Anyone ever owned an Egg (Previa)

[mysta2]

I want a bike hauler... at least 2 bikes at a time. I bought my Ranchero for this purpose, but as that project creeps along all it's doing is stealing time and MONEY! from biketime and I'm getting sick of that. Need to sell the mr2 and possibly the Ranchero (maybe even the Ducati) so that I can refocus and get a daily driver that does it all. I want to be able to truck this thing long distances so I'm worried about mileage.

If I was rich I'd get a Sprinter and do a Mercedes conversion on it

would be nice but it's really overkill

Looked into the new Ford Transit Connect

But it's too small, too new, and at $21,000 too expensive

Something like an express/econoline:

Would be about perfect, but it's very american(crap), can't get any decent fuel mileage, would make a lousy daily driver, and is just about impossible to make cool in any way (want to draw attention at car shows and on the road to the bikes).

I just discovered the egg:

and am quite excited about the possibilities... but, it's rear or all wheel drive which has me worried about the floor height. there's a blog out there in which a guy puts down a laminate floor so it is flat, but there's got to be a driveshaft under there somewhere. Also it's mid engine so I'm worried about the depth of the cargo space and if it will swallow a 7ft long bike. I'd be putting in a teak floor and doing away with all the rear seats.

Anyone got one, does your' bike fit in it? Anyone got any better suggestions? The Honda Odyssey's another contender and it's an FF... but the Egg's cooler.

 

[sebatron]

heh, the egg was sold here as a tarago.
there's a newer version too, i think it has 10 seats... typically used either by tour bus groups, rental companies, or overzealous breeders
let me know what you come up with, i'm looking for something similar.

 

[mysta2]

Where's "here"? Canadia?

Yeah, I think they may have stopped importing to the US in 95 or something like that. There are newer vans, but I dig the early/mid 90s style of these and they're cheap cheap cheap. What I found today on Craigslist and Ebay was in the $2000-$4000 range.

 

[sebatron]

nah, i'm wayyy south in sunny (*cough*) melbourne, australia.
early 90s models go for about the $4-6k (Australian crazy money, not real dollars) here...
that's the thing though, i want a van, but i want the option to carry 5 people. can't get it both ways very much it seems.

i'd totally get an egg, rip out the rear seats and paint the whole thing with appliance epoxy though

 

[mysta2]

I'm jealous of you, you guys still have Rancheros.

 

[chrisf]

Economically speaking, you'd be better off buying and old school VW Rabbit and a bike trailer. The Rabbit will get insane gas mileage and is capable of pulling two bikes. Throw all your gear in the hatch and the bikes on the trailer. Plus, folding down the seats transforms the car into a hotel--well, for me anyway. You're a foot taller

The Previa sounds like another 2-3 year distraction, pushing 69 out even further.

--Chris

 

[mysta2]

No trailers... they destroy bumpers

This all came about because I was trying to come up with the best truck for bike hauling, and it didn't take long to realize the best truck for bike hauling is a van. I don't like weather, don't have any room or will to store a trailer, and don't like worrying about security with a trailer or truck. I rented an Express when I did that Loudbike radiator shop shoot, and it was a bloody revelation. No doubt nothing would be cooler than trucking two bikes up to Oregon in the back of a '62 Ranchero, but I become more disillusioned and cynical about that every day.

You're probably right about the Previa being another project, but I'd get one that didn't have any holes in the floor and I could drive home... which would be an improvement over the 'Cherro. Even before it had a nice floor and shiny paint, I could use it.

Don't know... I can't afford (in money or time) two cars and I need to have one that's right for what I need.

 

[duncan]

the previa is a big vehicle, maybe big enough for the bike....

i never owned one, but my ex-wife bought one after we split up, about 1992? the very first week she had it, she dented the whole side driving down the entrance to an undergound parking lot, cause the previa was so oversized.

even though we were engaged in heated separation negotiations at the time, i felt really sorry for her....

 

[hotfunk67]

I doubt the egg would have the height in the back of it. you would be better off with a hiace van or as chris said a dedicated covered bike trailer. you see some awesome setups for motocross racing with there trailers.
some examples

 

[mysta2]

I doubt the egg would have the height in the back of it. you would be better off with a hiace van or as chris said a dedicated covered bike trailer. you see some awesome setups for motocross racing with there trailers.
some examples

Are you insaine? :-[ so which one of those setups do you think i can score for under $1000? Chris was talking about a little open made in china trailer. I can't imagine a VW Rabbit pulling any of those. A trailer is out of the question, I'm not willing to store it.

God I would love to score a HiAce

*drool*

But I live in Texas and no one in the states has ever heard of such a thing

If you want a Cargo van in the US you're pretty strictly limited to an Econoline/Express or a Sprinter. Don't know why but no one imports real vans here. With the tremendous success of the Merc Sprinter (which they wont even put their own badge on here) that will probably start to change... but I need something that's racked up a respectable amount of depreciation.

