Van advice needed
Jasper - 15/4/08 at 09:31 AM
My sister who's a garden designer, has the following question:
I have a vehicle conundrum and am sick of thinking about it and not coming up with an answer!! Here it is:
We have a Mini and we are selling my Mercedes Vito van and i am giving back my leased Saab next week.
therefore i need to buy something else. We are hanging onto the mini for now as we both love driving it and it's on autotrader for sale incase
someone comes along but nothing so far.... we need to have just 2 vehicles instead of 3 which was costing me a fortune. Tom needs a car to get to
work but sometimes can get the bus if needed. I need a four seater car but i also need a van for work which i can drive around the place generally.
thought about an estate but i think a van will look more professional turning up to jobs etc. I have sold the van for 3 reasons... one.. its going to
need work soon, two.. it's been sitting out in the road for months unused but typically now ive sold it masses of new work has come in... and
thirdly it's just too big to drive around casually and i now mainly get masses of plants delivered to jobs so only need to cart around tools now.
I will get use of my old van for bigger stuff if i need but it seemed pointless having it and paying out for it each month and hardly using it.
So.
Finding a van for 3-4K which has inside seats. The Vauxhall Combo has such things and is the right size but finding one with the seats seems hard.
Its got to do several things, pick up kids from school, go out to do gardening jobs, drive down to brighton at weekends etc, and be a van too......
would sincerely appreciate your thoughts on this one as i'm stumped .... and it's getting urgent now!! I like the look of Renault Kangoo
but i can't find out if they've got four seats or not, the Vauxhall combo is a bit post office, as that's what they were used for, but
i'm not overly fussy.... thought about pick-ups but not sure how practical....
So chaps - what do you think?
matt_baxter - 15/4/08 at 09:50 AM
I know of a garden/landscaper who used a pick up, the old Hilux type. Hi started with just the pick up and has got a fiberglass top for it as he was
worried about security and now has no problems, when empty its just a really big car and when full its his work vehical.
I personally would try to find a crew cab (they are the ones with the drivers cab and rear seats as well) hilux, they type that they tried to destroy
on Top Gear, so you know its just about indestrucable.
vinny1275 - 15/4/08 at 09:51 AM
I'd say a double cab pickup....
there used to be tax breaks when using these for work vans, not sure if they're still in place or not.
Get 5 seats, you can use them around town, have a load cover to keep tools safe, or take the cover off it you need to carry big big stuff.
Things to look at are service intervals - some of the older ones were 4500 miles. You could prob. pick up an L200 or toyota (which, as Top Gear
proved, are indesctructible) for 4 - 5K. Nice thing about them is that the load bed is separated from the cab, so kids can't be damaged by things
rolling about / coming loose.
I've never driven one or used one daily, but have wanted one for a long time 
I was thinking of one when my Mondeo was flooded last summer, but
the service intervals put me off - I do about 30k miles a year....
HTH
Vince
Jasper - 15/4/08 at 10:08 AM
She's really after something smaller than that as she has to park it on the streets of Bath. She's thinking more on the lines of this
horror:
Partner
vinny1275 - 15/4/08 at 10:29 AM
quote:
Originally posted by Jasper
She's really after something smaller than that as she has to park it on the streets of Bath. She's thinking more on the lines of this
horror:
Partner
Put bull bars on it, then it doesn't matter how tight the parking spaces are....
I think those little partner things with the seats have pretty much all the space taken up with seats, so you get all the discomfort of a van, with
none of the space..... A big estate car / people eater with clever lift out seats might be better in that case, so it's easy to turn from
workhorse to kiddy transport, but having a big enough load bay in case she needs to do both at the same time.... Something like a 406 / 407 (not sure
if their seats are removable) - vauxhall meriva / xsara picasso, something like that?
HTH
vince
dhutch - 15/4/08 at 11:36 AM
We have a lot of two and five seat combos at work which get used for running people/equipent/tools about the place between sites.
I have nothing to compair them to van-to-van but there quite unobjectionable in terms of a small diesal van.
- We also have a 806 at home, which is based on the psa euro van, which is quite a nice are. Not sure what the vans like.
Daniel
Jasper - 15/4/08 at 11:41 AM
Thanks chaps - basically what I told her - get a mid-sized people carrier.
speedyxjs - 15/4/08 at 04:16 PM
Whatever you do DONT BUY FRENCH!!!
Schrodinger - 15/4/08 at 05:24 PM
How about something like this
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/03-VOLKSWAGEN-TRANSPORTER-2500-TDI-5-SEAT-CREW-VAN-T4_W0QQitemZ320240380928QQihZ011QQcategoryZ108851QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmd
ZViewItem