Tradesman Transport - Tatty van or tidy car?

[anonymous-user]

Hello Pistonhead business gurus, I could do with a bit of advice,

I am in the process of trying to go full time self employed as a mobile mechanic. The problem is, after a year of being a student my savings have been eaten up and my start up budget for transport is tiny - Ideally sub £1000, £1,500 at a push.

This on the van market seems to buy nothing but tatty, messy, unreliable junk with well over 150,000+ miles.

Now the annoying thing - I don't really need a van. My tools and equipment would comfortably fit inside a large estate, MPV or 4x4 (which ironically would probably be larger in cargo space than the Berlingo/Partner vans I'm looking at once passenger seats were removed). My budget could buy a decent, non offensive car in far better mechanical and cosmetic state than a comparatively priced van. It seems like a no brainer.

Expect, the only thing that stops me is that I'm worried about what turning up in a car as opposed to a van says about my company's image/professionalism? I have been advised by a couple of guys doing similar work that ideally I'd want a proper van from the professionalism angle, but then I'm thinking rocking up in an ancient clattering van without a straight panel in sight is probably worse?

No matter what, if the business is a success I'd be looking to reinvest in a decent van ASAP. Its just the start up phase I'm finding tricky.

Any thoughts?

Edited by 279 on Monday 24th April 11:53

[anonymous-user]

I'd go for a van. As clean as you can get. It doesn't matter if it's not a new van, as long as it's scrubbed up and your tools are stored as tidy and methodically as possible. For my money, the inside of the van is more important than the outside. If you keep your tools tidy, you'll work in the same manner. Have a google for perfection valet - if someone turned up with the inside of a van looking like that, I'd employ. Especially for a starter. Our builder had a very messy truck, if he didn't have a track record, I would never have given him best part of £100K for our build. Good luck!

[anonymous-user]

Thank you guys so much for the input.

Very interesting and varied comments - I've come to the conclusion that a car could work, [b]IF[/i] done right. As some posters mentioned, I think a tidy professionally sign written car would be every bit as professional as a car, but simply grabbing an estate/MPV and slapping on a set of magnetic signs doesn't quite have the same effect as a van.

While I think turning a large MPV into a vehicle suitable for running the business out of may be an interesting project to do in the future, I suspect to do it right will cost more time and money than I can I spare now, so I think I'll stick to looking for a van and tidying it up as much as reasonably possible for now

Oh, and thanks for the general business tips about websites and so on; It gives me something to do inbetween checking gumtree every 15 minutes!

[anonymous-user]

Thanks for the comments and replies guys.

In the end I've taken a gamble and bought a 06 plate SWB Petrol/LPG Transit...

After the comment from the mobile mechanic above I started worrying that all my gear wouldn't fit in a Berlingo sized van, which pretty much doomed any hope of me getting any reliable AND tidy van. I saw the Transit ending on eBay below budget and fairly local, so I went for it.

I'm not going to lie. It is a bit rough, but hopefully once the peeling vinyl wrap is removed and some general elbow grease is applied it'll start to look a lot better. Thankfully the panels are surprisingly straight and rot free for a sub grand transit, and it drives nicely.