[Chickenfish]

Does anyone have experience of both a California style lining (plastic/vinyl) also used by CMC and a couple of other converters and carpet lining and have an opinion as to the pros and cons of each?

Posted the same question in Community but not having any replies so reporting here and hoping for more success, didn't seem to be able to move my original post so sorry for the replication.

Thanks for any help

 

[jonat127]

Problems with the Cali style lining are:
1. Any furniture kits will not fit without modifications because they will be built to fit a carpeted van, the Cali trim takes up more space.
Also if you are paying for a conversion the converter will charge you more cos his templates will all befor the carpet lined option.
2. The Cali trim will attract condensation whereas carpet doesn't.
3. If you don't actually own a California, getting all the parts especially the fitting clips and little bits will be a pain. Carpet you can buy off the roll from any number of places.
4. Fixing things to the Cali trim will be more difficult and less secure than just screwing it to a securely mounted lining panel, or straight into the metal which is just covered by a layer of carpet.
That's my tuppence worth and I'm sure others will have other views.

 

[Slidepods]

Are you talking about these?

if you are converting a rhd panel van then just carpet it.

For a start all genuine california's have the slide door on the offside so the trims won't fit in a standard UK panel van.
you can go down the route of caravelle panels if you have very very deep pockets (pprobably cheaper to buy a caravelle)

Have a read of my build thread and you will start to get some idea of the pitfalls of plastic panels T:

 

[Chickenfish]

Thanks for the replies. I'm not planning on doing the conversion myself. There are a couple of companies that do non carpet linings so I'm just trying to see what the differences are, condensation, longevity, holding smells, etc.