Buying a Vanagon – Do your Homework!
May 25, 2018 – Originally Posted. Minor Edits on 9-12-21
I am the proud owner of a 1985 Wolfsburg Weekender. It currently has 69K ORIGINAL miles on it and had only 57K original when I got it. I paid $10K for it 7 years ago. I have every receipt on the van since new and I am the 2nd owner! Getting this van was purely blessings from the universe or blind luck. I broke every guideline I am going to set out below. While I was incredibly lucky and you will want some luck, you need to stack the cards as much in your favor as possible. I mean these vans are 30 or so years old and in most cases have had very interesting lives. If only vans could talk but they can’t and lots of people have had their van life dreams turn to nightmares largely at their own fault.
Top things you have to do before buying your van.
Read
Start by going to the library on GoWesty.com and read every single article. This is the entrance price of buying a Vanagon. There is some great info here to help you target what you want. I highly recommend spending a few weeks reading threads on theSamba.com as well. These 2 blog posts are very worth a read as well- https://liveworkwander.com/buying-a-vanagon-part-one/ and http://www.alltogetheroutthere.com/vanagon-maintenance-costs/ .
Calm Down
Don’t be swept up in the passion of van life and go off half-cocked. Be patient. Do your homework and buy only when the time is right. This could take months or even a year. That will seem a small price to avoid the nightmare stories out there of breakdowns and costs spiraling out of control.
Decide
Know exactly what you want. I personally would never want a Vanagon Full Camper. They have a smaller lower bed, don’t have the jump seat storage and I don’t want to cook where I sleep. That’s just me, you need to decide for you and there are lots of iterations of the Vanagon to think about. Go see the iterations before you decide and drive a couple if you can.
Top Things to Lookout for when Buying a Vanagon
Flippers
This is the absolute number one thing to look out for when buying a Vanagon. These are guys who try to buy vans on the cheap and then resell them for a profit. I am not talking about a dealer as they at least have a business name they are trying to protect. Flippers are generally unscrupulous liars and I have a litany of stories to back up that assertion.
How do you know if the seller is flipper since they sure are not going to tell you? There are several ways with the most highly indicative being theirs is not the name on the title. You see the Flippers get the Vanagon and have the seller sign the title but they never go through the process of getting it in their name. They don’t want record and they don’t want to pay sales tax or income tax for that matter. Another indication is lack of knowledge about the van or assertions they can’t back up. These people are generally accomplished con men but if when you go see the van you keep up the conversation inconsistencies will show. Here are some of the common lines of BS the flippers use. “I am selling the van for a Friend.” “The van is my aunts (or some other family member) and I am just helping her out, she is in the hospital or she died etc.”
Chain of ownership is one of the big variables in van buying. You are buying all the work and lack of maintenance of all the previous owners. The less of them the better. Flippers don’t care about that they make up any story they want. They will tell you the engine was swapped when it wasn’t or some maintenance was done that wasn’t. Just like house flippers if they can put lipstick on the pig and make money they will. AVOID FLIPPERS.
Below is an ad that I responded to for a friend and my questions to the seller. There were a few flags to this ad that I needed clarity on or I felt my friend should get clarity on. First, while the 86 Wolfsburg Weekender is a desirable and rare specimen this one was a little above market for a van with 153K miles. Also, there were 3 potential FrankenVan issues that the seller did not list in the ad. I cover FrankenVans more below but here we have AC Outlets on the driver’s pedestal, unusual wheels, and a box of some kind on the lower drivers side mid panel. All these things are flags. They may be nothing but who knows. Last, the seller had a questionable samba history – forum posts with questions about value and some other items he had sold. I was suspicious.
Email that I sent to him.
Hi I am writing about your van on the samba. It looks really great. I am interested and have a few questions for you please. We are looking for an 86-87 weekender! We are in S Ca so need to know more before we make the trip up there.
1. How long have you owned the van? Do you know the history for the van and who owned before you? You mentioned it’s been babied so that sounds like you have had it a while?
2. Original Engine?
3. There is an AC outlet on the drivers pedestal. What is that and to what does it connect?
5. There is something picture on the outside drivers side of the van – a box or sticker. I cannot tell from picture what is that?
6. What size wheels and tires?
7. I do not recognize those wheels as the normal variants out there what can you tell me about them?
8. Why was the gas tank removed and installed again?
9. This model came with both an aux battery and a fridge. Is the aux battery installed still and working. Do you have the fridge? If not do you have the clamps that held it to the floor behind the pasenger seat?
Ultimately the seller did not respond so I feel my friend dodged a bullet. The Flipper Seller was looking for a rube and I showed I was not one. You should make sure you are not a rube – One is born every minute as the saying goes.
FrankenVans
FrankenVans take many forms and there is a lot of subjective opinion in what makes a FrankenVan. For me, it is a van that was changed from what it was originally and you can tell. For example, a FrankenVan could be a tin top that was converted to a popup or hightop. This is not a simple project and takes some know-how and more importantly attention to detail.
Some people would say a van with a Subaru or Ford engine is a FrankenVan but I won’t go quite that far. Engine swaps are a fact of Vanagon life and we can get to that later.
I often see vans on the Samba that are Franken. A good example is a van that someone is advertising as a full camper but there are not the 3 receptacle holes on the driver’s rear side panel. I have also seen people advertising Weekenders that have aforementioned holes. This opens up a can of worms. Who did the work? Did they do it right? When and why was it done and on and on. These vans can be fine but are you up to the challenge of figuring that out or are you hoping to be lucky?
Wheel swaps are another potential FrankenVan maker. Now I am not talking about a Vanagon with Rockymountain Westy Wheels and BF Goodridge tires or some other option from one of the very trust worthy companies out there. I am talking about a van with some random wheels such as Audi or Mercedes Benz that Joey DIY driveway mechanic got on the cheap. There is a huge thread on wheels on the samba but if the wheels are not from one of the main suppliers out there then it is something you are going to want to be sure is correct. Wheels need correct offsets and more. Read the thread then decide if you want to figure that out or just buy a van that has the original wheels or a set from a place like gowesty etc.
