Mercedes Sprinter 313 LWB High Roof 2WD Self Build Campervan

**2012 Mercedes Sprinter 313 CDI | Approximately 195k miles | MOT expired (will renew for full price)**

We’re reluctantly selling our Sprinter after five fantastic years. Upgraded from a VW T5 in May 2020 to get more space for our growing family, and it’s taken us everywhere – from sub-zero camping trips to summer escapes – with complete reliability. Only selling because we’ve moved into a larger expedition truck for long-term travel.

## The Van

2.1L turbo diesel with 6-speed manual – bombproof engine. 2WD rear wheel drive. Had it professionally remapped, carbon cleaned and EGR blanked by Dan at RH Tuning (+51hp, +95Nm). This has completely transformed the vehicle – cruises very happily at proper motorway speeds (if you can put up with the noise of the mud tyres!). An additional modification is the addition of a Pioneer Apple CarPlay head unit.

MOT ran out in March – not renewed due to use of new camper, but I’ll stick a fresh 12-month one on for the full asking price.

## Living Setup

**Sleeping:** Fixed bed to the rear over a garage area – this can be removed by one person in around 5 minutes to allow for carriage of tall/bulky items. Alternatively the bed hinges in the middle to allow more room to manoeuvre/carry big things – found this particularly useful when carrying motorbikes/mountain bikes for strapping down without removing the bed or banging heads.

Additional bed is made up by lowering the dinette table and placing a small mattress across the seats – this works well for a child but wouldn’t be big enough for an adult.

**Kitchen:** Fantastic long kitchen which utilises shallow IKEA carcasses with plain white fronts, leather cupboard and drawer pulls, soft close runners and magnetic child locks to prevent doors flying open during travel. The worktop is solid oak. Marine-grade Voyager 4500 LPG stove/cooker/grill combo. Proper steel lockable gas locker fitted with gas bottle included and copper pipe run to cooker.

There’s no fixed fridge as we usually travel with a decent 12V compressor coolbox – we move this between our various vans/cars and can take it outside at festivals or to the beach. This is included at full asking price.

Stainless steel sink and decent brushed stainless mixer tap fed by 75L fresh water tank with high quality marine pump and accumulator from Shurflo. John Guest pipe and fittings used throughout. Plumbing has been faultless – just works.

**Toilet:** Really decent Thetford battery powered, electric flushing high capacity toilet. Proper toilet height which is MUCH nicer than the usual sitting on the floor with your knees around your ears type.

**Interior:** VW T5 double bench seats bolted to the floor using appropriate grade 8 hardware and spreader plates under the floor. Two of the four seats are belted – carries three in the front including driver. We have carried 6 passengers legally on short distances with it being legal to seat passengers in the back of a van with no belts. The leisure batteries are fitted under the double bench seat in the cab. The table is solid oak matching the kitchen worktop and is on an extremely expensive fancy gas assisted Italian Besenzoni T131 yacht pedestal which drops down to form the second child-sized bed.

Above the dinette are a series of overhead lockers, one of which houses the fuse board, switches and solar controller, the other two have been left completely open for flexible storage.

The flooring is reclaimed solid maple from a squash court – it’s much lighter than you might imagine and SUPER hard wearing. We’ve left it a patchwork of painted/sanded but if you were to sand it up and oil it it would look INCREDIBLE. Or leave it as it is if you like the shabby chic look we have gone for.

## Insulation & Comfort

Insulation wise we have used a combination of 25mm Celotex and double foil insulation which doubles as a vapour barrier as it has been sealed all round with aluminium foil tape. The floor is uninsulated to save on headroom for taller folks. We’ve camped in -4°C and +29°C and always been relatively comfortable.

## Power & Solar

Electrics wise we have a very basic split charge system from the main battery via big red kill switch that can be turned on whilst driving and turned off whilst parked to not drain the main starter battery. Manual for simplicity and fewer things to go wrong. The alternator is very recently fitted to keep up with the additional load of charging the leisure batteries when in motion.

There is one high quality 400W solar panel mounted to the roof on a custom, galvanised, unistrut roof rack made from 41x41mm unistrut. This is absolutely rock solid and modular should you wish to change anything/add more panels/a roof deck/roof box/rack/whatever.

The panel feeds an Epever MPPT solar controller and all wiring is sufficiently over-specced. Leisure batteries themselves are 2 × Platinum 100Ah lead acid batteries. They have barely been used and kept topped up to 100% by the solar for most of their lives.

Lighting is LED with a dedicated circuit for the main lighting and the bathroom which has its own switch and 2 × LEDs. All wiring is 25amp twin core and run in conduit for easy expansion/wire fishing later. There is an included modified sine wave inverter though this is not permanently wired in and there are no fixed 240V sockets in the van. There are many USB outlets in the dinette area and some at the back of the van with provision for some more 12V devices through pre-fished wires.

We always found this power set up to be more than sufficient for all of our power needs, especially if driving every few days to top it back up to 100%.

## Water System

Water system currently consists of a fixed 75 litre fresh tank and a high quality marine pump and accumulator from Shurflo. The fresh water tank can be filled via a hose which terminates near the rear door and has a float valve so it stops filling when full – this means you can leave it plugged into mains water if parked somewhere for a long time and it will constantly keep the tank filled up to 100% without overflowing. John Guest pipe and fittings have been used throughout, feeding the kitchen sink. Grey waste wise there is no fixed tank, we always used a portable rolltank for this which is not included, though the waste does pop out in a convenient spot by the rear wheelarch. No hot water at the moment though I do have a 5kW Autoterm Flow setup available at extra cost.

