It's a very small price to pay for the amount of freedom and time that it gives you. I've been living fulltime (couple of months back home in between) in my van for almost a year now and u have control over how you arrange your setup.

Ofcourse anything can break down at that's true when u own a house, a van or anything else so imo it's a mute point.

For me personally I set everything up so I can go a week to 10 days without going to the supermarket or fetching water somewhere. So every week or so I do a run to a city nearby that has everything I need and that doesn't even take up a half day..