I’m looking to buy a second-hand Volkswagen van

A 180-degree turn for the Syncro. I’ve bought a new second-hand Volkswagen van. To be honest, the T3 Syncro was more of an impulse buy than a carefully considered one.

Let me set the scene first. We’re a family of four (two adults and two children); we love travelling, especially to the mountains, and fortunately both my partner and I work in the education sector, which means we get long holidays and can take time off at the same time. My idea was to use the Syncro for these trips, but let’s not kid ourselves – it’s not a comfortable vehicle, nor is it designed for what I wanted to do. It’s doable, of course, but: it has no air conditioning, it’s petrol-powered and fitted with studded tyres, it lacks safety features such as airbags, it doesn’t have beds for four people, and it has no kitchen or washbasin…

All these thoughts led me to start looking on the market for a second-hand Volkswagen campervan that was more modern, more comfortable and designed for travelling and sleeping with four people.

That’s when the…

Volkswagen T4 California Exclusive

And the thing is, this second-hand Volkswagen campervan model suited me down to the ground. A campervan that, in a fairly compact space, as it’s based on the long-wheelbase T4 chassis, features a bathroom with a retractable washbasin and toilet, a kitchen with two hobs, a built-in fridge, ample storage space, auxiliary heating, two beds for four people, safety features, air conditioning and a TDI engine.

Although I must also admit that I took a bit of a risk. Let me explain. My process of buying a second-hand Volkswagen campervan involved doing a lot of research and watching plenty of videos about the VW T4 California Exclusive, but I’d never actually seen one in the flesh. Nor had I ever actually got inside this vehicle, let alone tested it in terms of driving, handling or use as a campervan. At one point, I thought about renting one through Yescapa to see if it suited me, but it never happened for various reasons.

So, as I said, I spent a long time soaking up information from videos and forums – finding out how all its features worked, what the most common faults were, what engine options were available, experiences of owners of this second-hand Volkswagen campervan, modifications that could be made to it, and what the market was like in terms of prices and availability.

In the end, after having looked into the option of buying this second-hand Volkswagen van in Germany, one turned up in Spain that suited me quite well. It took months of negotiation to agree on a final price and organise everything to go and buy it.

My particular model is from 1997; it has a 2.5 TDI engine producing 102 cv, air conditioning, cruise control and all the standard equipment found on the ‘Exclusive’ model.

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To be honest, as I said, the purchase was a bit of a gamble, but now, after a couple of months of using it, I couldn’t be happier. It’s definitely been a wise purchase; I’ve been able to use it right from the start and it’s suited us perfectly.

It’s now time to start making some repairs and improvements, but with the aim of ensuring that whatever I do to it doesn’t render it inoperable.

Here are some photos showing the condition the van was in when I bought it: