Not very PH - VW T5 Camper
Discussion
Very quick introduction!
Always wanted one. Never could justify one.
A toddler and a new baby due figured roll the dice, go all in and bank the memories not the cash.
I am in the process of turning this 2013 ex Miele service van
Into this...
Just some odds and ends to tidy up and it’s done.
Mixture of some DIY, some off the shelf parts, some custom parts... but far more personality than most of the stuff I could find for sale
If there’s enough interest I can do a full build breakdown. Figured PH is a diverse church ??
Always wanted one. Never could justify one.
A toddler and a new baby due figured roll the dice, go all in and bank the memories not the cash.
I am in the process of turning this 2013 ex Miele service van
Into this...
Just some odds and ends to tidy up and it’s done.
Mixture of some DIY, some off the shelf parts, some custom parts... but far more personality than most of the stuff I could find for sale
If there’s enough interest I can do a full build breakdown. Figured PH is a diverse church ??
Edited by croakey on Tuesday 28th August 22:35
TryingHard said:
Looks brilliant.
I've just completed a self build on a similar T5.1 and had the first week away a couple of weeks ago. I'm now about to start on the outside (colour coding etc.).
Good luck - I really enjoyed doing ours, although some frustrating times as well!
I’ve only some minor wiring to finish and some snagging - it’s been a long , and as you say, sometimes frustrating process I've just completed a self build on a similar T5.1 and had the first week away a couple of weeks ago. I'm now about to start on the outside (colour coding etc.).
Good luck - I really enjoyed doing ours, although some frustrating times as well!
miniman said:
Interested to know where you got it from - presumably there are businesses selling on various AA etc vans?
Mine came from a dealer on autotrader who tbh didn’t know what they had and underpriced it. The big companies that buy the de-fleet stock add a decent % margin on. If you have time to spare you can hunt out a cheaper one sometimes
Looks like there’s more interes than I imagined!
I intend to do a proper blog, but here is as good a start as any!
Since the age of about 11 or 12 I have always held a flame for a “Volkswagen Campervan”, I’m not sure if it’s implied sense of freedom, the scope of individuality or it being such a diverse “scene”.
Fast forward 20 years , a house renovation, a wedding, a baby and several cars later and that itch still needs to be scratched. I sat down one day prior to meeting with a financial advisor and realised that without much of a sacrifice the dream was one step closer if I got the wife to agree.
The fact I’m writing this should give that answer away!
The hunt was on.
If you’ve looked at VW Campers you’ll know they are disproportionately expensive and skewed beyond all common sense or rationale for the older stuff. I’d always been dead set on something vintage (most likely an early 70’s bay window Westfalia), that was the dream after all, until I looked at how little i could realise for my not so little budget.
Likewise with a wife and daughter, and as we speak second daughter due imminently, it was practicality needed to be key. The nightmare of being stranded on the side of a motorway began to niggle in my mind so i expanded my search to newer stuff.
There is a massive aftermarket for modern vans; ranging from chrome stick on tat, through specialist suppliers of conversion parts to companies you can easily spend brand new Porsche 911 money on a fully custom show van.
From some research I theorised that on my early/mid £ 20k budget I could source a tidy T5 transporter and then convert it exactly as I wanted picking and choosing from the vast aftermarket. I could get reliability, that sense of freedom... and air conditioning.
The £23k (ish) budget sounds like a lot of money,because inherently it is, but compare this to the factory flawed California’s nudging £65k and it’s not so bad (this is what I tell myself everyday!)
I had a small wish list when my search began a “colour van” ie not white, a tailgate opposed to barn doors, and most importantly and absolutely non negotiable air conditioning. This limited to me about 1/10th of all the vans out there. Add in the desire to keep under 100k miles and ideally under £13k (inclusive of VAT) and that pond to fish within was a puddle.
I trawled the internet high and low losing motivation after finding the many misdescribed, poorly maintained, or hugely overpriced stock out there. Owing to the popularity of VW vans there is something called “scene tax”... essentially add 20-30% to what it’s probably worth.
