How to fund a new van?
Discussion
Hello all,
We bought a year old motor home nearly 2 years ago, unfortunately it's not been the most reliable and we've realised isn't quite the right layout for us. We took a trip to the motor home show in Birmingham yesterday and have fallen in love with a new van. Unfortunately new van is a £75-80,000 cost to change. We spent our life's savings on the first van, so would need to fund this one. There were "special" show rates of 8.9% vs 9.9% but it's a mega payment! I'm thinking stick it on the mortgage but maybe there's something else.
The question is, how do people fund motor homes if they don't have the cash:
Add to mortgage?
Personal loan (capped at £50K?)?
Other/what am I missing?
Don't really want a PCP, plan to keep van 10 years, maybe longer then sell it to pay for a smaller van when step daughter no longer wants to holiday with us.
Thanks in advance for any help and advice.
Aaron
We bought a year old motor home nearly 2 years ago, unfortunately it's not been the most reliable and we've realised isn't quite the right layout for us. We took a trip to the motor home show in Birmingham yesterday and have fallen in love with a new van. Unfortunately new van is a £75-80,000 cost to change. We spent our life's savings on the first van, so would need to fund this one. There were "special" show rates of 8.9% vs 9.9% but it's a mega payment! I'm thinking stick it on the mortgage but maybe there's something else.
The question is, how do people fund motor homes if they don't have the cash:
Add to mortgage?
Personal loan (capped at £50K?)?
Other/what am I missing?
Don't really want a PCP, plan to keep van 10 years, maybe longer then sell it to pay for a smaller van when step daughter no longer wants to holiday with us.
Thanks in advance for any help and advice.
Aaron
Hi!
I haven't got a huge amount of experience, but what I have, happy to share with you.
My first couple of vans were bought outright with savings, but we were talking about £20-30k max. I initially bought the T6 California I had outright (£55k) but then ended up releveraging it with a Personal Loan to free up some cash (think I took out about £25k). When I sold that, I repaid the loan and used c. £25-30k as a deposit for the current campervan; my most expensive one yet.
We're currently in a brand new Knaus BoxDrive 600XL which I think cost me £96k on the road. I used the cash I had from the Cali and put the rest on HP with Paragon Finance. The APR was pretty horrific as interest rates were going mad at the time - I either got 8.9 or 9.9% - can't remember which now. I'm paying a shade under £1k a month over 10yrs. Interest is horrific if I keep it for the whole term, but I'm also reviewing my options now also.
- I could repay it with mixture of savings and £50k personal loan (downside is more cash tied up in it);
- I could sell it and recoup half of my deposit (unappetising);
- I may keep paying it for the next 2.5yrs until mortgage is up and either use cash saved to pre-pay mortgage to buy it outright or refinance mortgage to up-scale the van to something newer or bigger (most likely route).
Reason for either option 2 or 3 is that we will shortly be a family of 5 and only have four belts.
For the immediate future, I'll either be using it lightly just myself on odd trips, as a day van or with the older two kids. Then in a year or so I'll look at either converting the passenger captain chair to a double-crew cab seat on a swivel or trading it in.
I think overall the mortgage is the cheapest way of financing it if you have a decent amount of equity in your house. But then it's a bit of a double-edged sword - part of me wants to have the mortgage paid off ASAP, but also want to live life whilst I can too. Life is a bit short on occasions and I have never wanted to wait until retirement to do the motorhoming thing, but finance it as best as possible whilst young enough to enjoy it both alone and with the family.
I'm lucky enough to be able to afford the monthlies very easily so it's only really when I think about the best financial decision that the APR irks me. But in all honesty, if I didn't have a camper on the drive available to use at the drop of a hat, I'd either buy one in a few months time anyway or I'd buy a 911 which would be equally impractical and I would still want a roof tent for it!
In summary - as long as it doesn't break the bank and you're happy with the risk tolerance - do whatever is the easiest or most affordable.
I haven't got a huge amount of experience, but what I have, happy to share with you.
My first couple of vans were bought outright with savings, but we were talking about £20-30k max. I initially bought the T6 California I had outright (£55k) but then ended up releveraging it with a Personal Loan to free up some cash (think I took out about £25k). When I sold that, I repaid the loan and used c. £25-30k as a deposit for the current campervan; my most expensive one yet.
