We bought a used Toyota Estima from year 2000 which had a pretty good mileage (127.000 km). At that time we didnt new that this was REALLY good but I will comment on this in one of the following posts. Travelling nz in a van was not an invention by us. Generations of travelers before us already did the same thing which means that there is a big market for these old, cheap campervans. Most of them get sold by their last owners. But buying an used car from another traveler that is leaving the country soon can be a big risk. You never know what you get and it is so easy to buy a piece of crap. That is why we decided for a car dealer in Auckland called Backpacker Car World. The cars they sell are mainly family cars which have never been used as a camper before. Depending on how much you want to spend they are more or less transformed into a real camper car. They do mechanical checks and care for the warranty of fitness (wof) aswell. We paid 5.900 nz$ which was ok but not exactly a garbain. It was actually above our budget but we wanted to have security and thought that it would pay out at the end.
