Is your van worth what you're paying?

[Green Pro Clean Ltd]

@SPCleaning nice color choice. May I suggest £15 on some hub caps just to finish it off?

Also from an environmental standpoint I recall an article in 'Classic and Sports Car' some years back where they said you would do more good for the environment by restoring one classic vehicle than you would by recycling every tin can and bottle you use in a life time.

Perhaps some additional value there to giving TLC to older vans and keeping them going.

If it could take the payload I would get a old woody moggy, cleverly hidden WFP in back and wooden ladders on the roof with proper old school hand sign painting /emoticons/smile.png)

 

[Green Pro Clean Ltd]

Stuart, I notice the bumpers and trim are a bit faded like mine, look on Youtube, a couple of hours with a heat gun and back to black! Pete Rogers put me onto that one

 

[SPCleaning]

Stuart, I notice the bumpers and trim are a bit faded like mine, look on Youtube, a couple of hours with a heat gun and back to black! Pete Rogers put me onto that one

In this case the bumpers/trim have been painted in grey. The wheel covers indeed are a good idea. The only downside of this van is the payload. I can only get a 400 ltr tank in. If/when I decide to change I want a more suitable payload. This is an interesting thread.

 

[spruce]

When I was in the trade vehicle finance could be split into 3 categories.

1) Contract Hire,

2) Finance Lease,

3) HP.

These days things have got rather complicated with so many different variants, its no wonder it's so confusing.

Contract Hire is a vehicle rental and you never can own the vehicle at the end of the contract period - that's the law. It will always belong to the leasing company or finance house. It isn't an asset on your books. You can claim the full monthly rental + VAT as an expense - less your private mileage factor. If you are VAT registered then you claim that back in accordance with the VAT rules. At one time you paid an initial rental of 3 payments upfront and the remainder monthly. Rentals are subject to VAT charged separately. (3/35 means a 36 month contract, etc). Nowadays, some will try to make the payments look more attractive by increasing your initial payment. This usually works in the favour of the lease provider. You agreed an annual mileage and your repayments linked to that mileage. At the end of the contract you had the vehicle back and start a new contract. You are responsible for the rectification of damage that isn't fair wear and tear. (This is where the problems begin as drilling holes isn't fair and tear.) Over mileage triggered penalty payments.

Contract Hire is based on what the vehicle will be worth at the end of the contract. If the bottom fell out of the resale value of the vehicle you had on hire, then that's their problem. (Yes, this did happen in 1999 during the Rip of Britain scandal.)

You could also get addon maintenance contracts that would cover servicing costs as well.

Finance Lease in it's many formats is a lease but the vehicle is registered in your name. So once the lease is completed the vehicle automatically becomes yours. This is an asset on your books and you accept financial responsibility for your vehicle. It again took on an initial deposit and then a monthly lease as with contract hire. An annual mileage was agreed as this helped with determining a residual value of the vehicle at the end of the contract. This residual is called a final balloon payment. This balloon at the end of the contract means that in effect the major part or portion of your repayment plan involves vehicle depreciation. At the end of the lease, you either trade the vehicle in and start again, or pay off the balloon (cash or refinance it) and continue to run your van as previously.

If the vehicle isn't worth the value of the balloon (higher mileage, poor cosmetic and/or mechanical condition) then the trade-in short fall is your responsibility. Likewise, if the bottom fell out of the resale value, that's your problem again. If you got more for the vehicle than the balloon then you scored. The shortfall is reflected as an expense so goes against your profit and loss account in accounting terms.

If we were selling a van to a builder on lease then the finance house would insist that the balloon payment be removed. This made the monthly repayments much higher.

Finance Lease was introduced to make financing a vehicle easier for business owners as the initial deposit and monthly VAT reduced the initial payments somewhat.

HP Finance. In my motor trade days, the deposit on an HP deal on a van would require the full VAT upfront and a percentage of the vehicle's price before VAT, usually 10%.

So a van costing £15000 + VAT today would require a deposit of £4500 + RFL etc. As residuals weren't considered, this meant that the van in this example could cost a business over £425 per month over 3 years or £280 per month over 5 years with £4500 (plus RFL etc.)

 

[Damo]

I'd just like to throw this into the mix.
A year ago I re-branded, my almost 15 year old Transit was tidied up and re-sprayed in Cadbury Chocolate purple. It is still an old van but it looks great. I get noticed and have picked up some really nice jobs that I don't think I could have had my van still been white with rust.



pic upload

You see if you turned up on my drive i would refuse your quote as its not a new van. I kid, i kid.

