Excitement - tinged with apprehension

I'll admit to displaying a childish excitement when the big day came to go and pick up the van. That day was May 22 2010. The journey up to South Wigston to collect was painless on the train and the previous owner, Tom, was at the station to collect us as promised. A quick journey to his house, a drink and the sorting of the payment and paperwork later and the deal was completed. Keys in hand, rucksack in the back and it was time to go.

The van fired up first time, but had hardly any fuel in, but Tom pointed us in the direction of the closest garage and we set off. It was a hot, sunny day and all was good in the world.

Five minutes later and we pulled into the local petrol station. I hopped out, undid the fuel cap, inserted the filler spout into the neck of the van, squeezed the trigger and watched the pounds and pence spin around at an alarming rate. As we had a long journey home, a fill up made good sense. Once the trigger clicked off, I did my usual rounding up of the total before removing the filler and placing it back into the pump. At this point, my wife noticed fear and panic work its way across my previously smiley face.... the van was leaking petrol onto the forecourt at what seemed like an alarming rate.

I furiously grabbed the bucket of sand from next to the pump and, with my head full of phases like 'what have I done' and 'it's a lemon', shovelled the contents under the van. Once I'd created a beach where once there was only concrete, I sheepishly wandered into the shop, paid £65 for the fuel and beat a hasty retreat. Once back at the van I could see that the fuel had stopped dripping altogether, so with some relief I put all ideas of calling the AA to the back of my mind, fired the wasser-boxer engine into life and drove out of the garage to the nearest place that I could safely stop and have a proper look under the van (away from the inquisitive glares of what felt like half of South Wigston, but was probably only half a dozen people at the garage).

The inspection at the layby confirmed that fuel had stopped leaking. I had read about fuel leaks prior to buying on the excellent pages of the Club 8090 forums, so I assumed the worst case was a rusty top of tank and made a decision to carry on home - and not fill to the brim again.

The rest of the journey was relatively trouble-free. I quickly discovered that a T3 van is a very nice place to be on a long motorway slog - I sat unstressed in lane one most of the time and let the world get on with its hectic-self. We got a wave from an AA man in a new T5 van a numerous double-takes from passing cars, something we'd get used to due to the rather bright colour of our van, especially on a bright, sunny day!

The only other issue we found was that it was impossible to turn the heating to 'off', which given it was late-20s centigrade outside made for a rather warm trip - windows had to be wide open!

We stopped in Northampton on the way to have tea with some friends, taking the following photo in their garden.

Northampton to Surrey passed by without a hitch and we took the opportunity to show off our new aquisition one more time by visiting some friends in Dorking. Parking in front of their house with the evening sun reflecting off the side of the van, causing their living room to glow, was amusing to say the least.

This is the van on day one, parked in Dorking.