for their Calis with a similar mileage, spec, year and then decide what you could realistically ask for yours if you were going to sell it. Pay attention to how quickly these other vehicles appear to sell at their advertised prices. Over priced vehicles will hang about for a long time.

To help you decide on that value, also check out the VW Commercial website and Autotrader. Look at what the dealers are asking for similar vehicles. Whilst anyone buying would normally expect to pay less from a private seller, the California market is full of surprises. Don't even bother asking a dealer about trade in values and don't look in Parkers or any other car pricing guide as they are a work of fiction where the Cali is concerned. There is currently a lot of Californias being advertised so that might have some effect on acheivable second hand prices. Remember that regardless of how many options you ticked when ordering, many of them will not improve the second hand value much over a more basic model at point of sale.

Unfortunately, like anything else, in the end it is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it. If you were thinking of selling but not desparate to do a deal quickly then you could chance your arm and go for a high price. If you van is just what a particular buyer is after you may be lucky and achieve that higher than average price. However, the down side to this strategy is that you may have to wait many weeks or months to find that buyer and in the mean time the market may have changed and the value of your vehicle will also have dropped.

Having recently gone through this exercise, I may be wrong but I would guess that your vans realistic resale value for a private sale would at best be somewhere in the low to mid £50Ks.

I hope that helps.

Spot on information Borris.
Out of interest I asked for a trade in value for my T5.1 Cali from VW. Unsurprising that they offered me over £10k less than I could find one of similar age and mileage etc on all the usual websites. A joke.
I had no interest in selling but was just curious.
Aztec

 

[Ocean Spirit]

Why, there are plenty of vans of that era for market value, there is a glut of T6 Calis if you look into the production numbers, a T5.1 would be harder to value and replace.

For me, Gap insurance is the way to go. I prefer to know the history of a vehicle first hand including how it's been driven and in the case of a Cali, how much care has been taken with things like the awning, swivell seats, heater, and fuel mishaps...etc
So I'd want new again.

 

[Aidy P]

I guess the challenge is getting an insurer to pay out market price versus book. I bet we know which they’d go for.

Has anyone on this forum had to claim for a stolen or written off van?

 

[RodCouncil]

For me, Gap insurance is the way to go. I prefer to know the history of a vehicle first hand including how it's been driven and in the case of a Cali, how much care has been taken with things like the awning, swivell seats, heater, and fuel mishaps...etc
So I'd want new again.

Gap insurance doesn't work like that, it's designed to ensure you don't lose out if you have a loan and the value drops below what you owe which might happen on a newer Cali compared to book value.

Also I'm able to discern between good used Calis, because I've owned one before and understand that most owners take care of their vans making used Calis a less scary proposition, we also saved a packet meaning we didn't need a loan.

 

[blondebier]

Has anyone on this forum had to claim for a stolen or written off van?

Yes - Califate had a nightmare.

Gap insurance doesn't work like that, it's designed to ensure you don't lose out if you have a loan and the value drops below what you owe which might happen on a newer Cali compared to book value.

That's not strictly accurate. It certainly does help in scenarios where people have taken out finance and the insurance payout is less than the finance outstanding.

People are certainly encouraged to take out GAP insurance if they've got finance.

It is however an insurance product, a financed vehicle is not a prerequisite and they will pay out where no finance was used for the purchase.

We've got cover with ALA:

https://www.ala.co.uk/gap-insurance/back-to-invoice-plus

 

[Bellcrew]

Yes - Califate had a nightmare.



That's not strictly accurate. It certainly does help in scenarios where people have taken out finance and the insurance payout is less than the finance outstanding.

People are certainly encouraged to take out GAP insurance if they've got finance.

It is however an insurance product, a financed vehicle is not a prerequisite and they will pay out where no finance was used for the purchase.

We've got cover with ALA:

https://www.ala.co.uk/gap-insurance/back-to-invoice-plus

Also look for new for old policies with caravan & motorhome club and others if taken out when new, good for two years at least.

 

[blondebier]

Also look for new for old policies with caravan & motorhome club and others if taken out when new, good for two years at least.

