Planning stages and trying to learn (vans)

[Sk8ermaiden]

Hi, I've been reading through pages and pages of old posts on this helpful forum! After we rented a van for a three week camping road trip with our kids, my best friend and I decided to seriously consider buying a 12-15 passenger van and modifying it for future trips. 

Our dilemma. We know virtually nothing about cars. And this is pure recreation so we can't spend a lot. We do have a repair shop we really trust, as well as a friend who's excellent at fixing cars we could probably bribe to look at a potential purchase. 

My friend is always willing to try her hand at car repairs, but isn't terribly experienced at them. 

Whatever we get - it has to have at least 7 belted seats (or be modified to have 7 belted seats,) so we're likely looking at a situation where we're buying a van, pulling out back rows and mostly only modifying that area. We'd be open to a small class B too, but those seem more expensive and usually aren't suited to our needs.

The stuff in our budget appears to mostly be 15-20 year old 12-15 passenger vans with 80-200K miles on them. Is it reasonable to expect one to keep ticking for long past 100K? (We would only use it occasionally, but that trip of ours was 32,000 miles all by itself.) Are there certain make/model/years that are generally a good bet? Or ones to avoid? I have read many times on here to just forget about Sprinters. I got excited about a Winnebago Rialta until I read the consensus on its VW engine. 

There was a '99 Dodge Ram 3500 15 passenger, single owner, with under 75K miles on Facebook marketplace for $3,200 and i think that's the most tempting one I've seen. It looked great inside too. Right now I'm just gathering info, but WOULD that be a decent deal?"

Thanks all.

 

[rvwandering]

Welcome to the CRVL forums Sk8ermaiden! Our more knowledgeable members can give you advice on which makes and years of vans are better than others. Hopefully they'll chime in. You can also post links to vans that you find on Craigslist and get advice on those too.

To help you learn the ins and outs of these forums, this "Tips, Tricks and Rules" post lists some helpful information to get you started.

Most of our rules boil down to two simple over-riding principles: 1) What you post should provide good information (like your introductory post), and 2) Any response to someone else's post should make them feel glad they are part of this forum community.

We look forward to hearing more from you.

 

[user 423]

Welcome to the forum. Poke around and you will find all kinds of discussions about selecting a van or other vehicle.

If you're going to keep seating for 7, there won't be much room left for sleeping. You'd have to use tents or pull a trailer.

 

[Sk8ermaiden]

Thanks, that is definitely the issue. We hope to get creative. If we can make the two backseat rows face each other and put a telescoping RV table there that collapses to make a sleeping area, and then across all the space left over in the back, we think we can probably do it, even if it's not ideal. Our kids are still small enough to bunk in with (respective) moms for a few years yet. We do tent camp when we reach our destinations, but on this trip in particular, we only camped in the national parks and we did hotels for the quick overnights (it takes a long time to drive from Houston to Montana!!) The van rental and the hotels were a gigantic portion of the cost. If we could crash in the van those nights, it would make a big difference in where and how often we could go on these, even if the sleeping arrangements would never work for regular use. Usually it would just be 2 adults and 4 kids, but we have to have that extra seatbelt for the occasions my best friend's husband could join us. He'd probably never sleep in the van though. He is not as adventurous or adaptable as his wife or me.

 

[tx2sturgis]

Ummm...Thelma and Louise with kids?

 

[Sk8ermaiden]

Accurate. 

 

[tx2sturgis]

Will there be cool and colorful roller-derby graphics on the van?

 

[jacqueg]

The stuff in our budget appears to mostly be 15-20 year old 12-15 passenger vans with 80-200K miles on them. Is it reasonable to expect one to keep ticking for long past 100K? (We would only use it occasionally, but that trip of ours was 32,000 miles all by itself.) Are there certain make/model/years that are generally a good bet? Or ones to avoid? I have read many times on here to just forget about Sprinters. I got excited about a Winnebago Rialta until I read the consensus on its VW engine. 

Yes, depending on condition. Have a dignoatic technician check it out for you before you buy. There are folks on here who have definite opinions as to specific engines, make sure you browse those threads.

But as in any used vehicle, how it was treated by previous owners is highly important.

Also, be prepared to be looking for the right van for several months at least. Sometimes, people get lucky, bu you can't count on it.