We've (almost) bought our first van! Went to look at a few on Friday, and sent hubby and the kids for a second look on Sunday and he's decided the one I liked is fine for us.
It's an Avondale Perle Argos 1994, the couple who own it are late fifties (ish) I guess and have had it since it was 6 months old. It has all the manuals and paperwork and has been serviced annually. The chap seals all the seams every Autumn and it's very tidy inside. No smells, no stains, no obvious soggy bits, floor, walls and roof solid. All the oven, fridge and stuff fully working. No dings or dents, but it obviously is mid nineties style! The lady even takes down and washes the curtains every start and end of the season. :-) And it has a full awning.
They love the van, and are only selling because they are selling the (large detached)house (estate agents board outside) to downsize.
I think it will do us nicely for a few years. Hopefully! And it's £100 below our budget, result!
That sounds like a good find! Hope you enjoy it, i bet you can't wait to get it home! I can remember that feeling when we got our first (still got it) 'van! In fact i still get very excited every time we use it!
Quote: Originally posted by exessexmum on 24/1/2011
We've (almost) bought our first van! Went to look at a few on Friday, and sent hubby and the kids for a second look on Sunday and he's decided the one I liked is fine for us.
It's an Avondale Perle Argos 1994, the couple who own it are late fifties (ish) I guess and have had it since it was 6 months old. It has all the manuals and paperwork and has been serviced annually. The chap seals all the seams every Autumn and it's very tidy inside. No smells, no stains, no obvious soggy bits, floor, walls and roof solid. All the oven, fridge and stuff fully working. No dings or dents, but it obviously is mid nineties style! The lady even takes down and washes the curtains every start and end of the season. :-) And it has a full awning.
They love the van, and are only selling because they are selling the (large detached)house (estate agents board outside) to downsize.
I think it will do us nicely for a few years. Hopefully! And it's £100 below our budget, result!
I know exactly the excitement you feel as we felt the same when we first bought our first caravan in 2005. Once you have been out in it you will want to go out more and I must admit that we over stretched our budget a bit in the first year. We went to club rallies to cut the cost down which enabled us to get out more and get more use out of the caravan. We have just upsized and bought our second Coachman with the end washroom facility after catching the bug of caravanning and we haven't been out in ours yet either so we're looking forward as well to the warmer weather ahead hopefully. Can't wait for spring time .....bring it on!
Congratulations and well done...sounds like you good a good van there. We're still looking. Had a look at a few but nothing we liked or was ok (if you know what I mean)Think I'm looking in the wrong places. Where did you find her?
------------- 2026
Various weekends, weather and time permitting
April - Yorkshire and Yorkshire
June - Wiltshire and Oxfordshire
Autumn - North and Scotland
Quote: Originally posted by gailbonney on 24/1/2011
Congratulations and well done...sounds like you good a good van there. We're still looking. Had a look at a few but nothing we liked or was ok (if you know what I mean)Think I'm looking in the wrong places. Where did you find her?
It was advertised in the Caravan Club classifieds online.
------------- 2026
Various weekends, weather and time permitting
April - Yorkshire and Yorkshire
June - Wiltshire and Oxfordshire
Autumn - North and Scotland
Well done you , we love Perles , we had a brand new Perle ulysses ( 6 berth ) in 81 ( 80 model ) and absolutely loved it to bits and had it for about 10 years ( we originally wanted a Lynton scimitar caravan ) but it was about three times the price of the Perle at the time so we found the Perle and had the fire , oven , fridge etc fitted ourselves ( and we never ever regretted getting the cheaper version at all ) it was exactly the same lay out as the 6 berth scimitar too (; oh and we picked up our ebay caravan on sunday , and it's all fine ) and towed a dream too , it's got the odd tiny scrape but nothing really at all, again it's been very well looked after and is 20 years old after all , everything is dry , they towed it home in torrential rain and it's been hammering it down today too so it's having a good test , it's got a motor mover and an alko hitch so i think we did really well for what we payed ( and you won't believe this ) but we got a second chance offer from a seller on sunday night for exactly the same age and model van that we had bid on a few weeks earlier , but the reserve wasn't met and we had then looked at others and didn't realise he had relisted it again later , we could have saved ourselves £400 but more than happy with ours having the extra's .
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Topic: Bought our first van!
x Gill
