How to Buy a Step Van for RV Conversion

Diesel vs Gas: unless you plan on driving on flat land or not hauling much weight, diesel is always a better option for fuel milage and power. If going with diesel, remember the DEF requirement for fuel additive starts in year 2010. Diesel maintenance is about 50% more than a gas vehicle, but they are about twice as durable, so you should require repairs less often (if you maintain your vehicle properly).

Length: look for “14 foot” step vans. step vans are advertised based on the cargo size from behind the drivers seat to the rear door. a 14 ft step van is 22 ft bumper to bumper and 22 foot is the length of a standard parking space.

Rear Door: look for step vans with rear swing doors (roll up doors are difficult to insulate and you loose headroom).

Roof/Ceiling: look for step vans with a non-fiberglass ceiling.

Rust: Grumman Olsen or Morgon Olsen step vans have all aluminum boxes for zero rust and ultra light weight vehicles. Be wary of vehicles from the North-East USA (the rust belt).

Cummins Engines: Cummins diesel engines are built for 1 million miles in “light use” vehicles and 500k miles in “heavy use” (commercial vehicle maintenance and durability is based more on the type of use rather than odometer readings).

Hard vs Light Use: FedEx, UPS and other parcel delivery vehicles are less desirable because of “hard use” and have a lifespan of about 300k-400k miles with the Cummins engine, whereas plumber or mechanic repair vehicles are “light use” and and are typically good for a million miles

Air Conditioning: AC is not common in step vans but can be added

Noise: Step vans are often loud to drive (empty metal boxes with little or no acoustic insulation (it is relatively easy to insulate them with the hardest parts being the pocket doors or rear roll up door

Shopping: great places to look for step vans are at commercialtrucktrader.com and using a craigslist global meta-crawler like www.searchtempest.com. In larger cities, you can also find step vans sold at local fleet auctions for commercial vehicles.