## What’s Still To Do

The van is unfinished. The rear doors and sliding door are uninsulated and have not been panelled. Likewise the garage is not completely panelled nor the bed area. This is because the sliding door currently does not open properly from the inside handle and rear doors do not open properly from the outside handle – this needs to be fixed before panelling/making the door cables inaccessible.

The bathroom is not completely panelled but we were intending to fit a shower and fully clad in white Saniclad – I do have the Saniclad, shower and extended shower waste available and will include for the full asking price.

The bedroom is unpanelled as I had intended to fit side pods/flares for extra width. At 5ft10 I can sleep widthways across the van perfectly comfortably (side sleeper) but I think it might be a bit tight for anybody taller without fitting the flares.

Generally speaking the van is largely undecorated with a fair amount of bare ply/paint hastily thrown around. The truth is, as soon as the van was in this useable state we have USED it and never got around to finishing it.

## Mechanical Condition

Mechanically the van has been absolutely awesome. We haven’t needed to do very much in the way of repairs in the 5 years we have owned it.

In that time I have replaced:

– Entire handbrake assembly
– Full brakes front and rear (pads and discs)
– Steering rack
– Power steering pump
– Starter battery
– Centre prop bearing
– Alternator (very recently fitted)

Tyres are almost brand new 4 × Kumho Road Venture MT51 245/75 R16 correctly load rated to the vehicle (quite noisy when driving but have never got it stuck in a muddy camping field EVER since fitting them).

## Bodywork

Cosmetically the van is a little rough on the outside – unfortunately these white Sprinters always suffer with a bit of bodywork surface rust as the paint is incredibly thin. There is stone chip (more like tree branch chip) rust spots above the windscreen, some minor spots around the rest of the vehicle. The front grille surround is dented and rusty. There is a small patch of rust that would benefit from some attention inside the sliding door area, too. The driver’s door check strap is not present – common issue with Sprinters where the door bounces open and causes cracking around the mounting points. At some point a previous owner has jacked it up by the sill and slightly caved it in. It is only noticeable due to the increased ride height from the chunky tyres and has never come up on an MOT. The plastics are faded though not beyond saving with a bit of back to black and elbow grease. The bodywork is generally a little rough but certainly not as bad as many Sprinters of the same age and mileage. If I was keeping it, I would be refinishing it in Raptor Liner.

It’s a panel van fitted with high quality bonded sliding windows on both sides and an additional fixed bonded tinted window in the middle of the nearside.

## Why Buy This Van?

We absolutely love this bus – it’s just big enough to comfortable tour in for the three of us and two dogs whilst working and home schooling on the road, but can get into pretty much any car park/park up. It drives just like a car. I am confident it will fly through MOT having done very few miles since its last.

It’s a 13-year-old van with nearly 200k on the clock that’s been properly used – don’t expect showroom condition, but it’s a good honest van that does exactly what it says on the tin.

PERFECT project heading into the summer and at what I think is a very reasonable price.

**£11,500 including fresh MOT, compressor coolbox, and bathroom kit. Located Lee Mill, near Plymouth.**

Feel free to make me an offer, I can only say no, but be aware that I do feel the price is very fair. Come out and take a look at it – I have tried to be as honest as possible about the condition and work carried out already.

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## Equipment & Features Summary

**Mechanical:**

– 2012 Mercedes Sprinter 313 CDI, 2WD rear wheel drive
– 2.1L turbo diesel, 6-speed manual, approximately 195k miles
– Professional remap + carbon clean + EGR blank by RH Tuning (+51hp, +95Nm)
– Recently replaced: alternator, brakes all round, steering rack, power steering pump, handbrake assembly, centre prop bearing, starter battery
– Nearly new Kumho Road Venture MT51 tyres (245/75 R16, load-rated)
– Pioneer Apple CarPlay head unit fitted

**Conversion Features:**

– Fixed rear double bed with removable/hinged garage storage
– Second child-sized bed via drop-down oak dinette table
– Long kitchen with IKEA soft-close units, leather pulls, magnetic child locks
– Solid oak worktop and matching table
– Marine-grade Voyager 4500 LPG cooker/oven/grill
– Steel lockable gas locker with bottle included, copper pipe run
– Full-height Thetford electric flush toilet
– Stainless steel sink with brushed mixer tap
– Fiamma rooflight with 12V fan
– Reclaimed solid maple flooring from squash court
– 25mm Celotex + double-foil insulation with vapour barrier
– VW T5 double bench seats with grade 8 mounting hardware
– Premium Besenzoni T131 yacht table pedestal (gas-assisted)
– Overhead storage lockers

**Electrical System:**

– 2 × 100Ah Platinum leisure batteries (fitted under cab bench seat)
– 400W solar panel on custom galvanised unistrut rack (41x41mm)
– Epever MPPT solar controller
– Manual split-charge system with big red kill switch
– LED lighting throughout with dedicated circuits
– Multiple USB outlets in dinette and rear areas
– Modified sine wave inverter (not hardwired)
– All wiring 25amp twin core, run in conduit

**Water System:**

– 75L fresh water tank with Shurflo marine pump and accumulator
– Fill hose with float valve (can connect to mains water)
– John Guest fittings throughout
– Grey waste outlet by rear wheelarch (portable tank required)
– Cold water only currently connected

**Windows & Extras:**

– High-quality bonded sliding windows on both sides
– Additional fixed bonded tinted window on nearside
– Custom galvanised unistrut roof rack (modular design)

**Included in Sale:**

– Fresh 12-month MOT
– 12V compressor coolbox
– Mixer, extended waste, and Saniclad for bathroom completion
– Gas bottle

**Available Separately:**

– 5kW Autoterm Flow water heater (additional cost)