I contacted my insurance carrier for a quote an a van I was interested in and they quoted me their "pay out value"...and I used that as a negotiation point with the seller.
pricing is tough, all you can really do is watch the market and see what selling prices are on ebay....craigslist prices were all over the place and made no sense.
1st step though is figure out which brands and models have the features you need- or don't.
for instance we are both tall- so that means no sideways sleepers- rules out 1/2 the models.
just 2 of us + dog- that means no 2nd row seats we want something that uses that space better
models with drop floors, i kept tripping on and roadtrek charges a premium for this ( it adds to the manufacture costs)
chassis- I work on my own stuff- a gm layout is familiar to me and shares filters and stuff with our other vehicles. with a domestic gas powered van, you can get parts and service anywhere.
maybe not so with an import or diesel.
pay attention to MPG, and also features which are proven vs "experiments" such as heating/cooling/solar. some of the newer features are costly.
roadtrek has brochures and manuals for older models online
pleasure-way will email you pdf's
we looked at roadtrek, winnie, rialta, chinook and pleasureway models and took note of features and build quality and in the end bought a 2006 pleasure way lexor on a chev 3500 chassis-
it is just great 18 months in.
in terms of cost we paid less than 30K cash, the seller has started off asking over $40K and was motivated ( HOA so they had to renew yearly storage rental) they also has a spelling mistake in the listing heading which meant that it did not show up in a search...search for variations in spellings!
BTW the insurance value is still thousands less than what we paid...
Mike
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