1999 34k Miles for sale on eBay :-)

[SeaQuinn]

No affiliation here but giving folks that are looking a heads up that there is a pretty nice rig for sale on eBay. Good luck

[nvestysly]

I looked at the eBay listing for the van. Looks like the seller did a good job describing the vehicle and including plenty of pictures to show the condition. As of today (Thursday 5/12/2016) the current bid is $11,100 and the reserve has not been met. I'll be curious to watch this auction and see the final price. Best wishes to the seller and hope the van finds a good home.

[nvestysly]

There are just under two days remaining on the auction for this 1999 B190 and the price is up to $24,999 and the reserve has not been met. Somehow that surprises me. Yes, it's a low mileage vehicle and appears to be in very good condition. However, it is just a camper van. If it had less than 1000 miles I might believe a "collector" of some sort would be interested in buying the vehicle. Or if it had every upgrade ever known to be applied to a B190 I might find the current auction price made sense.

How much is a buyer willing to pay for low mileage? How many dollars does one pay for every mile below a certain limit? Common miles/year for a regular vehicle is in the range of 12k. So a 15 year old vehicle might have 180k miles. Camper vans typically have less than that per year- maybe only 6k per year. So that adds up to 90k miles for a 15 year old van. So how much would you pay for every mile less than 90k? If my 90k mileage guess is in the ballpark and the van listed on eBay is 36k miles then somebody is paying significantly for the fact that this van is 54k less miles than "normal." Once again, how much will a buyer pay for that? At the current price of $24,999 there are apparently buyers willing to pay nearly $0.10 for every mile less than 90k. I'm basing that on similar 1999 vans that have been listed for $20,000 or less

I guess a similar question could be asked regarding high mileage. How much does a buyer subtract for mileage over 90k for a van like this?

In the car/truck world this question is answered by NADA, KBB, Edmund's and others. In the RV world is a bit more nebulous. NADA, KBB and Edmund's don't have large amounts of data for RV sales. There were approximately 1000 B190s build over a 10-year period so data is not easy to obtain.

[stomper18]

nvestysly what do you think this particular B190 on Ebay is worth?
I tend to agree with you that 25K is a lot to pay for any camper van, especially one that is 17 year old. Should it be closer to 20K?
I'm just trying to understand the value of these vehicles for my own education. I bought the 1999 that was sold on this site a couple months ago.
I'd be interested in your opinion.

There are just under two days remaining on the auction for this 1999 B190 and the price is up to $24,999 and the reserve has not been met. Somehow that surprises me. Yes, it's a low mileage vehicle and appears to be in very good condition. However, it is just a camper van. If it had less than 1000 miles I might believe a "collector" of some sort would be interested in buying the vehicle. Or if it had every upgrade ever known to be applied to a B190 I might find the current auction price made sense.

How much is a buyer willing to pay for low mileage? How many dollars does one pay for every mile below a certain limit? Common miles/year for a regular vehicle is in the range of 12k. So a 15 year old vehicle might have 180k miles. Camper vans typically have less than that per year- maybe only 6k per year. So that adds up to 90k miles for a 15 year old van. So how much would you pay for every mile less than 90k? If my 90k mileage guess is in the ballpark and the van listed on eBay is 36k miles then somebody is paying significantly for the fact that this van is 54k less miles than "normal." Once again, how much will a buyer pay for that? At the current price of $24,999 there are apparently buyers willing to pay nearly $0.10 for every mile less than 90k. I'm basing that on similar 1999 vans that have been listed for $20,000 or less

I guess a similar question could be asked regarding high mileage. How much does a buyer subtract for mileage over 90k for a van like this?

In the car/truck world this question is answered by NADA, KBB, Edmund's and others. In the RV world is a bit more nebulous. NADA, KBB and Edmund's don't have large amounts of data for RV sales. There were approximately 1000 B190s build over a 10-year period so data is not easy to obtain.

[nvestysly]

nvestysly what do you think this particular B190 on Ebay is worth?
I tend to agree with you that 25K is a lot to pay for any camper van, especially one that is 17 year old. Should it be closer to 20K?
I'm just trying to understand the value of these vehicles for my own education. I bought the 1999 that was sold on this site a couple months ago.
I'd be interested in your opinion.

