What to record in a camper van logbook

Almost every van owner keeps some kind of record. A folder in the glovebox, a note on a phone, a shoebox of receipts, a rough memory of when the oil was last changed. It works until the day it matters: the morning of a roadworthiness test, a breakdown in a valley with no signal, or a buyer asking what has been done to the van.

The fix is not more paperwork. It is deciding once what is worth writing down, and then writing it down as it happens. Here is the list that earns its keep.

Start with the van itself

Before any job, record the things that never change and the things you will be asked for constantly: registration number, chassis number, year, first registration date, engine and fuel type, and the current mileage.

Then the numbers you use on the road: real height, width, length and weight, tyre pressures front and rear, tyre size, oil grade and capacity, battery type, gas bottle type. These are the details you end up hunting for in a manual, in the rain, at a petrol station.

Every job, however small

For each intervention, four things make it useful later: the date, the mileage, who did the work, and what exactly was done. Add what it cost and you also get an honest picture of what the van takes to keep.

• The date and the mileage, always both
• The garage, or your own name if you did it yourself
• The parts: brand, type, part number when you have it
• What it cost, including parts you bought separately
• A photo of the invoice

“Brakes done, summer two years ago” is a memory. “Rear pads and discs, 14 June, 177,200 km, 180 CHF, garage in town” is a record. The second one answers a buyer’s question and tells you roughly when the next set is due.

The due dates nobody remembers

Some maintenance runs on the calendar and some on the odometer, which is exactly why it slips. Oil every year or every 15,000 km, whichever comes first. Roadworthiness testing on a fixed cycle. Gas installation checks. Tyres that age out long before they wear out. Tyre sealant and fire extinguishers with a printed expiry date on the side.

Write each one down as a date or as a mileage, whichever it genuinely depends on, and you stop discovering them late.

Documents you can read without a signal

Insurance, registration, the purchase contract, appliance manuals, the conversion wiring diagram, warranty paperwork. Keep them with the van’s record rather than spread across three places, and keep them readable offline. The moment you need the insurance certificate is rarely the moment you have coverage.

Notes from the road

The smallest category and the most used. The fuse that controls the fridge. The campsite with room for a long van. The pitch where the water tap was too far away. The part number of the filter that fits. The height of the barrier at that supermarket. None of this belongs in a service book, and all of it is what you look for every season.

Why mileage beats dates

If you add only one extra field to whatever you already do, add the mileage. Dates tell you how long ago something happened. Mileage tells you how much van has happened since. A vehicle that covered 3,000 km last year and one that covered 30,000 are on completely different schedules, and the odometer is the only thing that knows.

Paper or app

A paper logbook is perfectly good, and if yours works, keep it. What paper cannot do is remind you before a due date, search itself, hold photographs of invoices, or copy itself before you hand the van to someone else. That is the part worth moving to your phone.