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Van Builder HQ Podcast #1 - Best Vans For DIY Camper Conversion!
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May 3, 2025
Today Nick at Van Builder HQ, Nick is discussing the Best Vans For Your DIY Camper Conversion! Tune in! It is the first Van Builder HQ Podcast! Numero uno! Visit https://www.vanbuilderhq.com to learn more. Interested in buying a van? Check out https://www.odysseycustomvans.com Support Van Builder HQ on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/vanbuilderhq
View Video Transcript
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[Music]
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[Music] two one
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hey everybody today i got nick here and i wanted to cover a
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big topic which is something you'll research in the beginning of your van building journey and that is how to
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choose the best van for a camper conversion i got a couple topics i'm going to go over with nick
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because he's our expert today and he's in the process he's built a van he's building vans
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and i wanted to touch a different a few different points everything from why are you
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doing a van conversion we're going to talk about budget size maintenance mileage safety yup yup
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all the different versions but i guess the first question is how do you choose nick what are the
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options what are the where did you where would you start if you were brand new kind of maybe talk to us about that yeah
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so if i'm if i'm brand new and i'm trying to figure out what van to purchase the first thing is
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it's probably budget it's just like buying a car that's you gotta find something that is affordable is it gonna
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be your daily driver is it gonna be something that you're only gonna use on the weekends that's where i would
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start and then with that thought in mind get on youtube watch a couple of videos
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because they might change your mind they might say oh i didn't know i could actually use
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this size van for a daily driver but then also outfit the back of it to be used as a camper van
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so once you decide what direction you're going a daily driver or a weekender camper van
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you can branch out from there and say okay now that i know how i'm
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traveling in this van what do the capabilities need to be does it need to be
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normal size extended that sort of thing oh yeah and yeah jump in if you have any questions
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at the top of your head what are the price ranges typically for
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different builds or if i'm looking to build a van is it
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5k 10k 50k 100k what are the different budgets people typically choose from so
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you have the kind of bootstrapper you have the couple looking to build something to do
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the full van life not just part-time right or you have the max people that max it out
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maybe they're retirees or something or just people that go out to moab or whatever i don't know
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tell me the different budgets and people what people are looking to do
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with it so if you're getting started find out your budget and find out your use okay
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that would be the first thing are you a weekender or do you live in your van that's it there's two things
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now are you got a couple options are you gonna buy an old
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ford van little v8 van fix it up on the inside it's old but you're happy because you
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like the classic look or whatever conno line yeah like a ford econoline is that kind of your style
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or are you a little bit more are you looking for something that's
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newer possibly more reliable because you're not that good with car parts and stuff like that which is completely cool
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so you want to get something new to feel safer on these long distance trips that's cool so
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on the left side you got the econoline you can get that used craigslist
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dealership and so after that point up fitting the van is pretty much the same so what we're
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going to do is we're going to we'll equalize everything so whether you go with the old van or you go with a new promaster
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transit or sprinter you've got those vans now you're on the next
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step and this is capabilities so your old van do you want it to be two wheel drive or
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four wheel drive based on where you're going your new van do you want to be two wheel drive or four wheel drive
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then you can step up from there now you're really at an equal playing field and now you're just focused on the
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interior parts of the van so that is where you're gonna sleep are you going
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to cook inside your van what about size so size would be based on people yep yep
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so size would be weekends are living in your van as well as if you're solo or you're a
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couple that sort of thing so that would be the next tier up
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and that's where you need to talk about space now
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some people are different some people need a big old van and then some people like
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the small more minimalistic type of van what is big old van square foot wise or is that
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the extended mercedes yeah so the language is not really square foot it would be more how many
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feet long is the vehicle okay so like 20 24 feet that type of thing
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that's how it goes and there's usually typically three different sizes of vans there's your
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standard van which is a short wheelbase medium wheelbase
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and long wheelbase so short wheelbase the rear axle of the van will almost be