We're currently in a brand new Knaus BoxDrive 600XL which I think cost me £96k on the road. I used the cash I had from the Cali and put the rest on HP with Paragon Finance. The APR was pretty horrific as interest rates were going mad at the time - I either got 8.9 or 9.9% - can't remember which now. I'm paying a shade under £1k a month over 10yrs. Interest is horrific if I keep it for the whole term, but I'm also reviewing my options now also.
- I could repay it with mixture of savings and £50k personal loan (downside is more cash tied up in it);
- I could sell it and recoup half of my deposit (unappetising);
- I may keep paying it for the next 2.5yrs until mortgage is up and either use cash saved to pre-pay mortgage to buy it outright or refinance mortgage to up-scale the van to something newer or bigger (most likely route).
Reason for either option 2 or 3 is that we will shortly be a family of 5 and only have four belts.
For the immediate future, I'll either be using it lightly just myself on odd trips, as a day van or with the older two kids. Then in a year or so I'll look at either converting the passenger captain chair to a double-crew cab seat on a swivel or trading it in.
I think overall the mortgage is the cheapest way of financing it if you have a decent amount of equity in your house. But then it's a bit of a double-edged sword - part of me wants to have the mortgage paid off ASAP, but also want to live life whilst I can too. Life is a bit short on occasions and I have never wanted to wait until retirement to do the motorhoming thing, but finance it as best as possible whilst young enough to enjoy it both alone and with the family.
I'm lucky enough to be able to afford the monthlies very easily so it's only really when I think about the best financial decision that the APR irks me. But in all honesty, if I didn't have a camper on the drive available to use at the drop of a hat, I'd either buy one in a few months time anyway or I'd buy a 911 which would be equally impractical and I would still want a roof tent for it!
In summary - as long as it doesn't break the bank and you're happy with the risk tolerance - do whatever is the easiest or most affordable.
Edited by Spuffington on Friday 16th February 14:34
The Selfish Gene said:
I put 10k down..........then blackhorsed through a dealer on a 10 year scheme..........think it was 584 a month % was 6.9 from memory but this was 2020
Thanks for both your responses. We're lucky the mortgage is only £360 a month now, and adding £80k takes it to just under £800. HP on it's own over 10 years was £1041, which is way too much with the mortgage as well. Obviously the mortgage is over a longer period, but it's affordable this way and like you say enjoy while we can (43 years old) as my wife has had a pretty serious cancer scare this year so thinking lets go nuts as you never know when your time is up. That being said, we thought we went mental when we bought the last one!The issue you have is that you most likely can't sell your current one except to a dealer, who will offer you buttons for it. No private buyer has those sort of funds available in cash to buy without finance, unless you get extremely lucky.
On the other side of the coin, even with a good credit history, finance is a LOT more expensive know that it was a decade or two ago, so you'll be paying mega monies to get your "dream" van.
I recommend you find some way of making your current van work for you. It was obviously fine for you when you bought it, otherwise you wouldn't have done! Either that, or throw a sizeable 5 figure sum away just to have the bed in a slightly different place, which would be completely bonkers.
As a side note, with the price of vans now, you could have numerous 5-star hotel stay holidays for the same money and not have the van parked up doing nothing for 6 months of the year, losing fortunes in depreciation.
On the other side of the coin, even with a good credit history, finance is a LOT more expensive know that it was a decade or two ago, so you'll be paying mega monies to get your "dream" van.
I recommend you find some way of making your current van work for you. It was obviously fine for you when you bought it, otherwise you wouldn't have done! Either that, or throw a sizeable 5 figure sum away just to have the bed in a slightly different place, which would be completely bonkers.
As a side note, with the price of vans now, you could have numerous 5-star hotel stay holidays for the same money and not have the van parked up doing nothing for 6 months of the year, losing fortunes in depreciation.
r3g said:
The issue you have is that you most likely can't sell your current one except to a dealer, who will offer you buttons for it. No private buyer has those sort of funds available in cash to buy without finance, unless you get extremely lucky.
On the other side of the coin, even with a good credit history, finance is a LOT more expensive know that it was a decade or two ago, so you'll be paying mega monies to get your "dream" van.
I recommend you find some way of making your current van work for you. It was obviously fine for you when you bought it, otherwise you wouldn't have done! Either that, or throw a sizeable 5 figure sum away just to have the bed in a slightly different place, which would be completely bonkers.
As a side note, with the price of vans now, you could have numerous 5-star hotel stay holidays for the same money and not have the van parked up doing nothing for 6 months of the year, losing fortunes in depreciation.