My first reaction is "I don't know." When the van was at $24,999 and the reserve had not been met my imagination was running wild. It appeared the sky was the limit. The van ultimately sold for $25,000. In some ways that price does not seem unreasonable although it might be a new record. In the end, a vehicle is worth what a buyer will pay. It's all about a buyer and seller finding each other.

My wife and I will likely list our 1998 B190 for sale very soon. Thus, our keen interest in the recent eBay auction. We've enjoyed using the van but it was never really in our plan to own a van. We originally purchased the van with the intention of re-selling it to my wife's sister. We made several upgrades to the van to make it handle better and added electrical upgrades too. I don't think those upgrades were present on the eBay van. Turns out my wife's sister doesn't want the van although she did enjoy the few trips she took in the van. The selling price of the low-mileage van on eBay gives some credence to the price we are considering for our 1998.

So back to your question. $25,000 may be about the right price. Some vans of similar vintage (1998/1999) have sold for less but my memory says they had a few issues and a "normal" amount of mileage. I think a good quality, reasonable mileage van of the 1998/1999 vintage is worth quite a bit more than the earlier models that had the V-8 engine. I've driven Ford trucks with the V-8 engine and in my opinion the V-10 in the 1998/1999 vehicles is much smoother and more responsive than the V-8. I'm sure there are others that feel differently.

on edit: I neglected to mention location... two vans of the same vintage, same quality, etc. but one is near me and easily seen in person and one is several states away or perhaps across the country - the van near me is "worth" more to me.

[skater]

In addition to what nvestysly said, the other way to think about it is that you can't buy a new Class B motorhome for under, what? $100,000 now? When you think of it that way, even $25K seems like a great deal.

I haven't checked out the ad, but a '99 with 34,000 miles, if it's in great shape, $25K doesn't seem ridiculous to me. It's definitely the highest I've seen one go since we started this site, but it's also the newest year and has few miles.

[nvestysly]

Hmm... don't know what happened but the seller has re-listed this van for sale. I guess that means the previous deal didn't go through for some reason. The current bid is $9,300 with 4+ days remaining in the auction. Once again, the reserve has not been met.

[nvestysly]

About 8 hours remaining on the current auction for this van and the price is at $20,100. The reserve has not been met.

[stomper18]

Anyone see what the winning bid was for this van?

[nvestysly]

Anyone see what the winning bid was for this van?

The auction ended at $22,200 and the reserve was not met. On the surface that means the van did not sell. I'm not sure of all the eBay rules - I think the seller has the option to reconsider whether they're willing to accept the highest bid. I'm still curious why the previous $25,000 sale didn't go through.

[nvestysly]

When I first became aware of this van on eBay I added it to my "watch" list. First the van sold but the deal was not completed for some reason. The second time the bids did not reach the reserve. Now the van is listed for the third time. This has been going on since mid-May. In a few days the seller will have been attempting to sell this van for one month.

One month is not an incredibly long time and if you're trying to obtain a premium price for a used vehicle I guess you have to prepare yourself to have the vehicle on the market so a wide variety of buyers see the vehicle. eBay certainly exposes the vehicle to a large number of buyers.

1) Question one. Is it common for a vehicle to be listed three times on eBay?

We recently sold our 1998 B190. We listed it via several outlets including B190.com and Craigslist. We didn't use eBay or RV Trader because we wanted to minimize the need to deal with long-distance buyers. Ultimately our buyer was local and came to us via Craigslist. We had several other people expressing serious interest in the van. We sold it in two weeks. We listed it for a premium price but it included several items that made it ready to camp on day one - a tool kit, all sewer hoses and water hoses, a small portable heater, a full tank of gasoline and full tank of propane, as well as maintenance items such as wash and wax, microfiber wash mitt, storage bins and lots of other extras. We didn't receive our asking price but the final price was only 8% less than we were asking.

2) So my second question related to this van on eBay... How long do you list a van for sale (with an apparent high reserve price) before you finally just sell the darn thing?

[nvestysly]

1st auction - $25,000 - the reserve was not met but was adjusted to accept the $25,000 bid. However, the sale did not go through for some reason.

2nd auction - $22,200 - the reserve was not met

3rd auction - $20,600 - the reserve was not met

Hmmm.... I see a trend here. Maybe the seller needs to try a different approach.