Hey Team ….. here we go with our first blog post about our 2008 Renault Master Van.
Make sure to listen to the audio over on The Van Life Podcast which is where you can hear us chatting about our van, the build, and our adventures.
For a long time, we had been looking for “the van” and we had become a little frustrated with the lack of good vans at a reasonable price. So many vans that we looked at had severe mechanical problems or rust or just down and out abuse. Suddenly this van appeared on the selling site Gumtree and at first glance, the price seemed too good to be true. Vans at this price usually had big problems. I rang the young guy and he was very refreshingly open and honest about the van and its condition. He was a young tradie electrician and this had been his first work van and now he had upgraded and no longer needed the van. He was asking $5000 AUD (about $3500 US Dollars). When I asked why it was so cheap, he explained that it was in the middle of a paddock on his farm wayyyy out in the countryside and he wanted it gone. After a bit of negotiation, we settled on $4500 (about $3100 US Dollars) cash if we came and got it without delay. Well, when we got to his farm we could see why nobody was making the trip ….. it was out in woop woop and down a long dirt road. At first glance, the van looked dirty and a real project but Deb and I could see past that and saw the chance to get our van. For the princely sum of $4500 it was ours. We fired it up and after clearing the windscreen of spiders and cobwebs and dirt, we headed it in the direction of home. 167kms later it was back in our driveway and it had made the trip without missing a beat … we were so excited.
The first job was to wash and clean it after it had been standing for so long in that paddock. Three washes with a broom and truck wash and the exterior was looking pretty good for a 14-year-old trade van that had seen plenty of action. Next up was to throw some fresh paint on the rims and install some cheap plastic wheel trims and hey presto ….. it was a very different-looking van. The next job was where Deb (Mrs Coach) really shines ….. interior cleaning and detailing. Deb is a gun and soon had the cab area looking flipping awesome. So far during the cleanup, we have found plenty of loose change including a $20 note (which we took back to the previous owner) …. heaps of bugs and spiders and a family of green tree frogs which now have a new home in our garden.
We will leave this post here and in the next one we will talk about the first part of our build …… the floor !!
The van as it arrived home in our driveway.
After a wash and wheel paint
…. and some wheel trims.