I reckon there are a raft of slippery clauses with these. It might just be me, but I’ve never heard of an insurer being straight and settling fairly. If they can get out of it they will.

The attraction with GAP is you've got two policies. Sure - you've paid extra for the privilege, but 2 is better than one and it’s likely that you’ll get the amount you need to buy a like for like replacement (particularly if prices go up)

 

[CALI FATE]

I guess the challenge is getting an insurer to pay out market price versus book. I bet we know which they’d go for.

Has anyone on this forum had to claim for a stolen or written off van?

My T6 Beach was written off in the summer after an arson / theft attempt - 18m old 33k miles nice spec - LV offered me £27k initially and i struggled to get them up to £35k - mine was slightly complicated by trying to negotiate the salvage value at the same time, so it was more about the difference between values in the end. The onus was on me to prove the value which was tricky given the lack of T6 private sales around. I managed to get a good deal all in all, but unless your insurer offers two year new for old, it might be an idea to get gap cover for years 2 and 3

 

[calimera]

I have. I'll send you a PM.

Edit: it won't allow me to send you a PM. (It was very good and I almost couldn't believe it)

Think its because Aidy P isn’t a VIP member.

Did you sell it privately & when ( time of year) ? Would be interested in the price you got .
Many thanks

 

[Aidy P]

Also look for new for old policies with caravan & motorhome club and others if taken out when new, good for two years at least.

Think its because Aidy P isn’t a VIP member.

Did you sell it privately & when ( time of year) ? Would be interested in the price you got .
Many thanks

I’ve renewed my VIP so you should be able to PM me now. I thought it auto renewed

 

[Aidy P]

My T6 Beach was written off in the summer after an arson / theft attempt - 18m old 33k miles nice spec - LV offered me £27k initially and i struggled to get them up to £35k - mine was slightly complicated by trying to negotiate the salvage value at the same time, so it was more about the difference between values in the end. The onus was on me to prove the value which was tricky given the lack of T6 private sales around. I managed to get a good deal all in all, but unless your insurer offers two year new for old, it might be an idea to get gap cover for years 2 and 3

That’s awful to hear @CALI FATE. I hope you’re back on the road now. Was it ‘car insurance’ rather than a motorbike policy you had as it was a Beach? I wonder if motorhome insurers are more informed about the resale market.

 

[CALI FATE]

That’s awful to hear @CALI FATE. I hope you’re back on the road now. Was it ‘car insurance’ rather than a motorbike policy you had as it was a Beach? I wonder if motorhome insurers are more informed about the resale market.

My insurers are car insurers, and yes a more specialist provider might have been more sympathetic to value. Theres no such thing as a generous insurance company - so unless you have new for old cover on the van you are going to be in for some horse trading - they calculate their starting value from an average from the three main trade guides, and do not take account of extras (in my case £6k). They gradually upped the offers as i proved the value from the trade sales, but this took two months.

 

[Ocean Spirit]

The question here for me is how come the 3 main trade guides are so low in comparison to real selling prices?
It sounds to me like their method with non specialised vehicles is to almost dictate in keeping prices low. Hence genuinely hefty depreciation on such cars and there for low pay outs.
With a Cali, the interest in used sales means higher resale prices than these companies want to acknowledge. So it feels either deliberate that they are way off (low) or that they just haven't bothered to separate non specialist depreciation from specialist vehicle REAL depreciation.
Not a batte we should need to have with a good company?

 

[WelshGas]

The question here for me is how come the 3 main trade guides are so low in comparison to real selling prices?
It sounds to me like their method with non specialised vehicles is to almost dictate in keeping prices low. Hence genuinely hefty depreciation on such cars and there for low pay outs.
With a Cali, the interest in used sales means higher resale prices than these companies want to acknowledge. So it feels either deliberate that they are way off (low) or that they just haven't bothered to separate non specialist depreciation from specialist vehicle REAL depreciation.
Not a batte we should need to have with a good company?

I think the main trade guides base a lot of their valuations on Auction prices + a mark up for Trade/private sales.
I very much doubt if many Californias make it to an Auction.
I know Caravan & Motorhome Club Insurance uses specialists to value rather than these Trade GUIDES.