Van conversion from a minibus to a campervan

New website/new name

Welcome back to my travel journal. Earlier this year, I migrated all of my content from the various websites I ran into one, mainly because I wanted to streamline all of my writing in one place and not prioritise one form of content over the other. My Travel journal was previously called A Wandering Hippy, happily renamed here as Tina’s Travel Journal.

Campervan conversion overview

My last post on our campervan conversion covered the basics of what we did, and it was always my intention to do a van tour and an overview of costs following on from this post – https://tinaorourke.com/alice-our-new-campervan-conversion/.

Our wee Missy

Apart from migrating the website, we also focused most of our attention on our wonderful little Springer Missy, who had battled cancer for nearly two years and finally lost to old age on the 27th of March of this year. Because she was such a massive part of our lives, I found it hard to look at videos/content we had created around the campervan until now.

We miss her like hell but also want to celebrate her life and incredible journeys with us.

Following on

Returning to the camper, we officially transferred the minibus to a campervan on the logbook in January of this year. I will go through that process alongside the conversion costs in this post. I will also include a van tour we recorded last September when Missy was still with us. Alongside three YouTube shorts of the build created from our Instastories

Campervan journey

Before I start, though, I have one small caveat. Your conversion journey will be different to ours. Costs, the people you deal with, the van you get, and the garage you use will all lead to a different outcome, so please only take this information as a guideline, not as gospel. There is so much information out there, particularly around the logbook transfer, and it can be pretty intimidating. A van conversion is stressful, but everything will be worth it in the end.

Campervan conversion costs

We bought an Opel Vivaro 2007 minibus previously used as a taxi. Immediately after, we took it to our mechanic, and there was a lot of eye-rolling when we arrived. Followed by conversations about diesel engines and injectors failing, particularly in the model of the van we purchased. Here I will cut a long story short, the most significant amount of money we spent has been on the maintenance of the van and sorting out the multitude of problems it came with. We quickly discovered once you go down the rabbit hole, there comes a point financially, you have to keep going or be prepared to be significantly out of pocket. And yes, the injector eventually went a year and a half into us having the van, and it was fixed. Diesel engines!!!

The van cost us €3,200.

The maintenance costs easily cost the price of the van and more. But they are the ongoing costs of wear and tear.

All of the supplies to do the conversion, including electrics, cooker/sink, carpet, batteries, inverter, plugs, switches, lights, table, wood, skylight, floor, tiles, fixtures, and fittings, came to a total of €2,994.93.

We did all the work, so the only external labour cost was fitting and cutting the floor and side panels. Labour costs €200

The total cost to this point was €6,394.93

I want to emphasise that the van maintenance costs would be close to that over the two years.

Logbook transfer

With all the work done, the next step was to transfer the use from Minibus to Campervan on the logbook. This reduced the road tax costs (where we live in Ireland) to €102 and increased the van’s value.

SQI Cert

Step 1 – an SQI-certified engineer has to assess the work done and sign off on the quality of it. It has to fulfil a series of functions to qualify as a campervan. There has to be somewhere to cook, sleep, sit and have storage. There also needs to be ease of movement inside the van. This requirement was essential when planning the design layout because our van has a low roof. We booked the engineer, who took about an hour to go through the van. Initially, he had reservations because of the low roof, but it worked out ok due to the standard of the work and the layout. He went away, filled out the needed documents, and dropped them back the same day.

SQI cost €200

Receipts for the build

Step 2: All receipts listed above had to be organised and filed.

Photos

Step 3: We had to print photos of the finished conversion. They included the cooking area, bed (fully pulled out), sitting area with the table, storage, looking into the van from the back and the side, and pictures of the outside.

Form for Revenue

Step 4: Alan downloaded the return form for Revenue.ie, filled it in and posted it, including the original SQI cert, receipts, and photos. (Alan also kept a copy of all the original documents if needed) Over a week later, we received a letter from Revenue confirming the vehicle’s change of use. At this point, there could be a VAT charge. Our mechanic (who does camper conversions) had previously told us there would be no charge as it was a minibus/taxi. Thankfully, this proved to be true.

Tax office

Step 5: We then took the form to the tax office, paid the new tax and received the disk immediately. Note – keep a copy of the form received from Revenue because the tax office takes the one you get back, and you will need it for the insurance company. 

Tax cost €102

Insurance

Step 6 – The next step, Insurance. As we previously had a campervan, Alan had an account with Dolmen Insurance, so we insured with them. We also decided to use the van as our primary vehicle.

Insurance cost for the year €775

CRVT

Step 7: Book the campervan for a CRVT, a road-worthy certificate given for a year. We got the cert backdated to the transfer on the logbook, and hey presto, we had a campervan.

CRVT cost €80

So, would we do it again?

After the entire process, absolutely not. A few months later, we began to consider it again, but with a bigger van. If we don’t watch, it could become a little bit addictive this campervan converting. We will have to wait and see.

Video tour of our Campervan

Van Build Shorts 3

Please click on the full-screen option to view the Shorts videos.