Which van and how did I purchase it?
There are only really three vans on the market that can be turned into camper vans. The Mercedes Benz Sprinter van is a good choice, but I didn’t go that route because it was the most expensive and the hardest to find service on (both in my area and when on the road).
Ford and Dodge also make vans. I’ve owned Ford and Dodge cars in my past, and have been much happier with my Fords. So, I had a bias toward the Ford van.
The Ford Transit had all of the options that I was interested in, and it was very easy to find good YouTube videos on the upfit process. I took a test drive of a Transit van and liked how comfortable it was and how well it drove. I know that it would be easy to service it while on an adventure. So, I decided to try to buy one of these.
I started out trying to use the Costco car buying program, because when I investigated that service, it seemed to be an easy way to buy a vehicle for a fair price without too much hassle. However, the Costco service doesn’t extend to Ford commercial vehicles (which is what the Ford Transit van is). So, I had to work directly with the Ford dealer. As I wrote this blog, I went back to the Costco car buying website and I see that they now do support the Ford Transit cargo van – I’m glad they added it, even if it was a little late for my purchase.
I hadn’t purchased a new automobile since 2013, so I was worried that I was unaware of any new aspects of the car buying process. Specifically, what data is available for the car buyer to make an informed decision and negotiate a fair price. As I did for most of this van build, I went to YouTube and educated myself on the best process to buy a new car. I found many helpful videos, but thought the videos from CarEdge were the best. I also checked out the CarEdge website, but they didn’t provide any information on Ford Transit vans – I’m guessing it is because it is classified as a commercial vehicle. At least their videos were informative and helped me through the process.
I emailed three local car dealers in my area on December 2nd. I wanted to buy from a dealer who I would return to for service. I provided each with the specific details of what I wanted on my new van using the Ford.com website to build my van and select the options. I had seen enough van build videos to know what options that I needed to select for the van build, and I also knew what other options I wanted as the person who would driving the van.
Of course, once you send your specifications to a car dealer, they get back to you right away – like less than an hour. Unfortunately, the person who gets back to you is not a sales person, but the person who monitors the email traffic and they can’t help you buy a car – all they can do is put you in touch with a sales person. Here’s where it got tiresome.
One dealership contacted me about wanting to buy one of the new vans on their lot. They didn’t seem to care that the vans that they had in inventory did not even come close to meeting my specification. Once that didn’t work for them, they sent me a quote for the van that I wanted, but only provided the same MSRP cost that I could see on the Ford website. I asked them for their best quote and an “out the door” price. They pushed back on my request and didn’t seem to want to negotiate via email. And, I didn’t want to go into a dealership that wasn’t being transparent. So, they didn’t receive my business.
The second dealership took a long time to respond to my email response and it was the sales director who called me a couple of week into the process to ask how it was going. I told him that I hadn’t heard for anyone at their dealership since my first email to them. 30 minutes later my phone rang and it was one of the sales people. I explained, again, what I was looking for and he said that he would get me a quote. I’m still waiting for that…. Needless to say, I didn’t buy my van from that dealership either.
Huntersville Ford was very responsive to my email and I was in constant contact with the internet sales person as well as the sales person. They were open with their pricing and provided me with their dealer invoice cost to help with the negotiation. This is the dealership where I took my test drive to be sure the van was comfortable and easy to drive. They worked hard to answer all of my questions about the various options that were available on the van. We ran into a little delay because the new 2025 model year for the Transit van was just starting, so Ford was only taking orders for the 2025 even though their website only showed the 2024 model. Anyway, we powered through the issues and agreed to a price. I placed an order for the van on January 4th. About a month to place the order for the van.
I had been told by the first dealership that it would take three to six months to order a new Transit van, so that was what I was expecting. Of course, they were pushing me to buy an existing new van on their lot. I received an email from Ford on January 9th informing me that my van would be built the week of February 24th. Receiving that notice that it took less than two months to build my van just validated my decision to not do business with that first dealership. But now I started to get nervous about how much I had to do before the van arrived to be ready to start building right away. On the positive side, I was glad to have more time to work on the van before the hot summer months in North Carolina.