During my autotrader search one day a new van popped up just over 3 hours from home (the joy of living in Kent and having to fight the m25 to get anywhere!) it met the aforementioned criteria so was worthy of some further investigation. This is where the “if it’s meant to be” moment occurred, it was the correct spec, was keenly priced, and MOT history (when it used to) told me that the van had lived its life within 5 miles of where we live.
I dragged wife and child up there on the hurry up and the van was better than the pictures first implied. It had the odd minor signs of wear and tear, worst being a dink in the tailgate and a scuffed sill presumably owing to an errant boulder.
A quick test drive and it was done. I even managed to negotiate it down more.
For £9495 + Vat (£11394 all in) I had my base van.
Confirmation that it was meant to be... it had been the local Miele service agent vehicle meaning it had lived a gentle life and had a bizarre spec.
I intend to do a proper blog, but here is as good a start as any!
Since the age of about 11 or 12 I have always held a flame for a “Volkswagen Campervan”, I’m not sure if it’s implied sense of freedom, the scope of individuality or it being such a diverse “scene”.
Fast forward 20 years , a house renovation, a wedding, a baby and several cars later and that itch still needs to be scratched. I sat down one day prior to meeting with a financial advisor and realised that without much of a sacrifice the dream was one step closer if I got the wife to agree.
The fact I’m writing this should give that answer away!
The hunt was on.
If you’ve looked at VW Campers you’ll know they are disproportionately expensive and skewed beyond all common sense or rationale for the older stuff. I’d always been dead set on something vintage (most likely an early 70’s bay window Westfalia), that was the dream after all, until I looked at how little i could realise for my not so little budget.
Likewise with a wife and daughter, and as we speak second daughter due imminently, it was practicality needed to be key. The nightmare of being stranded on the side of a motorway began to niggle in my mind so i expanded my search to newer stuff.
There is a massive aftermarket for modern vans; ranging from chrome stick on tat, through specialist suppliers of conversion parts to companies you can easily spend brand new Porsche 911 money on a fully custom show van.
From some research I theorised that on my early/mid £ 20k budget I could source a tidy T5 transporter and then convert it exactly as I wanted picking and choosing from the vast aftermarket. I could get reliability, that sense of freedom... and air conditioning.
The £23k (ish) budget sounds like a lot of money,because inherently it is, but compare this to the factory flawed California’s nudging £65k and it’s not so bad (this is what I tell myself everyday!)
I had a small wish list when my search began a “colour van” ie not white, a tailgate opposed to barn doors, and most importantly and absolutely non negotiable air conditioning. This limited to me about 1/10th of all the vans out there. Add in the desire to keep under 100k miles and ideally under £13k (inclusive of VAT) and that pond to fish within was a puddle.
I trawled the internet high and low losing motivation after finding the many misdescribed, poorly maintained, or hugely overpriced stock out there. Owing to the popularity of VW vans there is something called “scene tax”... essentially add 20-30% to what it’s probably worth.
During my autotrader search one day a new van popped up just over 3 hours from home (the joy of living in Kent and having to fight the m25 to get anywhere!) it met the aforementioned criteria so was worthy of some further investigation. This is where the “if it’s meant to be” moment occurred, it was the correct spec, was keenly priced, and MOT history (when it used to) told me that the van had lived its life within 5 miles of where we live.
I dragged wife and child up there on the hurry up and the van was better than the pictures first implied. It had the odd minor signs of wear and tear, worst being a dink in the tailgate and a scuffed sill presumably owing to an errant boulder.
A quick test drive and it was done. I even managed to negotiate it down more.
For £9495 + Vat (£11394 all in) I had my base van.
Confirmation that it was meant to be... it had been the local Miele service agent vehicle meaning it had lived a gentle life and had a bizarre spec.
