Is this the worst time to buy a van??

Rowbo

Company car goes back in September and have finally decided to take the car allowance and buy a van. We have very active lives with lots of kit & the estate car just isn't cutting it anymore. Prices and availability of used vehicles have gone crazy. It seems to make more sense to buy new! But at around £40k this doesn’t seem very money saving!!
We are looking at the Mercedes Vito crew van. The vw transporter kombi would have also been in the running but their prices and availability are worse than anyone else from what I can see. 

We can wait until next spring if we need to but I’m not sure if this current issue will actually be worse then. Any ideas? Suggestions?
We are not used to car buying (years of company cars) and even less used to van buying! 

Herzlos

Yes, it's a terrible time to buy a van. With all the camper conversions and demand for delivery/couriers people are getting trade ins on vans higher than they paid for the same vans 3 years earlier. New vans might not be so bad so it's definitely worth looking.

Depending on what you do, buying a reasonable sized car and a box van trailer might do the same job for a fraction of the cost.

tacpot12

The only other option I can think off is to look at an import from a country where the economy is not so overheated. Ireland, Malta and Cyprus drive on the same side of the road as we do.

Stubod

..yes....................

sevenhills

tacpot12 said:

The only other option I can think off is to look at an import from a country where the economy is not so overheated. Ireland, Malta and Cyprus drive on the same side of the road as we do.

Renault Traffic 1,9L 2005, Paphos, Cyprus €7,000

 https://bazaraki.co.uk/adv/3779012_renault-traffic-1-9l-2005/

I don't know how much €7,000 is in Sterling, but I think you will have to buy in the UK and expect prices to be high for some time, although a recession could help.

ratrace

Yes its a bad time to be buying vans, if you have the cash then go for it

but if it means going in to £30 -£40k worth of debt then i personally would not do it and just persevere with what i have, buy a roof box or a trailer, save some cash and revisit the idea next year when hopefully prices come down.

our local delivery guy bought a ford galaxy people carrier and just took the back seats out, just does his delivery in that as the prices of vans were very high also the higher chance of vans getting broken into is not appealing which he found the hard way.

Nebulous2

We looked at the Merc, but ended up buying a Renault Trafic, just before Covid time in Sep 2019. One of the things I like is the bulkhead, though one of the attractions of the Merc was that it didn’t have one.  Pre registered with about 30 miles on the clock it has been great. Worth about £2k more than we paid for it. We live in bizarre times. 

Despite just having two of us and two dogs most of the time, it has been great. Two bikes in the back, two house moves, (one for us and one for my parents) and towing a big caravan, we wouldn’t be without it. 

No-one knows when or if car or van sales will go back to normal. I’d say go for it if it suits you. If you keep it longterm it won’t matter much if the current boom lasts or not. 

SMDTS

I would leave it a year if you can, get something to tide you over, prices are more than double what they should be at the moment, van dealers have been paying over the odds for really poor vans just to have something to sell, but sales are starting to slow, so prices will need to drop, but it will take a while for the inventory of overpriced scrap to clear out, dealers wont be prepared to take a loss on their full forecourt.

CoastingHatbox

Maybe you need a towbar and a trailer?

Vans are no where near as nimble as cars. Larger ones can be a pain to park in busy places. Also subject to lower national speed limits. They are more expensive to tax and sometimes a bit more expensive to insure.

That said, they are immensely practical. We're currently debating letting our car go and sharing the van between us on account we do so few miles now and for all intents and purposes, the van is more indispensable than the car.