To me that van screams class and professionalism yet didn't cost 20k. Only thing i dont like is the www address /emoticons/tongue.png

Don't really wanna pick fault but you could upgrade the rear lights to the later spec - Tinted/clear. Did it on our 2003 transit, looked much better.

 

[Dave B]

I need a van for practicle reasons and will get a nice clean one not too old

I have done this job in cars

Estates

Fiesta van

Battered old 2.5 diesel tranny

Nothing has made any difference as people seem to judge me when i knock the door and know what I'm talking about and act professional

Saying that though i want to go in to commercial work which is the main reason for getting a decent van as i think that is where a good looking van and equipment makes a difference not the average residential custy who doesn't actually give a :turd: as long as you do the job spot on

My customers must think I'm absolutely skint :rof:

And yes I've seen your van Neil:rofl::rofl::rofl:

 

[spruce]

i was going down the route of buying a new crewvan from my local Citroen dealer. but they told me so many lies it got ridiculous "theres a 3 to 6 month waiting list, possibly even longer " i said so why is the crewvan 5k more than the regular van "since the recession the seats are all handmade " in the end i lost confidence and just bought secondhand . i should have listened to a local windie who got a brand new berlingo from said dealer and handed it back to them after only a year of no end of trouble- mainly with getting small niggles fixed the dealer needed it a full day everytime and never fixed stuff properly he lost loads of time , got sick to death of the whole new van experience

Sounds like it hasn't changed.

Some of the dealers want to deal with you as they do retail customers. Other try to use retail salesmen to fill in for a commercial dept. They don't know what they are talking about but still want to sound intelligent. Most sales managers and dealer principals don't understand the concept of commercial as they are paid commission at point of sale. Most commercial departments work on an annual sales budget and bonus payments at the end of the year from the factory make the profit. As most sale managers don't benefit from these bonus payments they don't want to know.

What Citroen were advertising at supplier level didn't always reflect what happened at service level. Vehicle down time is costly for us, but they don't seem to show the same urgency at workshop level. Why do they need to have my van for the full day to read fault codes when that takes them 10 minutes and then still charge £49.53 + VAT. Its beyond me, but I was told by an old friend we met up with in London yesterday that it is the same in Australia.

 

[SPCleaning]

You see if you turned up on my drive i would refuse your quote as its not a new van. I kid, i kid.
To me that van screams class and professionalism yet didn't cost 20k. Only thing i dont like is the www address /emoticons/tongue.png

Don't really wanna pick fault but you could upgrade the rear lights to the later spec - Tinted/clear. Did it on our 2003 transit, looked much better.

I started off calling myself Proper Job Window Cleaning (Proper Job being a Westcountry phrase), but a new set up in the next town decided to call themselves the same thing and upset a lot of people by taking money upfront and not turning up etc. So I decided it was safer to use my name. The website was already up and running though, so I kept it.

The other lot disappeared shortly after.

 

[Dave B]

Scrapheap challenge guy makes me laugh

"Proper job"

 

[noddy]

stu you should of bit the bullet and dropped a mk7 front end on it befoure spaying it making it look new this is what I am doing on the ex bt cherry picker ive just bought it look like a 13 plate for less then 250 pounds

 

[spruce]

I started off calling myself Proper Job Window Cleaning (Proper Job being a Westcountry phrase), but a new set up in the next town decided to call themselves the same thing and upset a lot of people by taking money upfront and not turning up etc. So I decided it was safer to use my name. The website was already up and running though, so I kept it.
The other lot disappeared shortly after.

As with these things @SPCleaning the skunk may have been removed from the room, but the stink remains for a long time afterwards.

 

[SPCleaning]

stu you should of bit the bullet and dropped a mk7 front end on it befoure spaying it making it look new this is what I am doing on the ex bt cherry picker ive just bought it look like a 13 plate for less then 250 pounds

The guy doing the job wanted to do this but I was on a budget at the time.

 

[SPCleaning]

I think I will get a bank loan next time for about £10,000. Buy a van for about £7,500 and spend the rest having it wrapped. I would want it identical to my current van to look at though.

 

[Damo]

@spruce sorry to hijack. Quick Q

IF I have two leisure batteries linked together to make a big 12v leisure battery. What's the best way to charge. Do I have to separate them and charge individually. ?

