Hello all,
I have been lurking for a bit so I thought I'd finally say hi to everybody. I bought a 2015 XLT Van in March of this year. The van had a little higher miles than I wanted (108k miles) but it was local-ish and seemed to be well maintained. I bought it from an automotive shop that used it for an in-town roadside assistance vehicle. It was very dirty but in good shape and drove well. I paid $8,000 for it.
My plan is to clean it up, use it as a daily driver and slowly convert it to a micro camper. I bought this over a pickup since my commute is about 60 miles a day and a truck would kill me in fuel costs. I've already cleaned all the decals and residue off of the exterior. I pulled the entire interior out except the dash and scrubbed everything. It was FILTHY and smelled pretty terrible. When I pulled the carpet out, I discovered the van was infested with cockroaches, which was a nice surprise (yay Florida!). I have all of the interior reinstalled now but had to throw away the rubber cargo mat because it was contaminated with ATF and was moldy on the underside. I bought a Bedrug kit from Amazon for $50 (no way was I paying $200+ for a piece of carpet). It will be a slow moving project.