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like at the very back of the van it'll look funny it's like a little mini minivan no not a minivan
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don't say that that's very confusing because the minivan is actually a completely different van
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some people do van life in minivans but that's not what we're talking about so you got the short axle
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the medium axle that is your typical vanity on the road our typical cargo van
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the extended wheelbase or elongated version
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those are ones that you see that are typically like the amazon vans where
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the you have a long you have a long axle so typically like around 140 inches of
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the axle and then the back of it you have this you have this big old kind of butt hanging out and that's your
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extended so that would be the full size oh yeah i can use my hands so you got your short axle medium axle
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and then extended long and people like the short ones because
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for example a lot of solo female travelers they like to go with the
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shorter axle and this is not specific to females in general this is just
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it's a van it can be overwhelming anybody can go more places with a smaller one well it's not just going
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more places imagine you've been driving a car like your whole life whatever
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some people have never driven a van it's it's sometimes it's extremely intimidating that's really the number one things and so a lot of
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female solo travelers that they want to do the the whole van life thing but they
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want to get into if they're going to solo they want to be able to feel confident in driving the
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vehicle they don't want to feel you know scared semi truck driver well scared
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that they turn it and this big old thing that they're not used to goes all over the place and so size can influence
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who's what type of driver a lot of drivers are comfortable female drivers are comfortable with typically maybe the
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smaller van the smaller vans it's just easy to maneuver it's easy to get into parking spaces and it's both male and
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female but female van lifers the only reason i'm specifically saying that is because
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if you are not comfortable with a van it's a great idea to get a smaller van it's easier to
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work on easier to drive all that good stuff when you get into the bigger vans they
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can get really big you're talking like 25 feet long so if you're comfortable driving something like that cool
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but and what size is medium so medium is what i got your vans back behind you are medium these are medium
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these are not extended so if i can go oh they're high top that's that's what's
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different yeah so if i go to see this one
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[Music] and usually in size directly corresponds
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with budget as long if it's something newer yep obviously
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and let's see we got a here's a good example oh that's a good picture this is this
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far outride website they're awesome they've just got content for days to help you understand
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so if you look at this so this van that's shown is my personal van
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however if you notice where the tail light is this is the short wheelbase
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so when this sliding door bar intersects with the tail light that's the short wheelbase
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and you guys can go down and see the tire regular wheelbase 129
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inches so my van it's low roof but it goes boop right there it goes to 20 feet long
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and that is a 148 inch wheelbase that's 147.6 but
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everyone knows it as 148. uh can you scroll up just a like a half an inch to see the there it is a high
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roof medium roof little roof oh okay let's see that now let's do this there we go
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so mine is right here and then you move your mouse a little bit you got to do a circle with it what
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you're talking about right here oh okay
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and then i have to turn that feature on make it pop up big okay so right here the back of the van
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this is my van so short medium and then here's the long so the
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long wheelbase is going to be 22 feet
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and that's really long it's all more hanging over and you can see where the tire is
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so notice all of that real estate back there male or female it doesn't matter it's just
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it's more about as a driver what are you comfortable with have you driven a honda civic your whole life or are you a
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pickup truck driver and you kind of feel okay about trucks because turning this right here with
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this end is way different than turning with this end is this is this are these sizes only
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true for mercedes sprinter vans and ford does dodge have
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something similar yeah so the the market is pretty much going to be standardized because if we go to the ram
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promaster does it have the three different sizes oh yeah because it's there's uh
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they all have to be competitive so they're almost exactly the same the only thing that's different so can
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we get into the differences off the top of your head for each one
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yeah so we got so for example promaster same thing 136
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right here see it's got the short end they got 159 so instead of 148 they've got a
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here we go actually it has a couple has four instead of three
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so they get the 118 inch very tiny got the 159 that's typical sorry 136.
