Bongo Fury

Well found another local Bongo on facebook yesterday and did a viewing, its a 2.5TD with 98k on the clock and was imported three years ago, 97reg.
I crawled under it before the seller even got there as it was his lunchtime from work, its very clean underneath and has had a pro underseal job on the sills from import as well as clear waxoyl on the rest.

The owner has had it from import, its had a side conversion, a poptop roof compartment with solar panel leisure battery and comes with a drive away awning, mem foam mattresses for up top and MF toppers for the seats, also what he said was a thermal liner for the popup and all at a decent price compared to a lot I've seen on the bay. As he had to get back to work I only got to drive it around the block, not even half a mile but everything appeared to work, so returning to night to hand over the cash after a decent test drive.

Like I said I've only chugged around the housing estate and as its my first drive in one I've no idea of the performance, any tips on my extended test drive and what to expect from the van would be appreciated, cheers Hazzo

Look, if it's not rusted and the cooling system is in decent shape and working well there's not too much more that can go catestrophically wrong and render the whole vehicle uneconomical to repair.

The fuel injection pumps are a very expensive replacement £500+, if that's leaking that's worth haggling on.

OK Alkers, I'll check that as we didn't have time the yesterday, we did haggle him down a little but after we got home our kid decided he wanted all the equipment plus drive away awning so told him we'd meet his price, he has had a lot of work done during his ownership and the van is pretty rust free where it matters most otherwise I'd not be prepared to pay what he's asking for a 25 year old van. cheers Hazzo

best of luck!

Find a good mechanic who knows their way around a Bongo. Alkers is correct - there isn't that much to go wrong, but they're getting a bit old now and they do need some TLC. If you're not up for taking care of it yourself, have someone on call who can.

Found a bloke with a garage 50 miles away in Thirsk, 'the bongo king' according to someone else on the forum, fifty miles the other way is the 'Bongo barn', I'll use either of these if I can't do the job myself. My main problem in this house is due to being on a hill with a heavy gradient I'm limited to ramps to raise the bongo for undercarriage work of any sort other than removing an oil filter so I need to sort some decent ones out.