This post is a repost of a blog post that was originally published in September 2021.
In May of 2021, we custom ordered our very own 2021 high roof extended length Ford Transit, and in September 2021 it finally arrived. This blog post covers the whole order process and timeline from the first time we visited the Ford dealership until we drove our new van home.
Why would you live in a van?
We’ve been dreaming of van life since the early days of self-isolation and stay-at-home orders in 2020. With not much to do during that time but sit in our 1 bedroom apartment and watch YouTube videos, we discovered van tours, and fell in love with the idea of traveling around the country while living van life.
The first ever van tour we saw was Chris and Sara’s original van tour. This was huge for us, because it showed us a few things:
- You can have all of the comforts of home in a van, like a shower, toilet, and oven (even if they are smaller versions of their apartment-sized selves!)
- You can have a dog and live in a van.
- You can work and live in a van.
I had been following travel YouTubers like Kara and Nate for a couple of years by this point, watching them jet around to faraway countries on airplanes, but I knew we wouldn’t be pursuing that lifestyle anytime soon with our 5-year-old cockapoo, Leah. But when we realized we could do van life with her, we were hooked. Video series from other vanlifers driving all over North America, from Alaska to Ushuaia, showed us that van life without flying to foreign countries all over the world would still be an epic adventure.
Unsurprisingly, van life is now more popular than ever, and the high-roof, extended-length van that we preferred isn’t easy to come by these days. In May 2021, we knew that we would be ready to take the plunge and start our build in the fall, so we decided to go ahead and order our very own custom 2021 Ford Transit.
Order Timeline
April 24 – We visited the dealership and were lucky to meet with a transit fleet specialist who knew exactly what type of project we were planning. We left the dealership with an order form to comb through to select all of the options we wanted to order with our van.
May 8 – We filled out our order form at home.
May 11 – We went back to the dealership and ordered our van. At this time we were told standard turnaround time was 8-10 weeks, but as long as 10-12 due to ongoing manufacturing shortages. I had also read online that it taken some people up to 4+ months to get their vans. We decided to err on the side of getting the van early, and ordered it in May with the hope it showed up sometime around September.
At this meeting we also put down a $500 deposit check, filled out some preliminary paperwork and the dealer scanned our IDs. This is to show Ford that the order is actually a customer order rather than a stock order disguised as a customer order.
July 8 – we called the dealership for an update, but there wasn’t one. No VIN had been assigned yet.
August 19 – van had a VIN and was pulled for production on August 16. With the VIN we were able to pull up the window sticker online, which showed the van had a “blend date” of 8/24. From what I’ve read online, blend date = build date.
August 25 – The van went into production on ford tracker.
August 26 – Ford online tracker showed the van had been built on 8/25.
August 27 – Tracker showed the van had been shipped out and was on its way to our dealership. Estimated delivery from the Kansas City plant to our dealership in California plant was between 9/16 to 9/22.
September 16 – We got a call from our dealership that the van had arrived! He did note that several vans ordered before ours had still not been built, so it seems there are longer waits depending on what customizations/features you order.
Pickup Process
September 19, we finally picked up our van at the Ford dealership. The whole process for pickup took about 3 hours and included:
- Paperwork and payment
- We paid with a personal check, so we don’t have any insight into the financing process, but there were no special incentives available for either cash or financing at the time.
- We filled out some paperwork including DMV paperwork, and our salesperson said that we would receive our title, registration, license plates etc. in the mail. We were asked to bring copies of our IDs and car insurance cards. Our car insurance policy has a 30-day grace period for adding a new car to the policy, so our van was covered for us to drive it home.
- Our salesperson took the van to fill it up with gas, and took it back to their on site shop to have a couple of spots from being in transit buffed out.
- We drove it home!
So, What's Next?
In the coming weeks, we plan to share the inspiration for our van life layout, as well as document our build series here and on YouTube! Thanks for reading and we’d love to have you follow along for the adventure! Don’t forget to check out our vlog documenting this experience below!