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what's more typical is the 159 and then the really big one is the 150
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i'm sorry no they have three 159. what people really enjoy about the
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promaster is the width of the van so the interior width is huge 75.6
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whereas the doesn't it's not going to show the width here yeah
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so this one
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and it doesn't actually show the width i forgot about the with this here anyway the sprinter is not as the
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transit is not as wide as the promaster very wide and believe it or not
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the sprinter
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the sprinter van is the smallest on the interior is the smallest
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if you notice same lingo here same jargon 144 170 170
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ext is extended so you can see what the manufacturer is doing is
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they're taking the axle and they're sliding it back i was muted sorry
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are you talking about width uh i talk about width and length so width wise the mercedes is the
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smallest next would be the transit then the widest would be the promaster
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and then mercedes follows along the same thing so let's let's talk about differences not just size
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why do people choose usually one brand over the other what's the typical factors choosing a mercedes
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or a ford or a promaster so the different reasons is it just might be
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your brand you're a four guy you're a mercedes guy or girl
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and uh the ram promaster just being extremely honest it is not
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the most comfortable van i've driven i've test driven the van it is not comfortable for long rides
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some people might have a different opinion i've driven one it's not comfortable the seating height
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is so high i'm six feet tall and i'm where i'm at in the van is the roof is right here and
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the windshield is like right in front of my face the main reason people like to buy
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the promasters is because
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of their price so promaster
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if you go to let's see here
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trying to find promaster here
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so they start at 32 000 so they're extremely they're very affordable in the van world
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and you can start building yeah pretty quickly budget wise
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okay so what let's go to uh so we'll just do this real quick so ford transit
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ford transit what's the why do people like building in ford transits let's see here but i'm
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just going to knock out this price real quick real quick so they're all starting at the same price but i will tell you it
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goes up really quick so typically 42 so so ram is
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that this is a 136 inch so that's the catch so 136 inch for 32
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crew van let's just call it like 38
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and then mercedes sprinter the mercedes price
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so notice how the industry has set this up for advertising it's very
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important to look at this you look at three of them 32 35
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36 okay so they're all the same that's this is a
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this is a high roof 432 this is a
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mid roof for 34 and the sprinter is a low roof for 36.
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so pay attention because until you get up into
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these cargo vans and you go to to build it this is for mercedes you think that's a
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deal 36 000 this is what you're getting you're not getting the van life van because you need to go up to at least
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the 144 and then once you do 144 six cylinder
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so all the upgrades actually change the story right i do like how mercedes visualizes
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this for you because this is exactly what you need to pay attention to low roof not really considered van life
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144 that's your normal that's what peop this is what the winnebago rebel is built out of
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that sort of thing six-cylinder diesel or four-cylinder diesel these are pretty typical even the
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four-cylinder gas but notice what happens you are building a van you're putting
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you're building the inside of it you're putting furniture in all that stuff so you i would not suggest you ever go with a
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fifteen hundred this the class has to do with your weight
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capacity fifteen hundred twenty five thirty five
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so if you notice engines are directly related to how much weight the
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van can haul which makes complete sense they're so weight they're related is also a factor not just
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size yeah and length also the weight so think of wheelbase roof height this is
