Thread: New work car

The only vans I have ever had experience with are the Mitsubishi Starwagon and Toyota Hiace (both commercial models). Both of early 2000 vintage.

My opinion as far as driving them goes is that the Hiace is pretty good and the Starwagon is crap. The Starwagon was downright dangerous in a crosswind.

I drove them for NDC and Skilled Communications so they were tech vans and loaded with gear. In comparison we also used to use Commodore wagons.

For what we did the Commodore wagons worked better in my opinion. They were quite often grossly overloaded though. They made long distance driving much more enjoyable and you could fit them in undercover carparks even with ladders on the roof. You just had to be more honest with what you really needed to drag around with you when you had a Commodore wagon.

As for the vans you are considering I have never been in one outside of the motor show.

G'day 6.5rangie

Why not order a 130 TD5 Single cab it would then give you plenty of load space

cheers

Originally Posted by UncleHo

Why not order a 130 TD5 Single cab it would then give you plenty of load space

or a D3 commercial You'd be the coolest sparky in town.

Originally Posted by UncleHo

G'day 6.5rangie

Why not order a 130 TD5 Single cab it would then give you plenty of load space

cheers

don't say that please, its gonna screw my mind now thinking of driving a 130 around. how i would love to, but have to be practical, BUT we are thinking of moving somewhere a bit more rural, now look what you've done.

Originally Posted by 6.5rangie

don't say that please, its gonna screw my mind now thinking of driving a 130 around. how i would love to, but have to be practical, BUT we are thinking of moving somewhere a bit more rural, now look what you've done.

If you really want to play with fire, think about a 101FC. Wouldn't need to worry about overloading, very similar running gear to the Rangie so could (perhaps) shoehorn a 6.5 in there...

I know of a bloke with a P38A he can't sell - and it has bling bling wheels.

Convert it to a panel van - ideal for a young electrician.

Ron

Originally Posted by p38arover

I know of a bloke with a P38A he can't sell - and it has bling bling wheels.

Convert it to a panel van - ideal for a young electrician.

Ron

nice ron

i work as a courier and do 3000-3500 ks per week. Toyotas are great but the latest model is no good for a big bloke. The previous model rzh113 is fantastic, roomy and comfortable to drive (wish mine had 500000 less ks on it) but the new ones are a bit of an unknown quantity. Have heard that Toyota is sourcing a lot of parts including engines fron china these days.

Might be worth looking at a renault if looking for cheap running costs. One of our guys has one and was telling me about the fuel consumption the other day. The cost of running it on diesel was comparative to running my hiace on lpg but then some of these european commercials such as renault and peugeot which have just come on the market havent been really tested yet.

Stay away from Mercedes. Could tell you about a lot of bad experiences from our guys not only on unreliablitity but also the sheer arrogance of the service staff when there is a problem.