Smitters said:
Nice one OP. Especially love the door handle inserts. I have the same plan with mine, except yellow (black and increasingly yellow T5). Did you go with a movable seat for the front double? Be interested to see how it works if so? I'd love to know your source for steelies too - I'd like to pop some on ours.
Looks great. With effort (as you have) you can get a lot of off the shelf parts but mix them with imagination to create something really interesting.
It is a mix and match of various people’s products as I’ll go into as I go through the process in posts - but yeah as you say essentially you can pick and mix what works for you! Looks great. With effort (as you have) you can get a lot of off the shelf parts but mix them with imagination to create something really interesting.
The wheels are 18” OEM VW Amarok wheels built for the Brazilian market. They are the exact size and spec to bolt onto the T5 series (and T6) and are most importantly weight rated
You can get them all over the place now, eBay, tamar wheels, stitches & steel etc. I paid about £320 delivered from memory
redandwhite said:
Had thoughts about a camper recently too, however came to the conclusion with 2 adults, 2 (medium) dogs and a toddler I would require one much bigger than the normal converted camper (VW, Renault etc) - one more sized like a small bus! Am I right?!
The problem is the bigger you get the less “cool” they look, and most importantly less practical day to day. If size was the key factor you’d end up with either a sprinter or some variance (the jacked off off road ones look the tits) or an RV. Which are great for the sleeping element, but not so great for the getting places side of life.
A Miele van is a rare beast as I eluded to before, they don’t fall into the hierarchy of transporter like the standard start line / trend line / highline more of a pick and mix when specified. They only ordered 100 or so and some are still “on fleet”.
Miele it turns out have these built to a custom spec at the factory. They’re painted in an exclusive colour (L551 for the beards out there) and are essentially a base model van with lots of high line bits bolted on. So it’s got plastic bumpers and a lowly 84bhp but electric windows, heated electric mirrors, rear parking sensors, air conditioning, and a factory glazed/heated tailgate.
They also come kitted out with many expensive bits , in the case of mine Sortimo racking, a leisure battery system, and hidden under the ply floor a mint VW rubber load mat.
I duly begun to strip out the stuff from its commercial past. It turns out they all sell for strong money on eBay and owners clubs and people will travel MILES to collect stuff. The removed stuff was listed and totalled out and just shy of £1000 which confirmed that this van was a bargain.
With that done I got onto ordering some of the parts I wanted to sort the outside. As you’ve seen from the finished pictures subtle is the word of the day , it’s also called OEM+ in the VW “scene”.
First things first was to sort the child swallowing arch gap, there’s many options for this which can be discussed at length should people desire it. Essentially I went for the middle ground of “coilovers” - a height adjustable system that allowed some control over ride height. In this scenario you can go cheap (and rubbish) mid range or mentally expensive damper adjustable bilstein/H&R that would no doubt shave valuable time off on the ‘Ring.
Seeing as I am not building a time attack racer I aimed for mid market which the most obvious choice were VanSlams. To those that don’t know they’re basically copies of bilstein’s offerings but not damper adjustable and about 1/2 the price; which is still £650!
I also saw a picture online of a van running big steel wheels, some frantic googling led me to the 18” amarok steel wheels I settled on, they are almost an exact replica of the stock 16” upscaled and allow the original centre caps to clip on for maximum stealth.They’re a VW non uk product and bolted straight on and also load rated which is something anyone converting one of these needs to remember. Likewise the tyres needed to be lower profile for looks but also loadrated, others are running ultra low profiles on these wheels which I admit looks cool, but is totally non tested, and with kids involved I’m playing it safe.
I could of gone the usual “scene” route which is 1) sportline bodykit 2) 20” wheels 3) Aftermarket headlights and in some cases loads of chrome tat stuck on. I should say unequivocally I have no hatred for that look, but for me I wanted to bare in mind the original vans I pined after. Purposeful, practical and built for family use (and no doubt abuse!)