I totally accept the trade offer will be below retail, my £75-80k Cost To Change is assuming we get £50k trade for ours (fairly realistic I think). I sell SEATS and Cupra's for a living so fully understand buying retail and selling trade, it does bother me, but if it's to get the right thing then I'm OK with it.On the other side of the coin, even with a good credit history, finance is a LOT more expensive know that it was a decade or two ago, so you'll be paying mega monies to get your "dream" van.
I recommend you find some way of making your current van work for you. It was obviously fine for you when you bought it, otherwise you wouldn't have done! Either that, or throw a sizeable 5 figure sum away just to have the bed in a slightly different place, which would be completely bonkers.
As a side note, with the price of vans now, you could have numerous 5-star hotel stay holidays for the same money and not have the van parked up doing nothing for 6 months of the year, losing fortunes in depreciation.
Exactly, hence my wondering if there was another way. I think just throwing it at the mortgage is the solution.
You certainly could have a lot of holidays for £80k, but our van so far hasn't been parked up all that much. We use it at least once a month, even if it's just a weekend away, I took 6 weeks unpaid off work this summer to go touring Europe. We do around 8,000 miles a year in it, which I understand is high for a MoHo. The other thing, is it's been unreliable, this has highlighted the flaws in the design of the van, I suspect if it had been reliable we'd put up with the flaws. The other reason is, while I'm working we can afford it, this then gives us a fully paid off van still worth a decent chunk in 10 years time, we can sell and downsize with minimal costs.
missing the VR6 said:
I totally accept the trade offer will be below retail, my £75-80k Cost To Change is assuming we get £50k trade for ours (fairly realistic I think). I sell SEATS and Cupra's for a living so fully understand buying retail and selling trade, it does bother me, but if it's to get the right thing then I'm OK with it.
Exactly, hence my wondering if there was another way. I think just throwing it at the mortgage is the solution.
You certainly could have a lot of holidays for £80k, but our van so far hasn't been parked up all that much. We use it at least once a month, even if it's just a weekend away, I took 6 weeks unpaid off work this summer to go touring Europe. We do around 8,000 miles a year in it, which I understand is high for a MoHo. The other thing, is it's been unreliable, this has highlighted the flaws in the design of the van, I suspect if it had been reliable we'd put up with the flaws. The other reason is, while I'm working we can afford it, this then gives us a fully paid off van still worth a decent chunk in 10 years time, we can sell and downsize with minimal costs.
You need to look at what your total repayment cost is going to be to put in on your mortgage. If you've still got a long term remaining then it's likely you'll be paying far more overall than an "expensive" finance deal over, say, 5 years.Exactly, hence my wondering if there was another way. I think just throwing it at the mortgage is the solution.
You certainly could have a lot of holidays for £80k, but our van so far hasn't been parked up all that much. We use it at least once a month, even if it's just a weekend away, I took 6 weeks unpaid off work this summer to go touring Europe. We do around 8,000 miles a year in it, which I understand is high for a MoHo. The other thing, is it's been unreliable, this has highlighted the flaws in the design of the van, I suspect if it had been reliable we'd put up with the flaws. The other reason is, while I'm working we can afford it, this then gives us a fully paid off van still worth a decent chunk in 10 years time, we can sell and downsize with minimal costs.
Although you haven't elaborated on what the (un)reliability issues are, I shall assume it's mechanical/chassis side of things. I see that the one you want is on a Sprinter chassis vs the Ducato chassis you've got now. Both have issues so I'd urge caution if you're of the belief that changing to a Merc will fix that. You could well be jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Modern diesels are finicky and fragile as chuff. Even if you feed them the highest quality premium diesel you can find and nurse the gearbox like your life depends on it, they're still designed to break the day after the 3 year warranty runs out and cost you thousands.
Edited by r3g on Saturday 17th February 17:32
r3g said:
Also speak to Jody on here (naghsheadwarrior). He is a dealer guy at one of the majors and will give you good advice on what you can realistically expect to get for yours.
That's a good shout, I chatted with him quite a bit on the car salesman sub forum and on the phone before buying our current one.As regards the reliability, it might not have been so bad if Fiat UK weren't completely uninterested in doing anything to help when a common fault occurs 2 months out of warranty. I don't want to have to suffer Fiat UK ever again. They were pretty hopeless when the first sensor failed and even worse with the second one.
