Any advice re buying used B544?

[Figaro]

no, old van was not an a class, here she is resting after a long haul in Italy

Still a lot of vehicle for a 2 litre engine to haul around.
I'm sure you've done the right thing

 

[lesleyjean]

Just had a peek at your new van. Wow, what a stunner, beautiful.
Enjoy, lots of fun and adventures to be had in your new van.
I recently changed and I miss my knackered old Kontiki. You never worry with an older van. Still, I love my, 'new to me' van, but up till now everything seems to be costing loads of money. We had to replace 5 tyres, as they were 6/7 years old although only done 7,500 miles.
Changed the cambelt as that was overdue as well. We should have negotiated a better price as we bought privately with no warranty. Lots of other problems as well headlight broke in storage which is going to cost over £1,500 to get fixed. None in stock anywhere, so we will just go to Spain and get it fixed out there.
I could list a lot more things that have gone wrong but it would take me all day.
Let's hope we have come to the end of our problems and that you don't have any.

Ask the dealer how old the tyres are, and when the cambelt was last changed.
Wish I had thought of it when I bought mine.

 

[Kirsten]

crikey Lesley Jean. That is a litany of woe. We have checked the tyres - they are new; and cambelt is being done- we read and re read Jims Buying guide to find out what to look for and it was really helpful. As we are buying from dealer we hope it will all be in good order, cambetls are really expensive ! We had ours done on old van as NOT doing them can be even more costly. Hope your van is now problem free xx

 

[lesleyjean]

I think I had better download Jim's book and have a good read about, 'what I should have done'.
If I live long enough to buy another van, it might come in handy haha

 

[BusyBuilder]

We bought our 544 exactly 2 years ago. We are currently5 weeks into our eu tour and have had a fantastic time in it. Even with out pointer we have lots of living space.
We bought ours privately (62 plate with 23k miles, cost us £51k) we've changed mattress, added extra solar to 250 watt, changed batteries for Exide 85w gel, changed table for smaller one, added alloys and new tyres (£600 all in). This time we had problems with lpg gas, it needed a new regulator, as original one was bunged up with oil, and fitted lpg filters.
Apart from that we love this van, and will keep it till I get to 70, (its 4250kg), I honestly could not think of another van that would give same standard of living space. We live in Highlands and wild camp all the time as solar and lpg make it so easy. In last 5 weeks in Europe we have been on sites for only 3 nights, Aires and stelplatz are the way to go, spent €16 on lpg.

Enjoy the van, forget the cost, hope you have as many happy times in it as we are.

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