Vans for sale

As with buying a car, you can buy a van through the ‘trade’ or privately. Unlike cars, there are relatively few ‘private’ sales of vans as the vans are usually owned by businesses. Companies tend to focus their time on doing what they do, rather than spending hours trying to save a couple of pounds in selling their vans themselves.

Going down the dealer route you have two options when buying a new van.

Franchised Dealers – New Vans

The traditional method of buying a van is to roll up to your local franchised van dealers and have a look at what’s on offer. You may be able to borrow the demonstrator for a day or so to see if the van is really right for you. It gives you a good chance to check out how the dealer operates, especially if you are going to buy your parts and servicing there.

Depending on the manufacturer you are interested in, your van dealer will belong to a car franchise, a truck franchise or be totally stand alone. The main brands that are linked to the truck side of the business are the three-pointed star of Mercedes-Benz and the industrial arm of the Fiat Group, Iveco.

The van ranges of these two manufacturers are not broad – Mercedes offer the medium-sized panel van the Vito and its larger brother the Sprinter, whilst Iveco only offer the Daily panel van between 2.6 and 7 tonnes GVW. These larger vans are best suited to the truck workshops.

Don’t think that because the vans are serviced in truck workshops that the service is not good. The opposite is the case. Truck operators demand outstanding service. Most operate 24 hours, turn the vehicles around in super fast time and charge lower hourly rates. The main downside is that they are thinner on the ground than your typical car franchise. If you have one close by, then they are a sound bet. The majority of vans are, however, sold by car dealerships. The top two UK players, Ford and Vauxhall sell their Transits, Rangers, Connects, Vivaros, Combos, Movanos etc. from their standard retail locations. Add to this list Citroen, Peugeot, Fiat, Toyota and Nissan and you will see that the chances are high that you will be buying your van from a car dealer.

Many of these van manufacturers do understand that the needs of a van operator are different to a car customer and have therefore put together a core network within their network that specialise in commercial vehicles. Citroen are the most recent to brand this network, ‘business class’. It usually means that the dealer has to have a dedicated van specialist, a number of demonstrators and a beefed up workshop which is open for longer hours to handle the largest of the vans.

Volkswagen are the only manufacturer to sell their commercial vehicles as a separate brand as the cars. Sure they have the same logo and are recognisable as being from the same product line as the cars. Most Volkswagen Commercial vehicle franchises are completely separate from the car dealership. This means that the whole business focus is on vans – the VW van range encompasses the Caddy, Transporter and Crafter panel vans plus the recently launched Amarok double cab pick up. VW are spending plenty on advertising and on the improvement of their dealer network which shows that they are confident in the quality of their product.

The franchised van dealers will all offer the manufacturer’s finance offerings which, in recent times, have been highly competitive as the other financial institutions have pulled up the drawbridge to loans to small businesses. Time the purchase of you van right and you could walk away from a franchised dealer with a bargain, especially if you tie the purchase of the new van into a repair and maintenance agreement.

Van Brokers – New Vans

There are a great many companies that can offer you a selection of new vans from a range of van manufacturers and then usually offer you a choice of finance deals. These companies are not true van dealers – many of them will never see the vans that they sell, but they may be able to get you the van you are looking for at a lower price than a franchised van dealer.

It is certainly worth contacting the van leasing and finance companies – many advertise their cheap van leasing deals at www.Vanlocator.co.uk. Usually these companies will not sell you a van for outright cash – it will have to be on some kind of finance agreement. There are obviously exceptions to this – search for a new van at Vanlocator and you can sort by the best weekly or monthly equivalent repayment price.
You won’t be able to take a van out on test drive or borrow a demonstrator to see how it fits in with your business. If you want to do this you should head to a franchised dealer.

Independent Used Van Dealers

There are thousands of used van dealers up and down the country – some of them reliable and trustworthy – whilst others are less so. How can you tell a good one from a bad one?

Check how long they have been in business – if you have the facility run a credit check to see if their information is correct – the company may have been operating from a location for a long time, but has it gone into administration ten times in this history?

Ask for contact details for some existing satisfied clients – especially if you are buying the van from far afield. Follow the contacts up and don’t just ask wheat went right, you have to find out how well the company performed if something went wrong.

What do their facilities look like? If they have workshops on site are they tidy and clean? Have the salespeople worked for the company for a while?

Read the section on paying for a van, as you need to make sure that you can take the van away, but you don’t send lots of money prior to visiting a used van dealer.

Franchised Used Van Dealers

Many franchised dealers also have a used van offering. Many do it well, offering part exchanges that they have taken in, plus the vehicles that return from the manufacturer’s finance deals. Bargains can be had – look for ex-demonstrator vans and ones that have been pre-registered, (usually registered to hit manufacturer sales targets and therefore still brad new, but the clock is ticking and the vans depreciating, as they are one owner vans already. If they are not sold before they get past December, February or August, then they will devalue, so the dealers are keen to move them on.

Make sure that the dealer does know something about vans – if they have just one or two in stock, then they are more than likely playing at it and may actually know little more than you about buying and selling a van.

Van Auctions

If you think you know exactly what van you want, or your really don’t care then you can head for the van auctions – there are plenty across the country. Large national companies such as British Car Auctions and Manheim have van sales most weeks at all of their auction sites across the country. There are other sites, such as Protruck, Commercial Vehicle Auctions, (CVA), Fleet Auction Group, Wilsons and Shoreham Auctions that have regular van auctions.

Most of the auction companies now publish their auction stock on their websites, although you will not know how much the vehicle will be until you get there on the day. And don’t forget that there is a buyer’s fee to be paid on top of the hammer price. If you get carried away and spend over your budget, then the situation will get worse if you have to find and extra 5% on top!

You must also make sure that you have the means to pay for the van and take it away. Auction companies like to get the vans in and out, not having them sitting around their sites getting in the way. If you leave it there too long, you may find yourself facing a storage bill.

The best way is to use a debit card – make sure you have the funds in your bank account and contact your bank in advance to clear the transaction. Company cheques are no use unless you have an account with the auction company and cash is not the best, unless your van costs just a few thousand pounds. Credit cards are not the best, as they charge a percentage on the deal. If you are hoping to finance the van then think again, as the finance companies like you to buy from a reputable dealer.

You could be driving away the same day in your new van – but don’t let that over excite you – set your budget and stick to it. If the vans you were after go for too much money or were not as good as you hoped, be prepared to walk away and chalk the day off work up to experience. Don’t buy any old van just because you feel as though you have wasted a day otherwise.

If you know little about vehicles and vans in particular, you may be best controlling the blood pressure and taking a trip to your local dealer.

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