Ezra said:
I don't have a solution but just the thought of financing a vehicle (I know, a v expensive vehicle) through a mortgage just feels wrong. It's a depreciating asset whereas the mortgage generally finances an appreciating asset.
This is what I tell my customers all the time, so do understand your point and totally agree. Just at the moment my wife is currently medically unable to work ,so we can't really afford a loan on the van plus the mortgage. All being well she'll be back working in the next 6-12 months but likely on less money than before her illness, so we can revisit options then.Could well be a case of paying some capital down via mortgage for a couple of years, saving a bit and then hopefully be in a position to get a personal loan and pay down the mortgage with that.
I feel that a lot of the reliability issues are down to usage!
Campers/motorhomes are built from commercial vans/van chassis that are designed to be driven hard seven days a week, a camper/motorhome is lucky to see 6k gentle miles a year.
This alone will cause issues with sticky valves and dirty sensors, leading to poor starting and indifferent running. Take 'em out for an 'Italian tune up' once a month and that sort of issue will be reduced dramaticaly.
My own Boxer camper refused to start, the RAC man diagnosed a sticky EGR valve, placed his breaker bar on the EGR valve and applied his hammer to the other end of the breaker bar, engine started and ran as if it were normal....he suggested a replacement EGR valve.
( I had the EGR valve 'mapped out', so the issue should never occur again, but it's a little bit naughty)
Campers/motorhomes are built from commercial vans/van chassis that are designed to be driven hard seven days a week, a camper/motorhome is lucky to see 6k gentle miles a year.
This alone will cause issues with sticky valves and dirty sensors, leading to poor starting and indifferent running. Take 'em out for an 'Italian tune up' once a month and that sort of issue will be reduced dramaticaly.
My own Boxer camper refused to start, the RAC man diagnosed a sticky EGR valve, placed his breaker bar on the EGR valve and applied his hammer to the other end of the breaker bar, engine started and ran as if it were normal....he suggested a replacement EGR valve.
( I had the EGR valve 'mapped out', so the issue should never occur again, but it's a little bit naughty)
Unfortunately our vans failings were not usage related, 2 knock sensors. Not sure what broke the first one, but the second was due to a poor design by Fiat where the AC hose rubs on the knock sensor, rubs through and the cold air freezes the sensor and it breaks. It's also Fiats attitude to the issues that's put us right off too. You can see by their 1 star Trustpilot reviews why we wouldn't want another.
We've been pretty conscious of using the van regularly for the reasons you mentioned. We've averaged 8,000 miles a year and we always drive it once a month to keep on top of the battery condition.
We've been pretty conscious of using the van regularly for the reasons you mentioned. We've averaged 8,000 miles a year and we always drive it once a month to keep on top of the battery condition.
r3g said:
You need to look at what your total repayment cost is going to be to put in on your mortgage. If you've still got a long term remaining then it's likely you'll be paying far more overall than an "expensive" finance deal over, say, 5 years.
Although you haven't elaborated on what the (un)reliability issues are, I shall assume it's mechanical/chassis side of things. I see that the one you want is on a Sprinter chassis vs the Ducato chassis you've got now. Both have issues so I'd urge caution if you're of the belief that changing to a Merc will fix that. You could well be jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Modern diesels are finicky and fragile as chuff. Even if you feed them the highest quality premium diesel you can find and nurse the gearbox like your life depends on it, they're still designed to break the day after the 3 year warranty runs out and cost you thousands.
Think I'd agree with all this ^^^ the modern diesel with adblue and all that malarky can be very fragile, and absoutely no guarantee of a Merc being any better.Although you haven't elaborated on what the (un)reliability issues are, I shall assume it's mechanical/chassis side of things. I see that the one you want is on a Sprinter chassis vs the Ducato chassis you've got now. Both have issues so I'd urge caution if you're of the belief that changing to a Merc will fix that. You could well be jumping from the frying pan into the fire. Modern diesels are finicky and fragile as chuff. Even if you feed them the highest quality premium diesel you can find and nurse the gearbox like your life depends on it, they're still designed to break the day after the 3 year warranty runs out and cost you thousands.
Edited by r3g on Saturday 17th February 17:32
You obviously love motorhoming and that's brilliant, so why not do whatever it takes to live your dreams, including remortgaging. Life is short yes.
BUT
Is there a cheaper, simpler (no adblue), older motorhome with your ideal layout available for far less cash? I don't know much about them, but like a Hymer or something?
