CoolBlueDude
Active member
Hey everyone! I've been watching ALL of your YouTube videos I'm sure...lol. So here is my story. About 5 or 6 months ago I believe I saw a van (1995 GMC Vandura G2500) sitting at this hole in the wall dealership that looked like it was about ready to go out of business...I'm sure you have seen them. I mentioned it to some people I thought might be interested but no one seemed to want to bite the bullet or even go see it. I didn't know 6 months later I would be faced with needing something to live in b/c I'm facing homelessness in a few months.
I remembered seeing a video once on living in a van once a few months back and though I watched it I didn't consider it for myself...until now. I recently have become unemployed and not able to work for health and other reasons and can't make rent payments any longer. All of a sudden I'm in a position where I needed to think about having a place to go and sleeping on the street isn't something I want to do. I don't think less of those who are sleeping on the street.
Getting back to the van and the dealership. I looked all over the country for a van with a high top that was on the low end of the higher mile vans out there. I looked and found a few but nothing as close as the one at the local dealership. I decided to go check the van out last week. I drove the van and it has some issues but I wanted to get it checked out by a professional. I told the dealership my concerns about the van and scheduled an inspection.
This Tuesday I went to have it looked over. I got a quote from the mechanic and armed with that quote and knowledge of what exactly needed being done to get the van road worthy I went back to the dealership with cash in my pocket.
I talked with the owner of the dealership and showed him my printed quote and the issues it has and the owner immediately got defensive but took $200 off the asking price of $2,000. I negotiated it down further as there is about $1,000 of work and tires needing to be done to get it road worthy and I couldn't give him $1,800 plus taxes. I negotiated it down to $1,650 and with taxes I paid $1,800 even. Spent $46 on getting it registered and a new tag for it.
I've got an appointment on June 7th 2017 to get it back to the mechanic to get it worked on and fixed. I'll post some pictures for those who want to see it, but I discovered they replaced the instrument panel with a used one that had more miles on it than what is on the van itself. It shows over 26,600 more miles than it actually has! It reads 119,700 miles and if you subtract the 26,600 miles it comes out to only having 93,149.5 actual miles on it!!!
It is a really nice van too I think anyway. Clean and sharp. It has a few rust spots but I can live with that. If you want to see more I have videos up on my dog's YouTube channel "Annabella Chipoo" if you are interested.
Thanks for reading this LONG post...this is why I make videos instead of write threads on forums....lol.
(Will post pics once I figure out how- my other pics show up upside down for some reason and I can't get it to post right side up no matter what I do)
I remembered seeing a video once on living in a van once a few months back and though I watched it I didn't consider it for myself...until now. I recently have become unemployed and not able to work for health and other reasons and can't make rent payments any longer. All of a sudden I'm in a position where I needed to think about having a place to go and sleeping on the street isn't something I want to do. I don't think less of those who are sleeping on the street.
Getting back to the van and the dealership. I looked all over the country for a van with a high top that was on the low end of the higher mile vans out there. I looked and found a few but nothing as close as the one at the local dealership. I decided to go check the van out last week. I drove the van and it has some issues but I wanted to get it checked out by a professional. I told the dealership my concerns about the van and scheduled an inspection.
This Tuesday I went to have it looked over. I got a quote from the mechanic and armed with that quote and knowledge of what exactly needed being done to get the van road worthy I went back to the dealership with cash in my pocket.
I talked with the owner of the dealership and showed him my printed quote and the issues it has and the owner immediately got defensive but took $200 off the asking price of $2,000. I negotiated it down further as there is about $1,000 of work and tires needing to be done to get it road worthy and I couldn't give him $1,800 plus taxes. I negotiated it down to $1,650 and with taxes I paid $1,800 even. Spent $46 on getting it registered and a new tag for it.
I've got an appointment on June 7th 2017 to get it back to the mechanic to get it worked on and fixed. I'll post some pictures for those who want to see it, but I discovered they replaced the instrument panel with a used one that had more miles on it than what is on the van itself. It shows over 26,600 more miles than it actually has! It reads 119,700 miles and if you subtract the 26,600 miles it comes out to only having 93,149.5 actual miles on it!!!
It is a really nice van too I think anyway. Clean and sharp. It has a few rust spots but I can live with that. If you want to see more I have videos up on my dog's YouTube channel "Annabella Chipoo" if you are interested.
Thanks for reading this LONG post...this is why I make videos instead of write threads on forums....lol.
(Will post pics once I figure out how- my other pics show up upside down for some reason and I can't get it to post right side up no matter what I do)
