Here by Chance...

Hello One and All,
And very happy to be here: all being well be picking up a new Symbol Auto next week (Hooray!).  I'm a seriously ancient person and the van is a retirement present to myself.  I wanted a 5.4 metre automatic van conversion, and found a new Vantage Med auto in Leeds last summer - planning to finance the deal by selling a property.  The sale fell though, and it was not until COVID-19 lockdown that the house found a buyer.  By this point I'd discovered the AS Symbol, and located two new automatic vans built and ready for sale.  The second day that the dealers were back in business shot off to buy one of them ... so entirely by very lucky chance that I'm now looking forward to picking up the AS van.
Lucky because the Symbol suits me really well, and luckier because it has the new auto gearbox.  It will be my first campervan, and camping in England will be a new and different experience.  I spent more than three decades at the other side of the world, and have been a keen camper, but sleeping in vans rather than campervans and mostly free camping in very high mountain country.  I've been used to suddenly taking it into my head late on a Friday or Saturday night to set off, and just pointing the vans at the mountains.  Having to plan ahead (UK style) doesn't seem like as much fun ...  But playing with all the gadgets on the new fan should definitely be fun...

Hi 
Welcome to the forum from sunny,very warm Bridington 
Boaby

Hello & welcome from S/Yorks.

Hello and welcome to this most friendly and informative forum. 

Welcome, K.

We've almost decided to change to an auto Symbol as well and it's been reserved for us pending the final decision today. I wonder if it's the second one of the pair you discovered?

Enjoy your new van.

Tinwheeler wrote:Welcome, K.

We've almost decided to change to an auto Symbol as well and it's been reserved for us pending the final decision today. I wonder if it's the second one of the pair you discovered?

Enjoy your new van.

The two that I found were in Evesham and in Kent .... mine's the Evesham one.    (Not the 6 metre Symbol Plus, tidgy 5.4 metre vans.)
I'm guessing that you've been up close and personal with an actual van.  The Symbol is small but beautifully formed, but small is the operative word, and storage is very limited.  Mind you, it is altitude-friendly, with plenty of headroom, including in the shower, and in double-bed mode just big enough for a six-footer.  
The Symbol has a special virtue, for me at least ...  She who brings joy into my days is a small but beautifully formed person of the Japanese persuasion: the long and the short of it is we will be able to make up a double bed length-ways along the van, by setting up as singles, but also putting in the centre infill cushions.  This makes an asymmetrical bed long enough for her tiny frame on the offside and extra long for me on the nearside.

I've been happily acquiring all sorts of toys to go with the van - supply hoses, Colapz fresh water system and waste water pipes, Thule tie down straps for the awning so on.  Later maybe get some Thule side panels to make the awning a little more usable in British weather - anyone used these? 
 
Booked four nights away (two each at different Caravan Club sites) for the week after next to get to know the van and to get some experience of site camping in the UK.  Not at all happy about sharing kazis or showers while COVID-19 is around, so have booked serviced pitches ....  Sadly the aforementioned She will not be coming - she's in Japan at the minute and COVID-19 has us apart.  There's hardly any Coronavirus in Japan compared to the UK - there have been no cases at all in her town.  What with that, compounded by the inconvenience of two weeks quarantine each way, she's unlikely to come over this summer.  All other things being equal I reckon I'll go back to Japan in September - after the wicked summer heat and humidity - so the next camping that we will be able to do together will probably not be in the shiny new AS conversion, with all its bells and whistles, but in the almost totally unequipped sixteen year old Honda van...

The only thing I'd mention is that you need to seriously think about side panels for a wind out awning. In my experience they are OK for a caravan, which tends to stay awhile in one place, but they can be a pain to fit and remove if you find you want to move on quite regularly, or go sightsseing/shopping. Even in circumstances where you stay a few days, a proper drive away awning can be a better option. The wind out awnings are really only useful as sun shades and even then only when there's not much wind about. We've used ours to sort of demark our dog retaininng corral, but in poor weather it has to be wound in.

Ours is currently in Surrey, Kyan. It’s a Marquis special. Yes, the 5.4m. We've not seen the actual van but have poked around others and test driven an auto. The new auto box being the main reason for the change. 

We have all the gear we need - in fact, probably too much as this is another downsizing move.

I think I may have seen you on the CAMC forum

My experience, over 14 years of motorhome and caravanning is, for goodness sake stop buying stuff. Most hardly gets used and is a waste of money. Worse still it cluttered up your van and makes you dissatisfied with it because you haven't got enough room. So you crystallize an enormous loss in depreciation and start the cycle all over again with a bigger new van.

STOP

Be satisfied with what you have, whatever it is, it's enough. Though here I'll allow those gaining additional children in the herd to purchase more berthage due to birthage.

I am with you SDA...one main reason we never go to the motorhome shows. Even going without a credit card does not work as you can get home and purchase on line.  We have finally mastered the minimalist approach as when we recently changed our van to the Nuevo it only took less than an hour empty single hand.

steamdrivenandy wrote:My experience, over 14 years of motorhome and caravanning is, for goodness sake stop buying stuff. Most hardly gets used and is a waste of money. Worse still it cluttered up your van and makes you dissatisfied with it because you haven't got enough room. So you crystallize an enormous loss in depreciation and start the cycle all over again with a bigger new van.

STOP

Be satisfied with what you have, whatever it is, it's enough. Though here I'll allow those gaining additional children in the herd to purchase more berthage due to birthage.

Zen and the Art of Small Metal Boxes?