We decided to get out of the motorhome ownership despite really enjoying the experience bought the Motorhome an ex display in 2021 for £65500, sold to a dealer as coming up to it’s first MOT for just under £62k.
We did 9k in her travelling all over the UK.
As regards reliability nothing to write home about few minor habitation problems but nothing chassis engine related, just luck I guess.
As others have mentioned the diesel engine changes brought in as a results of ever stringent emissions legislation have added to the fragility reliability of them and with that comes expense and souring of the experience.
Anyway she has gone now ……
And we’ve gone back to a caravan I fully accept towing is not for everyone but having the freedom of a car to tour/visit places once on site is something we didn’t realise was equally important to us and is a definite plus….. towing a car behind the Motorhome was never a consideration…..
So here’s our new combo and yes the car is petrol….
We did 9k in her travelling all over the UK.
As regards reliability nothing to write home about few minor habitation problems but nothing chassis engine related, just luck I guess.
As others have mentioned the diesel engine changes brought in as a results of ever stringent emissions legislation have added to the fragility reliability of them and with that comes expense and souring of the experience.
Anyway she has gone now ……
And we’ve gone back to a caravan I fully accept towing is not for everyone but having the freedom of a car to tour/visit places once on site is something we didn’t realise was equally important to us and is a definite plus….. towing a car behind the Motorhome was never a consideration…..
So here’s our new combo and yes the car is petrol….
Hammersia said:
Think I'd agree with all this ^^^ the modern diesel with adblue and all that malarky can be very fragile, and absoutely no guarantee of a Merc being any better.
You obviously love motorhoming and that's brilliant, so why not do whatever it takes to live your dreams, including remortgaging. Life is short yes.
BUT
Is there a cheaper, simpler (no adblue), older motorhome with your ideal layout available for far less cash? I don't know much about them, but like a Hymer or something?
This is the issue, as much as look at Autotrader I just haven't seen anything that ticks the boxes. We really would like to spend less, but what we want is impossible to find so far. I've been looking a lot at older Hymers as they use quite a bit of Merc for their older chassis, but most seem to have the twin single beds, which we don't want. It also seems that a second hand one doesn't really represent great value right now, you're talking £90-100k for a 6/7 year old van with 15-30k miles. A new one with a higher spec, 10 year water ingress warranty and 3 year hab warranty is £130,000.You obviously love motorhoming and that's brilliant, so why not do whatever it takes to live your dreams, including remortgaging. Life is short yes.
BUT
Is there a cheaper, simpler (no adblue), older motorhome with your ideal layout available for far less cash? I don't know much about them, but like a Hymer or something?
Big Rat said:
We decided to get out of the motorhome ownership despite really enjoying the experience bought the Motorhome an ex display in 2021 for £65500, sold to a dealer as coming up to it’s first MOT for just under £62k.
We did 9k in her travelling all over the UK.
As regards reliability nothing to write home about few minor habitation problems but nothing chassis engine related, just luck I guess.
As others have mentioned the diesel engine changes brought in as a results of ever stringent emissions legislation have added to the fragility reliability of them and with that comes expense and souring of the experience.
Anyway she has gone now ……
And we’ve gone back to a caravan I fully accept towing is not for everyone but having the freedom of a car to tour/visit places once on site is something we didn’t realise was equally important to us and is a definite plus….. towing a car behind the Motorhome was never a consideration…..
So here’s our new combo and yes the car is petrol….
Same here.We did 9k in her travelling all over the UK.
As regards reliability nothing to write home about few minor habitation problems but nothing chassis engine related, just luck I guess.
As others have mentioned the diesel engine changes brought in as a results of ever stringent emissions legislation have added to the fragility reliability of them and with that comes expense and souring of the experience.
Anyway she has gone now ……
And we’ve gone back to a caravan I fully accept towing is not for everyone but having the freedom of a car to tour/visit places once on site is something we didn’t realise was equally important to us and is a definite plus….. towing a car behind the Motorhome was never a consideration…..
So here’s our new combo and yes the car is petrol….
We had a Malibu PVC and the quality was top notch and nothing went wrong with the Fiat bits (although would go with the more powerful engine).
We sold for what we paid for it and would be worth considerably more now but we are now looking to go to a caravan as it will suit our needs more. Just looking for a light weight caravan that out (petrol) car can tow comfortably as I don’t want to change the car just yet.
Price of motorhomes now is crazy.
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