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livability powertrain is moving
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where you're living and then also where you're going so you're just on strict highways six
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cylinder would be fine maybe the 3500 series but if you get these so
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these are your payload capacities so payload is that's your battery system your sink
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your water storage your bed system your interior panels your upholstery your
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vent fan it's all the nuts and bolts that you put in the van to make it livable
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this is what you can do to get this number to figure it out you can take your van that's hollow you can
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take it to a truck stop on a cat scale and you can weigh it and say okay here's
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my weight all right and you can rent a van from enterprise rent-a-car
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all that stuff you can just rent a van take it get it weighed and then start getting an idea of maybe what you need
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to buy or what you anticipate you need to buy i'll finish this thought here in just a second
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and this is what it's all yours yeah this is what you're living in this is
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the engine you need to haul your butt across the us and go travel if
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you're gonna my suggestion is like a 144 range
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a six cylinder does not have to be diesel just happens to be that mercedes this is what they do
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and 3 500 3 500 is worth it you don't want to be so
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close on this edge that 100 couple hundred pounds payload's gonna mess you up because you can actually see there's
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only 500 pounds between these two but if you move up
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this is quite significant because instead of what about hold on let me finish that thought
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okay so 3 500 all right so notice how marketing wise they got you on this 36
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and you're like i'm going to mercedes for 36. actually the van you're going to live in
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how you're going to be able to haul it and to make it safe so that your van is not
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over its gv rw that's a legal thing by the way so it's
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not only safety but that's how our road system is paid for
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so you are taxed on the amount of weight your tires are
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putting on the ground but at the same time it correlates with safety because
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if you're above this number engineering wise that van is not designed to
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take turns the bearings axles the tires you're not safe and there's a lot of
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vans on the road that are above gvrw which is it's scary but
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it's because people don't know this or they tried to skimp and say that's okay i'll just get the four
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cylinder and i'll do this one because i need to save money but then you load up the whole entire van
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with something like this it looks good it moves but it's not safe it's dangerous
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so notice we have we went from 36 to 45 and then here's the ultimate van life adventure
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van build 144 4x4 diesel
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not 2500 you probably need a 3 500 extra duty so once we click on that
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notice how we went from 36 000 to now we're at 58
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480 why diesel so again like i said earlier diesel
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doesn't matter this just happens to be how mercedes sells this
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uh 4x4 you can't oh the 4x4 yeah so the ford transit those are the ones that i'm
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building what i like about them is you can get them in uh
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four wheel drive let's see here see ford you need to improve this that's
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it that was very difficult so i'm just not even going to use it so 4x4 now you're into now guys this is just the
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price of the van with nothing in it this is just a van
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this is nothing this is no interior this is no water nothing it's just a van
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so that is why people go so long story short let's get back to
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the whole reason we talked about this that's why this right here 32 000 for a
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high roof 136 2500 cargo van that's why a lot of that's why a lot of
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vans people doing professional and diyers are getting this ram promaster might not be as comfortable
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it doesn't have four wheel drive it is a front wheel drive vehicle so it's not a rear wheel drive like the
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transit it's a front wheel drive technically front-wheel drive does better in snowy conditions because the
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engine weight is directly on the tire and for snow traction
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having more weight on the tires helps traction for snow that's not necessarily