This is not the look I’m going for - i was the max power generation and am concerned this look will date very quickly
Miele it turns out have these built to a custom spec at the factory. They’re painted in an exclusive colour (L551 for the beards out there) and are essentially a base model van with lots of high line bits bolted on. So it’s got plastic bumpers and a lowly 84bhp but electric windows, heated electric mirrors, rear parking sensors, air conditioning, and a factory glazed/heated tailgate.
They also come kitted out with many expensive bits , in the case of mine Sortimo racking, a leisure battery system, and hidden under the ply floor a mint VW rubber load mat.
I duly begun to strip out the stuff from its commercial past. It turns out they all sell for strong money on eBay and owners clubs and people will travel MILES to collect stuff. The removed stuff was listed and totalled out and just shy of £1000 which confirmed that this van was a bargain.
With that done I got onto ordering some of the parts I wanted to sort the outside. As you’ve seen from the finished pictures subtle is the word of the day , it’s also called OEM+ in the VW “scene”.
First things first was to sort the child swallowing arch gap, there’s many options for this which can be discussed at length should people desire it. Essentially I went for the middle ground of “coilovers” - a height adjustable system that allowed some control over ride height. In this scenario you can go cheap (and rubbish) mid range or mentally expensive damper adjustable bilstein/H&R that would no doubt shave valuable time off on the ‘Ring.
Seeing as I am not building a time attack racer I aimed for mid market which the most obvious choice were VanSlams. To those that don’t know they’re basically copies of bilstein’s offerings but not damper adjustable and about 1/2 the price; which is still £650!
I also saw a picture online of a van running big steel wheels, some frantic googling led me to the 18” amarok steel wheels I settled on, they are almost an exact replica of the stock 16” upscaled and allow the original centre caps to clip on for maximum stealth.They’re a VW non uk product and bolted straight on and also load rated which is something anyone converting one of these needs to remember. Likewise the tyres needed to be lower profile for looks but also loadrated, others are running ultra low profiles on these wheels which I admit looks cool, but is totally non tested, and with kids involved I’m playing it safe.
I could of gone the usual “scene” route which is 1) sportline bodykit 2) 20” wheels 3) Aftermarket headlights and in some cases loads of chrome tat stuck on. I should say unequivocally I have no hatred for that look, but for me I wanted to bare in mind the original vans I pined after. Purposeful, practical and built for family use (and no doubt abuse!)
This is not the look I’m going for - i was the max power generation and am concerned this look will date very quickly
Edited by croakey on Tuesday 28th August 22:41
Smitters said:
Cheers for the wheel info.
And wow - what a bargain. Ours is a 64 plate 50k miler, 102PS, but otherwise essentially the same and was, many many Mars bars more. And had nothing in the back to sell. Or any windows.
We went Austops (like you I think) but splashed out on the RIB 150 with isofix for our 2x tiny offspring. No electrickery or cabinets yet, though I drive it every day, so it needs to be more car than camper.
We’ll get into it but mines a skyline roof and a smartbeds-evo 2 bed. Was going to get a RIB with isofix but all the reviews I read said they didn’t match many seats owing to being so tall. And wow - what a bargain. Ours is a 64 plate 50k miler, 102PS, but otherwise essentially the same and was, many many Mars bars more. And had nothing in the back to sell. Or any windows.
We went Austops (like you I think) but splashed out on the RIB 150 with isofix for our 2x tiny offspring. No electrickery or cabinets yet, though I drive it every day, so it needs to be more car than camper.
84bhp isn’t a lot in a small eco box hatchback, it’s borderline dangerous in a van. There is continental tectonic movement that would embarrass it once fully loaded with a camper conversion.
So with that in mind and the van now relieved of all the old racking, flooring and full height bulk head it was off to an old friend.
My friend Chris happens to run performanceremapuk in Gloucester, which is very handy when visiting my parents.
Some money later and the van was in the wokshop for an electrical tickle. A couple of test runs to establish base levels and no boost leaks etc and it was time to plug the old girl in.
