Right, time has come for me to get a van as my daily smoker. My two options are a small van, ie transit connect, and a trailer Or A LWB sprinter type yoke so I don't need a trailer for moving the MG's about. I'd love another vivaro, but realistically, it's pointless having a medium van. Any personal experience of vans would be much appreciated. The two mentioned are personally what I'm looking at at the minute, but I need real life experience. Budget is around the £3-4k mark
I would go for the bigger van. At the end of the day it will still drive well enough and there are many advantages to having it. If you have to get a van for driving every day you may as well get one that will fit almost anything you want to carry.
Yeah, the problem is that for 95% of the time it's going to be empty, and the bigger vans are thirsty. What I am thinking is that the difference in fuel costs over the period of ownership would pay for the trailer, which is always good to own anyway. Ideally I would love to justify a LWB Sprinter and a nice Brian James so I could transport two cars at the same time.
Miles, I need to carry near a ton over to the mainland soon Connect should just about manage that, ZR Express is hard to find and would not cope with the weight of 20 gearboxes, 150 shocks, 15 steering racks and a load of calipers, I also can't fit my Midget hard top in the back for the return journey Paul, I'd love one, but for the money, it's the same as the rest of the VAG range - too bloody dear, and most are moon and back SDI's
was going to say caddy myself, but would you get one that price not big into my vans really. All i can add is do not do for a 2.0 transit. our one is serious on fuel when towing and tooled up!
Yeah, loads of exchange core units are being sent over, plus I wanna lift a load of stuff I've organised across the water and of course get to the NEC for the classic car show.
Yeah I know what you mean, would be easy to do some simple calculations to compare the costs etc and see which one makes the most sense over various periods of time. For me if I bought a van and wanted to move something and then looked outside and that van wasnt capable I would be annoyed. If your going to regularly be carrying the sort of load your talking about then I would go big van as they are just much more capable when faced with that.
should get a midget in the back of her, although for a daily she probable be hard on the derv: http://www.gumtree.com/p/cars-vans-motorbikes/vw-lt-35-van-2004-long-wheel-base-high-roof/111654489 maybe not as hard on fuel but still plenty of room and has a tow bar ??? http://www.gumtree.com/p/cars-vans-motorbikes/2004-vw-transporter-lwb-104/111946095
There is not a single van on gumtree I haven't looked at dude. Neither of those lit me up. I love transporters, but completely pointless for me, lt35 is a goer, but not with 220,000 miles
how often are you really going to need the capacity for the 20 gear boxes and all that other stuff you mentioned above, for that run id investigate a wee lorry , can you drive up to a 7.5 tonne with out the hgv, so hire one when you need it (occasionally) and get something that suits your needs for the rest of the times that you only need to carry one gear box. saying all that i was thinking the other day that while the fastest things on the road used to be a sprinter van, these have been superseeded by the vw crafter, and they are massive (to me any way)
Hi Robert, It's probably an annual thing, unfortunately technicalities kick in when it comes to the 7.5ton license being that this trip is for business. The idea of the larger van would allow movement of MG's back and forth in safety, cheaper on the boat than a car and trailer, and handier driven and parked than towing everywhere. Few of the autotest boys use sprinters and crafters for transporting the autotest cars, one commonly referred to as the shake and bake. If I go for something this size, I will be welding up a proper set of runners and tie downs to ensure a car can safely be strapped in. This would probably happen once or twice a month, maybe more depending on how business progresses. A smaller van with a nice trailer would be ideal, for me, as the entire time I'm not transporting large objects I would have the drivability and fuel consumption of the average car, also wouldn't care too much about the dog jumping in the back covered in sh*te
eeekk never seen the miles there il keep my ear to the ground for you. now im back at work i get offered stuff daily! cars bikes vans everything! so il give ya a wee txt if anything is offered to me really you are probable going to go for the smaller one then?
I think so. I'm gonna see if @BigP will lend his connect for a day or two to see if I could live with them. I fancy a Connect on ST wheels which is kinda what I'm stuck on without going to the overpriced VAG scrap, I would love a Caddy though, just can't justify the expense
Watch the GTW with vans. Legally, on a normal license they can tow jack ****. I was quite surprised with the capacity of a normal Transit. I've no other knowledge about vans except that I think you should get a Terrano commercial.
yea thats another thing we found out that our transit has a **** towing capacity but we only tow the midgets or caterham with either my trailer or the uncles so lucky enough we are ok
Well having just checked up, it seems 1200kg max towing weight That's fine, I'm happy with that, as it also bring the all up weight in at 2600kg which means no trailer license required unless the rules have changed recently.
haha that's a discussion for another thread but in theory you can tow more with a Ford Mondeo than you can with a Transit unless you score one of the AA/RAC ones.
so u need a van that u can fit a car into?? or a reasonable sized van with a trailer for a car?? ermm tough one 2 call. i use a luton sprinter in work i do multistop with abit of dostance inbetween and its doing about 350 miles to a fill of £80 or so, i can get anything and everything into it and its been very reliable so far. also have new and old kangoos but towing on them would b crap. caddy was an awesome van. had a transit for a day and liked it wasnt bad on juice. ermm and we have a new master which keeps breaking and drinks like a fish lol. what about a medium sized luton van???