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that's not the same with mud okay so let me get back out of here and jamie can ask
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the next question safety mileage safety do these factor into your
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decision are are these vans pretty similar in their performance and safety
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so the whole old story of unreliable cars and stuff like that's kind of gone anything that's
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older than i said 2005 ish is going to be extremely reliable regardless of the
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mileage the car is 2005 or newer yeah really any car is going to be pretty good 100 000 miles
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if you're buying a van with 100 000 miles and it's like a fedex delivery van or like ups
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or something like that because fedex uses them amazon uses them these style vans
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you gotta remember all these vans do is they just get up in the morning throw
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stuff in the back they make deliveries and they come back they're regularly maintained oil changes
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tires and stuff like that they might have a couple dents and dings but yeah the engine reliability is pretty high so
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i would not take mileage into account as heavy as if you were in the mindset
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of buying a used car for your family at your home it's not the same with a van because
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cargo vans they're made everything every component is just a
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little bit tougher a little bit tougher for because it's what about harder in terms of the transit the
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sprinter the promaster what about safety is that
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something to consider in my opinion that's just my opinion they're all equal
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they have airbags they got anti-like brakes um
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yeah so here's a factor that's been you can tell a story about when
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looking for a van to convert availability is a factor maybe you can shed light on
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availability of a van yeah so right now as we're making this video
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vanderbilt availability is it is rare right now
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and it's confusing because a consumer it's hard for a consumer to
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go to a dealership and order a van right now
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and have actually get something on order because there's this word called allocation
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and what allocation means is it's pretty much your place in line
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compared to it's your place in line so obviously
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dealerships are going to have the first place in line certified upfitters may have the second place in line even
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professional van builders they might be third in line and then you ordering from your ford
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dealership might be fourth in line or something like that so
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allocation has a big allocation is the rule that everybody kind of plays by
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of who gets the van coming off the assembly line who who gets to have that
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and it's weird because i've caught a bunch of businesses i've gone to dealerships myself personally i've done
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the whole thing bought those two vans and
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there's really not a straightforward answer because for example the interior conversion kit that i'm putting in it's
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the adventure wagon interior conversion kit they actually got allocation for some mercedes
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vans which is that's really cool like that's super cool that they were able to get that but other van builders that i
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watch on youtube and they've had they're going they're a business but they've had to go on the right the route of more like a consumer
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purchases in the van so that's so odyssey owns these two vans but the way that i
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had to find them was i had to it probably took me four months maybe
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five months to find just those two vans last year the reason it was so hard was
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all the major dealerships had zero for sale i went to a dealership out of
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outside of charlotte north carolina and i pulled up and i'm smiling and i'm like what is going on and they had
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300 ford transits on their lot 300 white vans
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you're just like oh i'll just i'll walk in here buy a van
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every single one of those vans was already bought and paid for by fedex
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every single one of those 300 vans were just they just needed a place they were just
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waiting to get like the fedex stickers and have an outfit or put in the shelving for packages
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it all so get back to allocation hundreds and hundreds of vans i've all
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been allocated to fedex and amazon and all that stuff so
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thinking you're going to go to a dealership and get a van man that's so in the so that will be
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that will factor into okay what size you get budget but also budget might