The 84bhp (and 102bhp for that matter) vans are equipped with only a 5 speed gearbox where as the bigger 140bhp has a 6 speed. As well as an extra cog the 6 speed is also allegedly stronger and able to take more than 380nm of torque.
So with those warnings in mind and the electric wizardry complete it was time to see what the van could muster up.
The result?
162bhp and a completely renewed driving experience.
So with that in mind and the van now relieved of all the old racking, flooring and full height bulk head it was off to an old friend.
My friend Chris happens to run performanceremapuk in Gloucester, which is very handy when visiting my parents.
Some money later and the van was in the wokshop for an electrical tickle. A couple of test runs to establish base levels and no boost leaks etc and it was time to plug the old girl in.
The 84bhp (and 102bhp for that matter) vans are equipped with only a 5 speed gearbox where as the bigger 140bhp has a 6 speed. As well as an extra cog the 6 speed is also allegedly stronger and able to take more than 380nm of torque.
So with those warnings in mind and the electric wizardry complete it was time to see what the van could muster up.
The result?
162bhp and a completely renewed driving experience.
familyguy1 said:
Yours looks to be a 5spd, whats it like to drive with that additional power ? I find with my 102bhp and 5spd that sometimes a 6th would be nice for motorways and extra power would be nice for the odd hill when fully loaded! but other than that its a camper and its fully loaded with family so don't need a rocket so 102bhp was pretty fine 99% of the time.
Similar line of thinking tbh. Another gear would be desirable, but it is a van, and I never drive it hard as a result. Dynamically speaking a T5 transporter is never going to show its heels to pretty much anything on the road, it is after all a 2 tonne box on wheels.
However it could be improved.
With that in mind I got to work and dropped my van to the garage to get the wheels and tyres united and the coilovers bolted up.
Tyre choice as I mentioned before was limited as I wanted both a lower profile and suitable load rating. In between the linglong ditchfinder xl’s and other such quality items there were Nankangs. Now people always have an opinion on Nankangs and being brutally honest I’ve never had an issue with them on the various cars I’ve had... so for that reason they were duly ordered. In this instance I went with a load rated 255/50/18 XL 103.
The suspension by all accounts ( I don’t do mechanical stuff) were a sod to do. The old shocks and springs playing hard ball and drop links having to be cut off and replaced with some upgraded ones.
But the end result was worth it.
Ok at this point it didn’t have windows and was a bare van inside but I could see its potential slowly growing.
The drive was much improved, less body roll, a significant drop in height but best of all a compliant non crashy ride. If there is ever a criticism levelled at coilovers without a posh name is that they are often bumpy as a result of poor rebound control, the vanslams avoid this and drive smoother than stock.
This was pretty much the outside finished aside from the guts of the conversion such as windows and a very expensive roof system.
However it could be improved.
With that in mind I got to work and dropped my van to the garage to get the wheels and tyres united and the coilovers bolted up.
Tyre choice as I mentioned before was limited as I wanted both a lower profile and suitable load rating. In between the linglong ditchfinder xl’s and other such quality items there were Nankangs. Now people always have an opinion on Nankangs and being brutally honest I’ve never had an issue with them on the various cars I’ve had... so for that reason they were duly ordered. In this instance I went with a load rated 255/50/18 XL 103.
The suspension by all accounts ( I don’t do mechanical stuff) were a sod to do. The old shocks and springs playing hard ball and drop links having to be cut off and replaced with some upgraded ones.
But the end result was worth it.
Ok at this point it didn’t have windows and was a bare van inside but I could see its potential slowly growing.
The drive was much improved, less body roll, a significant drop in height but best of all a compliant non crashy ride. If there is ever a criticism levelled at coilovers without a posh name is that they are often bumpy as a result of poor rebound control, the vanslams avoid this and drive smoother than stock.
This was pretty much the outside finished aside from the guts of the conversion such as windows and a very expensive roof system.
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