 

[Extremecleansussex]

What a vehicle is worth at the end of the day is what the next owner is willing to pay for it. Most buyers will be very wary of a battery driven vehicle as they will be scared of the cost of battery replacement.
Just because batteries last in your taxi example doesn't mean that everyone will experience a similar performance.

The short to long term feeling is that battery driven vehicles aren't a consideration as everyday transport in most peoples minds. I would be too scared to buy a second hand one.

I thought all vehicles on the road needed an MOT every year once they became 3 years of age. There was talk of it going to a test every 2 years but there was a massive backlash from the MOT garages as their equipment is expensive and most have a dedicated MOT inspector.

You're absolutely right with what you're saying; electric technology is new and people are understandably cautious.

The battery issue IS turning out to be a non-issue though, batteries are lasting far better than expected.

With regards to MOT, battery driven commercial vehicles are currently exempt along with tractors and vehicles built before 1960. It's probably a throwback to when milk floats were the only electric vehicles on the road but that is currently the situation.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[spruce]

You're absolutely right with what you're saying; electric technology is new and people are understandably cautious.The battery issue IS turning out to be a non-issue though, batteries are lasting far better than expected.

With regards to MOT, battery driven commercial vehicles are currently exempt along with tractors and vehicles built before 1960. It's probably a throwback to when milk floats were the only electric vehicles on the road but that is currently the situation.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm Gobsmacked @Extremecleansussex TBH. I worked in the commercial department of Citroen for 5 years. In that time we had the Electric Berlingo and no MOT wasn't part of the Citroen sales spiel.

Electric cars need an MOT

Time for an MOT? There’s nothing to worry about with an electric car

Maybe as you said, at one time electric vehicles were mainly milk floats as would have been (allegedly) well maintained by the dairies own workshop. Can't see that loophole/concession lasting for long.

Found this a second ago - interesting especially the 'recovery' costs toward the end of the article.

Electric Van | AV Department Limited

 

[Underdog]

For me a van choice comes down to one thing. Can I pay cash for it as I won't go into debt.

 

[spruce]

@spruce sorry to hijack. Quick Q
IF I have two leisure batteries linked together to make a big 12v leisure battery. What's the best way to charge. Do I have to separate them and charge individually. ?

Hi @Damo

This depends on your charger TBH. I have a 10 amp intelligent charger supplied by Tanya. I can't remember the specs but I'm sure that that it was suitable for batteries up to 135 amp. I can't find the details on Tanya's web page. (Edit. How sad am I? I found the original box and 135 amp is correct.)

2 leisure batteries linked together will double the capacity, so if you were charging them together (at the same time) then you will need a bigger charger.

They should be able to advise. I doubt you will only charge them when they are flat, so 2 x 110amp batteries at 50% charged will be within the capacity of this 10 amp charger I have using this scenario. But if they were both 'flat' then that changes things a bit.

 

[Damo]

Hi spruce you are right. Charge wont have enough power. Will just disconnect them. I think i will put in a kill switch to kill the link. Thanks

 

[Extremecleansussex]

I'm Gobsmacked @Extremecleansussex TBH. I worked in the commercial department of Citroen for 5 years. In that time we had the Electric Berlingo and no MOT wasn't part of the Citroen sales spiel.
Electric cars need an MOT

Time for an MOT? There’s nothing to worry about with an electric car

Maybe as you said, at one time electric vehicles were mainly milk floats as would have been (allegedly) well maintained by the dairies own workshop. Can't see that loophole/concession lasting for long.

Found this a second ago - interesting especially the 'recovery' costs toward the end of the article.

Electric Van | AV Department Limited

Here's the dvla link

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/333128/V112_150514.pdf

It surprised me too but I'll be having mine checked regularly anyway.

I can't imagine that the loophole won't be closed either.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[simon]

i got my van new 32 miles on it. costs £75 a week, its over 5 yrs so 1 more year to go, in that time i will of paid a fair bit more than the actual price but i was working out of an asda estate backpacks & 25 ltr cannisters now im cruising lol. in the 4 years i've had it apart from services & mot's i've bought 4 new tyres & 3 wing mirrors no other problems at all -- the wingmirrors are because im a **** driver & even worse at reversing
so yes its been worth every penny

having said that, as far as i know only 3 people have contacted about jobs from seeing the van