Project Eric(a): Part 5

Just one final post to give a bit more information about Eric(a) before we get into the nitty gritty of ripping apart and modifying (although if you watched the video tour at the end of the last post, you'll know most of this already).

Here are a few key stats, that we knew before we bought:

• (S)he's a Peugeot Expert Tepee Comfort (‘Comfort’ is the lower spec of the two versions of this model; we would have preferred the Leisure) in length L1 (the shorter of the two lengths available)
• 2 litre diesel engine
• 6.5 years old
• 18000 miles on the clock
• More than a full service history (5 main dealer service stamps in 18000 miles!)
• MOT until next February
• No significant MOT failures or advisories in its history

Based on the majority of other similar vehicles we’ve looked at, and the very limited photos I’d seen in the auction house’s catalogue, I also expected that:

• Eric(a) had been in private ownership as part of the Motability Scheme;
• the WAV modification had been carried out by Allied Mobility and was its ‘Independence’ model.

After taking delivery, it didn’t take much looking around to make me suspect that my first assumption was incorrect (it turned out that the second was too, but I didn’t find that out until a few hours later). This was the first clue…

Who needs instructions as to how to open a driver’s door?!

…but it wasn’t until we poked our heads inside that the clues started mounting up. The colour scheme didn’t shout ‘private vehicle’, nor did the head bumpers above all three rear doors, the grab handles, the emergency exit hammer and the fire extinguisher.

A quick look at the previous owner on the V5 (and Googling the company named) didn’t help confirm who had operated the vehicle, but then I looked at the Taxation Class, which I expected to be ‘Disabled’. It said: NHSV. We had unknowingly bought an ex-NHS* patient transfer vehicle, converted by O&H (a van-to-ambulance converter).

Not what we expected, but fortunately not something we found at all off-putting: the layout was as expected and one of the most striking things at first glance was how tidy this car was. Vehicles that go to auction are not tarted-up for sale, and some of them are in real states of filth, but aside from some crumbs on the passenger seat and something of a glitter explosion over the floor in the back, this one looked strikingly clean and tidy, with the only notable internal damage being some scuffs to the dashboard on the passenger side. It’s certainly in better condition than the few ex-Motability ones (that had been tarted-up for sale) we viewed back in November.

So far, so good. Now it was time to start the removal of the interior, hoping that didn’t throw up anything unexpected …

To be continued…

By the end of Tuesday all external door handle operating instructions (plus the ‘Diesel Only’ notice) had been removed and the glue residue cleared off. In doing that I noticed bits of glue residue from where neon chevrons had been removed from the tailgate – I decided to ignore that for now!

 (*As an aside, we’d considered a couple of ex-Council Expert Tepee WAVs that had the appeal of being the longer wheelbase version of the Expert. One we rejected on the basis of its tax band, and the other on the basis of its MOT history. It had repeatedly failed on major points, some of them notified as dangerous. So, whichever council had owned it had clearly been driving members of the public around in a dangerous vehicle, not just once or twice by almost every year. As I don’t know which council, I can’t name and shame them.)