Offroad-Express

Hey 4wd enthusiasts,

I'm looking at getting a 4wd diesel van for around $2,000-$5,000 and am wanting to know what to get.

I want to use it for snowboarding, surfing, road tripping and if possible some tramping track areas. I wanna be able to drive on a 4x4 track to some cool spot to tramp or something like that and don't know what van would be the best at getting through the sand, mud and possibly down and up some side road tracks.

PS: By van i mean something like a: delica, hiace, nissan caravan, L300, Homy, Econovan. . .

Any ideas?

Thanks a lot,

Ben

it is hard to beat a toyota hi ace there are 4wd variants of these around i know because we abuse one at work on our earthworks site

hiace all the way, you can get some amazing kms out of these with limited work/maintainence. never seen a 4wd caravan but my mate had a 2wd it went good but very ugly

I think so you might able to get the Toyota Granvia in a 4WD version. Depends if you want a luxury van or just a van. The granvia as far as i know has a 3 litre diesel and would look pretty kool with a suspension lift and a set of mud tyres chucked under it.

The Mitsi vans seem to come from the factory well kitted and high clearance. The Hiaces seem lower set but have seen them lifted a bit and there are lots of loggers using them. If I had a choice between a mitsi diesel and a toyota one I know what one I'd be choosing.

We had a Mitsi Delica as one of our first vans, after it did a head (also did a diff etc earlie ) we sold it and got a Hiace, (also needing some thing bigger) and have had at least 5 Hiaces since - just had a bit of head trouble earlier this year on a 1kz, but that has over ¼ million ks on it

So hiaces are the best at getting through stuff then? I care what it looks like but am obviously more concerned with how well it'll handle the sand and mud.

is way better by far

I would seriously doubt a Hiace would be any better at getting over the terrain any better than an L300, or any other 4WD van.

None of the vans have much suspension articulation, so as soon as a track gets rough they will all be lifting a wheel or two. Most have an LSD in the rear to try & assist with the lack of suspension travel & weight in the rear. With the same tyres fitted, most 4WD vans would be fairly evenly matched with respect to 4WD ability.

A reasonable amount of contractors for Telecom & various power companies used to use the 4WD L300 vans, in 2.4P & 2.5TD variants, but as you can't get them NZ new off the shelf, you don't see so many around. One of my mates had a 4WD L300 for about 6 years & loved it. It was a NZ new, but it was a 2.4 petrol. Thirsty, torque too high in the rev range, but fairly powerful!

One advantage of the Hiace would be getting a full time 4WD model which would be a bonus on the road. Not sure of what you can get for the price range you are looking at though?

Best idea would be to get out & test drive as many as possible to help make your mind up on which to go for, & also to know what a good one (& a bad one!) are like.