Average cost of conversion van ownership?

My friend and I are 22 years old and want to buy a van for road trips, not a daily driver. What is the average cost of keeping up with a van? (1988 chevy conversion or 1998 ford conversion) Also, what would the average cost of insurance on vans like these be for 22 year old female?

Since you have over $1000 to play with each month, I would recommend that you deposit $150-200 each week, into a savings account. Within a year, you'll have $7500 - $10,000 more to spend on a vehicle that will not cost so much to maintain and fuel to get around. One of the issues with older vehicles, especially a Van, is poor fuel economy, often 10-14 MPG, or less.

Modern vehicles will yield 30-50 MPG. While fuel prices are not as bad as they have been, they can easily exceed $4.00 per gallon very quickly, making the choice extremely poor to purchase the vehicle.

While you may have the cash to make the purchase, you could easily find yourself putting four times that much and more into the vehicle in repairs and maintenance, and the vehicle isn't worth much more than you initially paid for it. It may be fun for a few months or a year, but the funds to keep it running will not be.

Save your money, wait, and get something a bit better, when you can easily afford to spend $10,000 cash, on a car.

There's no average cost of ownership. Each vehicle is unique, and will break down at different rates, just because. You need to keep all of the fluids filled to the proper levels, replace the rubber components, spark plugs and filters are the proper intervals. Then at various times, you need to replace the timing belt, coils, alternators, compressors, exhaust, muffler and catalytic converters, etc. There's no average for insurance- see your insurance agent for price quote.