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not help because you might have to change what you're looking for because of availability you
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might go through that example that i just showed you and you're like okay nick thanks i'm going to get the 144 i'm
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going to get the the four by four i get this and then so you get your piece of paper you're like this is what i want
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and then you have to completely change your mind because nope those are not available your first
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option not available your plan b not available well what's my plan c it's
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like so this could be a good segue yeah this so this could segue into
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pre-built do you buy pre-built or do you do diy what's how do you
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decide which road to go for that yeah so what i've been viewing on
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viewing is so my personal van that i drive
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it was it's a diy van i built it out and there's couples that are doing diy
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so they're personally buying the van it's obviously not a business or anything so they're financing the van completely like
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they're like they're buying a car just like they're buying a car um
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what's cool is if you do the personal financing you can actually like state farm is actually known right now for
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easily ensuring personal vans to be upfitted
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that's another topic we can talk about maybe i'll just do a quick blurb on it but imagine you got the van and you build it
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and then you didn't even think about oh yeah how am i going to insure this van because legally
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when you convert your van it is no longer passenger vehicle it is a it's
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it's considered an rv and if you get your van and you up fit
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the interior of it and you don't claim it as an rv it may not be cut when you get in a car
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accident it may not be covered because you were not up front with the insurance company to say
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okay i'm buying this van for the purposes of upfitting it
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and there's a process where you can say hey there's the van i'm going to turn it into this you got like an
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example picture and then you can do a progress build which is showing pictures of the van
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then when you're done with the van conversion a state farm for example will just flip a switch and it went from
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cargo van to rv the cool thing about that is if you do
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it right you've got documentation for what needs to be insured in the van and number two
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you have a lower premium on rvs they're cheaper than a
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than normal car insurance because the idea is that it's on the weekends you're driving it on the weekend it's
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not a daily driver but all those topics you can discuss with your insurance agent see i'm not a professional here
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i'm just someone who has highly researched all this so that when my customers want to buy a van say hey nick
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what do i do here and here or whoever's watching this video i can give you what i've
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researched so to help you out so with the diy you will have to do some work on getting it
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insured from a regular car cargo to a rv maybe talk about
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build price differences of diy imagine it can range from low to high and then the pre-built
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is more probably has a certain ceiling or maybe it doesn't tell me
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about budgets for those two so budget how people look at diy versus pre buying
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a pre-built like a revel gotcha so when i was an engineer there was a sign on this this one supervisor
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shop and it was a big old sign it was always funny because it was for the other departments who
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wanted help from him they had to read it every time they walked into a shop and he said if you want it
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if you want it good and fast it won't be cheap if you want it cheap and good it won't be fast
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and if you want it fast and cheap it won't be good use that for how you're going to
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approach it if you're doing a diy you can do it slow and good but it won't be fast and so that is my advice to diyers
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is you're going to be paid you need to be patient a typical di wire is going to take about a year to build their van so
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one year so you buy the van in a year you'll probably have it to where you would like it
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where people go to the pre-built option you get a lot of benefits to a pre-built
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option one depending on who you purchase it from there so i just wanted
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to stop here so it takes a year probably because you have a job in a life is that why that's why you're saying it takes a
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year yes and even if you had time devoted to it there's a learning there's a whole