 

[sebatron]

I think I've found the one automotive area where Australia tops out the US - vans!
that and cheap rear wheel drive cars.

One in like 9 vehicles here is a van - and agreed, HiAce's have crazy potential. They don't look nearly as exciting stock though:

wonder how much they're going for nowadays...

 

[mysta2]

And utes... we don't have utes... at all

Don't get me wrong, we have a ton of vans, but they're all econoline/express. I mean it's absolutely ludicrous how much of a domination those two vans have on this market. Mercedes brought the sprinter here about 10 years ago, but in the US Mercedes is strictly a luxury car brand (no taxis, no trucks) and they didn't want to sully their luxury reputation so they sold them all to Freightliner and Dodge with badging to match. So the Dodge/Freightliner Sprinter has been gaining market share, but the Ford and Chev are still kings of the hill in a massive way.

Really the only thing that the stock Hiace needs is a lowering, wheels and a little tint to bring it up to speed. I could do without the chrome bumper and shaved door/handles.

 

[Kanticoy]

What you really need is my dream vehicle....

A UNIMOG!!!!

 

[mysta2]

I need a van to haul bikes around... I'd get a Unimog if I wanted to haul vans around

There's a guy here in downtown Dallas that builds, modifies, imports, and sells Unimogs. I stopped by his shop a few years ago on a ride and got him to show me around the shop.

Dropped my bike on his crooked ass driveway too (it was a very good driveway for a Unimog, not for a Ducati)

Talk about the best vehicle ever to take to a Mercedes owners club meeting ;D

 

[chrisf]

Chris was talking about a little open made in china trailer.

Those are actually made off Loop 12 and I-35. But yeah, they're an open trailer. The more I think about it, it will likely be cheaper for you just to rent a van for the events you go to.

--Chris

 

[Kanticoy]

I need a van to haul bikes around... I'd get a Unimog if I wanted to haul vans around

You've got a point!

I was gonna let you know, I'm a paramedic, and a few years back we bought a few sprinters for our company to use and try as an ambulance chassis. Ours were the Mercedes versions. They just didn't hold up at all. They were governed from the factory at 80mph, and are now actually sitting in our "ambulance graveyard" because they broke down incessantly. Now granted we are hard on trucks. It's nothing for us to put 150,000 miles on one in a year. We go high rates of speed on all sorts of terrain in any weather.

That being said, the best trucks we have used (and continue to use) are the Ford E series vans. We use the E-350s with the power stroke diesel. We have some of those trucks out there with over 500,000 miles on them and they're still used. The absolute most reliable tough as nails version out there is the 7.3L powerstroke version. They made it from like 95-2005. They're common, and they actually get pretty good mileage (27ish on the highway). And they're tough as nails.

Just a little perspective from what I've seen.

 

[mysta2]

That being said, the best trucks we have used (and continue to use) are the Ford E series vans. We use the E-350s with the power stroke diesel. We have some of those trucks out there with over 500,000 miles on them and they're still used. The absolute most reliable tough as nails version out there is the 7.3L powerstroke version. They made it from like 95-2005. They're common, and they actually get pretty good mileage (27ish on the highway). And they're tough as nails.

Just a little perspective from what I've seen.

Awesome, that's fantastic info. Changes my mind significantly about the Sprinter. Did you guys look into the chevys also? Maybe I should look back at the Fords. Any opinion on the Triton V8s?

I'm not about to rent a van every time I need to take something to work, or pick up lumber, or every time it rains. My Ducati is my daily driver, I want a car so that I can still get to work when I don't want to ride, and so that I can pick up whatever I need whenever I need it... and I only want to own one car.

 

[Kanticoy]

The duramax diesels are excellent. Very high quality motors. We have a few chassis that use them right now, but they're only a year old, so I can't really say how they are in the long run. One thing about them is they have much more torque and are significantly quieter than the power stroke. Chevrolet v8's are great motors, and are very easy to work on. I have a silverado with a 350 in it with almost 300000 miles and it still goes strong. The weak point on these motors is the intake manifold. But that is a weekend job that's pretty eay to do. The newer LS motors are also excellent. I have a friend with a 5.4(?) tahoe and it is well over 200,000 miles and he regularly uses it to make a 200 mile route while towing a several thousand pound load.

The triton v8's I don't know much about. They've been around forever. I know that the 4.6L v8's are great. They are common in police cruisers and are reliable except for the plastic intake manifold. They're all good until something goes out on them and then they are expensive to fix from what I hear. I'll do some asking around about the bigger v8 (which is commonly found in the van chassis). I know a guy that has a fleet of ford vans with the v8's in them that he uses for his plumbing business. I'll see what he knows about the reliablility/maintenance issues with them. I'll see him tomorrow actually.

Hope this helps.

 

[hotfunk67]

you would have plenty of these over there?

while us poor aussies have got to put up with these!!

and turn them into these!!
enter sandman ;D ;D ;D

 

[mysta2]

Yeah, except most of them look more like this: