4x4 Commerical Vehicle Ideas??

Villain

Hi there a mate of mine is a builder and currently owns a Isuzu Trooper 2002.

He's lucking to change to something that will have 5 seats while still having afair bit of room in the back to put tools.

He went to his Isuzu dealer and they were looking for €24,000 along with his own to change to a 5 seater trooper.

Anyone got any advice??

JohnBoy

His best bet is probably a crew cab pickup with a hard top cover, something like a mitsubishi l200 or a nissan navarra. the isuzu equivavlant is not a patch on those two.

Or a land rover defender 130 crew cab, but I'm not sure what the hard top options are like on these.

There is also I believe a crew-cab style 110 van actually.....

right here in fact.... http://www.landrover.com/ie/en/Products/Defender/The_Models/crewcabcomm.htm

now that has the best of both worlds and with a retail price of around 28,000

alternatively hyundai do a crew cab style sonata MPV, which has 5 decent seats and a massive load area..... probably not going to have much in the way of towing ability though.

the one drawback off all of these options is that the none of them will be a patch on the trooper with regard to it's all round abilites in comfort, performance and towing.

the land rover will have better off-road ability and the hyundai better on road comfort, but that's it. there's 2 reasons the trooper is so expensive.... 1 it's the best. 2 it's effectively a passenger car so vrt is nasty on it.

Hellrazer

Originally posted by JohnBoy




alternatively hyundai do a crew cab style sonata MPV, which has 5 decent seats and a massive load area..... probably not going to have much in the way of towing ability though.

Eh no they dont.
Sonata is a saloon car.
Maybe you`re thinking Santa Fe which is a SUV/Jeep type thing.But theres no 5 seater version in a commercial--only passenger.

Back on topic though Id go for the crew cab Navara or L200 but bear in mind they are not classed as commercial anymore and the VRT has gone up on them since June???last year.
Richie

Villain

nissan navarra doesn't appear to be available in Ireland??

BrianD3

The Nissan Pathfinder Navara is the one you're looking for.

There are a number of crew cab style pickups on the market. From Ford, Nissan, Toyota, Mitsubishi, Isuzu and I think Mazda. Of these, I would guess the Toyota is the best bet followed by Nissan. I have experienced the Mitsubishi L200 and am not impressed. Ride is extremely bumpy, space inside is poor, it's plasticy and cheap feeling like a mid eighties japanese car. The whole vehicle is a crude and unsophisticated design (eg cart springs at the back) Oh and it has the turning circle of a bus. I would say that the above comments probably apply to a lot of these pickups as they're all of a pretty similar design. They can't really be compared with "proper" jeeps such as Landcruisers and Patrols.

BrianD3

Villain

Cheers Brian,

Would the Toyota Landcruiser with 5 seats have much room in the back?

BrianD3

irish1: the Toyota Landcruiser is a great jeep but expensive in passenger form (which is the only type that has 5 seats) List price is over 50k. Space for passengers and luggage is ok but poor considering the size of the vehicle. All jeeps are like that though, very space inefficient. Your mate will know what to expect if he has already looked at the Isuzu trooper passenger. A nice thing about the Landcruiser is that it has full time 4wd - many jeeps are part-time 4wd and you need to fiddle about with a lever to switch from 2wd to 4wd plus you're not supposed to use the 4wd on a tarmaced road so you're lugging around a heavy 4wd drivetrain which you're not even using most of the time.

If he can't afford the landcruiser the he should have a look at the Toyota Hilux crew cab. It's a lot cheaper but it's a big step down and probably has many of the same drawbacks that I listed for the Mitsubishi L200, still if I were buying a crew cab type vehicle the Hilux is the one I would look at first.

BrianD3

JohnBoy

Sorry,

I was wrong, it was a hyundai trajet, saw it at the ploughing ..... but that may have only been built to cash in on the whole crew-cab phenomenon at the time.

Anyway.... BrianD3 one of the many reasons why companies use part time 4wd is because most of the time all you are doing is carrying around the front drive aspect as opposed to permanent 4wd where you have to drive the front axle as well as the back one. in most situations it's more than enough. then if you need 4wd you engage it (oh my god I had to pull a lever, oh no) and work away, disengaging it when done needing and hence done wasting fuel driving the front axle. also reducing wear on the front axle and the centre differential.

oh and on quite a few models nowadays they have push button 4wd, to save your lazy ass from having to clutch and move a lever (oh the horror)

BrianD3

BrianD3 one of the many reasons why companies use part time 4wd is because most of the time all you are doing is carrying around the front drive aspect as opposed to permanent 4wd where you have to drive the front axle as well as the back one. in most situations it's more than enough. then if you need 4wd you engage it (oh my god I had to pull a lever, oh no) and work away, disengaging it when done needing and hence done wasting fuel driving the front axle. also reducing wear on the front axle and the centre differential.

Umm...the notion that vehicles with full time 4wd wear out their drivetrain components quicker is a myth. Drivetrains are designed to last the life of the car and generally do.

With a part time system you're not supposed to use 4wd on a paved road (due to the absence of a centre diff) and doing so risks serious damage to the drivetrain. For this reason, if I were buying a second hand jeep I would be more comfortable getting one with full time 4wd because there's less chance that some muppet has damaged the transmission through incorrect use

The point about increased fuel consumption is dubious. I've never noticed any difference in mpg between full time and part time 4wd vehicles. It does make sense that full time would be slightly less fuel efficient however it's probably negligible.

What I have noticed is decreased wheelspin and tyre wear with full time 4wd.

So your points about the disadvantages of full time 4wd don't really stand up.

Now look at the advantages of full time 4wd. Take a builder who's driving on tarmaced roads, muddy building sites, fields, towing trailers etc. Or even just driving on a paved road which varies from being dry and clean to wet and muddy. With part time, for optimum traction he'll be all the time switching between 2wd and 4wd.

Whereas with full time he'd just drive the damn thing and not have to think about any of this. If he's ever doing serious off roading on uneven ground where a wheel might come up off the ground he has the option of locking the centre diff but it's unlikely that he'll ever be in this situation.

It's no accident that arguably the two best 4x4 workhorses out there (LR Discovery and Toyota Landcruiser) are full time 4wd. Part time 4wd is a cheaper, cruder and inferior alternative.

BrianD3

silver surfer

Bear in mind - if he's self employed he can buy a commercial vehicle (i.e. no back windows etc) and he will have no BIK to pay !

L8r

MojoMaker

Originally posted by BrianD3
irish1: the Toyota Landcruiser is a great jeep but expensive in passenger form (which is the only type that has 5 seats) List price is over 50k.
BrianD3

List price of the landcruiser passenger version is just over €100k.

BrianD3

List price of the landcruiser passenger version is just over €100k.

Eh, that's the 4.2 litre landcruiser "Amazon". Huge thing. Competes with the Range Rover. Very few of these on the road.

The normal landcruiser which has a 3 litre engine is still a great jeep and is just over 50k for the passenger version.

BrianD3