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learning curve that's happening while you're building the van ah oh good sir because you can be just like
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like all of us where you can buy it off at amazon it gets your door in two days but amazon's not
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bad remember you can buy from the manufacturer through amazon just make sure that the
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seller is like battle born batteries or something make sure it's
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the seller the store seller is the company make sure you get it from the company okay sorry go back to your revel
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this is the pre-built pre-built so
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i got some words on the rebel i've been to a bunch of shows and stuff like that i've got to see it i haven't gotten to drive one but
33:59
i liked it yeah and uh the thing is has to do with quality so
34:07
when you get a pre-built van number one
34:12
you're having your your touch has like whatever your aesthetics are it's not going to be that it's going to
34:18
be whatever the you know company designed to be mass-produced
34:24
for scale pricing all that good stuff so you might have to hold back on
34:29
details and then do that later but so quality might be the issue where you can
34:34
get the van quickly but it might not be you might have to change a couple things to really make it your own which is okay you might want to
34:40
go that route because you're like a diy will have more personality yeah have more personality but buying the van
34:46
quickly uh this is where the economies of scale comes into play because pricing
34:54
availability even warranty work buying it from like winnebago they actually
34:59
have repair centers and i'm gonna go on a quick tangent
35:05
about that whole thing so me personally building these vans out here my philosophy is when you build
35:13
a van it is you're building a van for i'm building a van for you to take out
35:20
into the wilderness so there are no repair stores there's no
35:25
mechanics there's no garage so if you take one of my vans out like it's supposed to be
35:32
taken out into the wilderness you need to have the systems and components be up to par for that type of
35:39
environment such as lithium batteries that might have a battery heater to keep them warm so then
35:46
when you're snowed in and the solar panels are taking in that light that you can still charge your batteries
35:52
even though it's 20 degrees outside just for example so even though
36:00
vans that you may buy from a manufacturer have those warranty programs
36:05
god forbid you ever have to use that because if you're 200 300 miles out
36:10
in utah or you're up in canada you're going to like alaska or whatever the last thing you
36:17
need is some type of failure and what i've seen and these are just
36:23
youtube videos and just me researching all this stuff over the past two years there's a couple corners cut
36:28
maybe a little bit like electrical wiring pumps interior panels that are not like little grommets and stuff
36:35
breaking it's all these little things but you think if you put that much money into a vehicle i'm talking about other
36:42
not winnable specifically but that whole industry of the pre-built if you build your own van
36:48
i think you have a little more control of that if you buy your van from a professional van
36:54
builder that you're in contact with and you can grow with a project you'll really understand
37:01
how your van is built so that if a problem does arise
37:06
you have a little bit more you're a little bit more empowered to say hey nick walked me through this i know where
37:12
this goes i think we can fix this like this whereas winnebago
37:18
i'm not hating on winnebago it's just the videos i've seen still more to that direction there's a youtuber and he's
37:25
doing like a full review of it and he was actually speaking to one of the technicians in winnebago and we have
37:32
a video too when we toured a winnebago you do no we do from the oh yeah we did
37:39
from man wait there's there's a lot of adventure land there's a lot of stuff right adventure manager
37:47
adventure van we have a video check out that video i just want to be honest in what i've seen
37:52
because i think it's so important if if the company you're buying it from
37:57
again that brand that i keep talking about right now i don't want to keep using their name but if you go to pick it up and somebody
38:04
can't walk through every switch every fuse every like thing
38:10
with you there and they don't really understand it it's just like well this is kind of you know this is what it is
38:16
um that's a red flag if you're a hands-on person like me
38:21
if it breaks i'm just gonna fix it but if you're somebody who a normie like me
38:26
yeah like jamie for example he's gonna go out with his family and i'm gonna poke fun at jamie for a second so
38:32
let's just say he was the guy that drove a civic forever so now he's in a van so ford fusion before fusion okay so now
38:40
he's in uh a ford transit he's never driven a big van so that's the first thing that he's working on
38:46
he hasn't installed or replaced battery systems or water pumps that's the second thing he's
38:52
got his whole family he's out on the road and the whole reason he bought the vehicle was to have a good time with his
38:58
family but if you've and this is why like the professional van builder
39:04
builders that are across the us with these kind of small shops is you can be with the builder
39:11
and watch the progress builds like the videos like i make for example
39:17
and by the time you get your van you know how this was installed how this was installed where this product came from
39:23
you're more competent and comfortable versus the alternative might be less about how
39:30
to not fix things but what's going on it's that thing that doesn't exist anymore it's the relationship that whole
39:35
joke of the car dealership we're like oh we won't have a relationship with our customers it's not just
39:41
i don't think that's the definition they're using but what i'm saying is
39:47
with independent van builders you can you 100 can have that you can have that relationship so
39:54
the two or three months it takes to do the build you get progress updates you got three so it's kind of like you're in
39:59
between a diy pre-built being a custom van upfitter because yeah they get you
40:05
get some influence on the build as where a pre-build is already
40:10
set in stone and then not only that but there are also indep i guess we'll call them independent van builders like myself
