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Motorhome / camper van


chocccie
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Advice needed please.

If you had £5k (ish)  to spend on a second handvan for holidaying ... what would you like?  I'm thinking of looking on Ebay and some other sites, but need some advice from campervan owners.

What's the French term for campervan?

Thanks [:)]

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Hi,

  £5000 pounds is a pretty low budget for a campervan (camping cars in France) to get one of the big coach built vans so you may need to look at a smaller van based camper with a free standing awning, maybe a VW. Or

     Take a look here on Ebay, a few LHD too, good luck.

http://motors.search.ebay.co.uk/lhd_Campers-Caravans-Motorhomes_W0QQfromZR34QQsacatZ121904

regards

Pearly

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Hi Choccie,

If you are thinking of ebay, try Belgium. Their prices are certainly lower than France for all vehicles. I would be very suprised if you saw anything at that price. We were looking at hiring a few weeks ago. They were far too expensive to hire for a week at this time of year, we would get a fantastic hotel for the same money! But their used prices were just ridiculously high. Camping cars (camper vans) do hold their prices well. I would be suprised if you found anything at the price you are looking to spend.

Paul

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Hi, please don,t buy outside of france, its a real pain to get a camping car on french plates, I know I did it two years ago, and I am doing the same with a hymer as we talk.cost around 160 euros for the gas/elec inspection. 65 euros for the CT, and 365 euros for the CG, 120 euros for the COC. also around 2 months of driving back and fore to caen for the endless silly forms and questions they don,t ask or hand out 1st time round. If the camping car is home made and not french I would forget the idea,

I would look on ebay.fr or the small ads for a van, but check that the it as a gas/elec cert and that the cart/c is for the correct number of people.If you want more details please let me know, thanks michael

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Just to say that if you did buy in Belgium, you would get a certificate of conformity (COC)with the vehicle, so that would not be an expense. You would pay for your Carte Grise anyway when you transfer it into your name, so no extra there.  I'm not aware of the price, but it varies according to the age and power of the vehicle. The older it is, the cheaper it gets.  For instance my year 2000, 90 bhp VW Sharan cost around €170. Ours was a Belgian import. There was no problem registering it here. I'm sure there can be difficulties, but don't discount it as a cheaper means of purchasing a vehicle.

Paul

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Hi, getting a camping car on french plates is NOT like a car, I know I have done it, 1st of there is the gas/elec check, cost 165 euros. the last camping car I had made french was a ford based 2001 camper, as the UK builder could not give a cert that the french would take, I had to remove the rear seatbelts and anchorage points as they had not been tested to EU standards, and there is know where to get this done. The CG was made out for two people only, not the four the van could sleep. It took ages to get done with all the paperwork etc, My 2002 Hymer is just as bad and I have the Hymer build certs etc.

Buy a small french van I saw one at the local auction based on a ford it was a sea dingy and was OK inside, went for around 6500 euros, Please don,t think it will be like having a car imported, its not. michael

  

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Michael is right.

Importing a foreign registered camping car is a complex process.  Unlike cars, they do not come with EU whole vehicle type approval, so a straightforward certificate of conformity cannot be issued.  That means that the base vehicle, camper conversion and the gas and electricty installations must all conform separately to French national type approval.  In practice, all foreign vans must go through an expensive single vehicle approval inspection.

Furthermore, the living area access door must be situated on the right hand side (kerbside) or rear of the vehicle, which means that most UK manufacturered vans cannot be imported here.

If you have limited funds, then you should avoid this expense and hassle by buying a French registered van.

 

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hi, just to make a small point My 1st campervan was a UK RHD with the side door on the wrong side, I did get it passed, but only for two people, also they wanted seatbelt certs for the rear seatbelts which I could not get, so as stated had to remove the seat belts complete, this allowed the use of the side door so all was ok, I am at the moment having a hymer sorted, and just had the gas/elec test, took the man 10 min and cost 191 euros, I have a certificate of conformity from hymer so hope that I will not have the seatbelt game as before. If the prices of hymers was better in france I for one would never be playing around with all this red tape. Also last time to get the pass I had to remove the window locks and put up little signs stateing DO NOT DRIVE OFF WITH THE WINDOWS OPEN, I pointed out that this was a bit hard to do without window locks and just got a look, they got refitted within 5 mins of the inspection.

michael  

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Chocccie,

I have to agree with a previous poster - we had been looking for something around that price for a while and gave up as all we could find were 1980's petrol ones, or wrecked diesels.  We had given up and decided to buy a cheap caravan instead, but on visiting a local camping car/caravan dealer (looking for an old caravan!) we fell for a fairly new camping car, went totally nuts and bought it!

Having looked around, I reckon they are generally about the same or cheaper here in France than the UK (unlike cars!) and you don't have to go through the whole approval process - as we understood it, to get it French reg it was going to be very difficult/impossible anyway.

As someone else has pointed out, check Le Bon Coin - there is usually quite a good selection on there to give you an idea, but be aware that we bought ours from a dealer for less than a lot of people are asking for the same/similar ones on there as private sales!  Plus we get 12 months warranty and I got quite a few freebies thrown in!  If you check eBay France, the majority of them never meet their reserve.

On the plus side, insurance is surprisingly cheap!

Actually, just had a thought - PM me your e-mail address - one of my neighbours popped round this morning and during the converstaion he said he knew of someone locally selling a camping car for a bargain - if you let me know your details I'll try and find out more and pass it along - certainly within your budget, but I don't know anything about it!

Matt

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