40:17
where you can have a customer bring in a vehicle that maybe a partial build so
40:23
they're like hey nick i love this sink this is the sink i want i already went and bought my toilet i bought my water
40:29
tank but i don't know how to hook it up and then i can take it from there that's that relationship i'm talking about
40:36
because like a great example of this is uh humble road so he's he's got a
40:41
youtube channel he's a professional van builder and i see
40:48
through his videos that he has that relationship so that when things break a
40:53
van is a blank canvas you're creating something that's never been created before so there there are going to be
40:58
problems now they're not going to be huge problems they might just be like like a screw or
41:04
something that you and the client dreamed up in your head it's never existed in reality and you try it and
41:11
then maybe you have to tweak it after a road trip or something so the reason i'm harping on the whole
41:16
relationship thing is if everybody's on the same page going into it being like okay nick
41:22
i like this cool shower concept you design you're both on the same page that
41:28
it's a one-off design there might be some tweaks that have to happen after a year of it being on the road so i see that in his videos
41:34
the clients are really happy that that communication is open and then that feedback is important
41:41
because not only does it help the relationship but in the future it's like hey we made these few tweaks
41:47
because i got feedback from the four vans i got on the road that this works the best
41:53
stuff like that i gotta maybe we can i know each one of these topics are probably our hour or so
41:59
each week yeah just to wrap up the this call in
42:04
understanding how to choose you know the best van for your camper conversion where to look how do people find vans
42:11
any sites you can recommend or sites dealerships what
42:17
how do people find their van i'll tell you how i found these two vans because i think it's
42:23
the best way now okay that's in my case i need hollow shells of a van i don't want a prevail
42:30
pre-built fan obviously so we're looking for empty cargo vans yep so what i did is
42:37
i went to all the major dealerships first and nothing then the ones then i went to auto trader
42:45
car gurus and stuff like this and then you can find these because these are this is a rare these two vans
42:51
are very rare because at the moment well they're just rare in general
42:58
because of the build because number one they're 148 high roof
43:04
they're not extended high roof or 148 high roof that's the sought after van because it's not
43:10
huge in the rear end you can still park it in a parking space number two one of them
43:16
has the ecoboost turbocharged v6 so having a 148 high roof with the
43:22
turbocharged v6 that's rare what's ultra rare is having a 148 high roof
43:28
ecoboost all-wheel drive it's like you keep getting that and then
43:34
what makes the fan number one even more rare is that it's got the full technology package
43:41
and it has all real leather uh interior
43:47
you know all black how did you find how did you find where did you look for your van how did you find it
43:52
oh like i was saying auto trader car gurus these ad sites if you're looking for if you're a
43:59
customer looking for more of a pre-built van or something that's been already started
44:05
van life trailer van life trader rv trader is facebook
44:11
marketplace or craigslist or is that not recommended or i don't think those are helpful because
44:19
the problem with craigslist is sometimes the ad libs onto like forever so you're
44:25
basically looking at stuff and getting excited when there's a freshness that what no prob
44:30
maybe somebody's already bought it it's just the listing is just lived on and then van life trader
44:38
uh unless you know who's building it that's questionable because
44:43
what's nice is i bought these vans from the dealership so nobody else has owned these vans they're technically new so
44:49
those websites you listed look at the dealerships any other
44:54
if you're buying out if you're buying a van new or slightly used go to the dealership first you might spend more
45:00
money but the problem the but the benefit of that is its source you know how that van
45:06
has been come through the channels if you go on like auto trader cargurus
45:11
or craigslist or whatever or van life trader those channels it's probably a for sale
45:19
by owner i got these at i got there were two dealerships one is in ohio one was in
45:25
ohio and the other one was illinois i think and
45:31
the one in ohio was a normal-sized dealership and then the one in illinois was like a very small
45:38
dealership i think something like that and it was a little bit more of a manual process they had a handwritten
45:43
sales quote on an old-school type of paper they're really old-school sales guys it was carbon copy yellow oh it was
45:49
it was carbon now i'm not lying but i had next day air carbon copy stuff that i signed which was that's wow because
45:55
everything else everything else i've done is always you're on the internet clicking stuff yeah but these are rare in-demand vans
46:02
which is nice platform to start from but i'd say these are more of i would call it a higher end build just because of
46:07
the components that are going into it so the reason it's all-wheel drive the turbocharged v6 type of thing that
46:15
kind of goes with where my direction is whereas if you are a consumer
46:20
and you are on a budget we get back to that whole conversation of the ram promaster
46:26
or like used ford transit like a fedex band or something like that
46:33
got it i think we can wrap up today on how to choose the best fan for your
46:41
camper conversion nick i appreciate you sharing all these topics the website the
46:46
blog will be up probably maybe a week after this comes out or so but yeah these were
46:53
great great information but yeah if you're any other any other things you want to promote
46:59
mention no just um yeah check out the the van builder hq it's a resource there for you
47:06
to to learn about everything that i'm doing in the shop a bird's eye view of everything that's going on here
47:12
as far as how i'm building and installing things and really this again it's a resource so if you guys have any
47:18
questions send us those questions put them in the comments however you're seeing this video we answer all
47:23
questions we answer we'll make a video on every question and yeah but hope you guys enjoyed it and
47:30
i'll see you the next one [Music]
47:51
you
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