Anyone use their van as their primary commuter?

[southpier]

Wow, what motor and weight is your rig?
I ask because 3-4 weeks is impressive.

2015 savana 2500 6 liter v-8. don't know its weight. i just don't need to be anywhere. retired, I live 2 blocks from the beaches, 1/2 mile in different directions from the two houses I caretake in the offseason, and 3 miles from the post office where I check my mail twice a week. food shopping is a mile, or three depending where, away. foot power, bicycle, and Amazon Prime does the rest. the record is last summer was 27 days, and when I filled up the 30 gallon tank it only took 25 point something gallons.

I actually need to make an effort to head up on the "big road" every couple of weeks to get some of the condensation out of the exhaust system.

 

[Bbasso]

Sounds like you picked a very ideal spot to hunker down, well done Sir .

 

[kccourtney]

I got one word: Motorcycle! I used to DD our 7.3 4x4 Sportsmobile for years 34mi. a day. When gas (and especially diesel) started to get stupid expensive a while back, I got an adventure bike. The bike was basically free in the face of the money I saved in fuel, and I didn't get a cheap one. That got me way back into motorcycles and now I don't have to sit in traffic. Gas is cheap now but the not sitting in traffic thing is key. I can always hop in the van if it's pouring. Bikes are cheap to buy, cheap to maintain, and cheap to insure. Anyway, just a thought.

 

[GHI]

That's awesome, but we lack lane splitting privileges here in Michigan.

 

[mikracer]

I used to DD my van when I lived 2 miles from work. Now I live 20 miles from work so I bought a cheap Honda Civic that gets almost 40mpg. My van gets 10MPG so my annual gas savings is north of $4,000/year.

 

[Choff]

I used to DD my van when I lived 2 miles from work. Now I live 20 miles from work so I bought a cheap Honda Civic that gets almost 40mpg. My van gets 10MPG so my annual gas savings is north of $4,000/year.

Factor in the insurance and oil changes and upkeep of another car and the Van Sits ? now how much are you ahead???

 

[macexpress]

"I used to DD my van when I lived 2 miles from work. Now I live 20 miles from work so I bought a cheap Honda Civic that gets almost 40mpg. My van gets 10MPG so my annual gas savings is north of $4000/ year. "

Fuel must be stupid expensive in Cali. Here in Wisconsin fuel is around $2.50 a gallon so for your 10,000 mile annual commute driving your van would only cost $2500 total in fuel all year

 

[dcguillory]

I live in Cali and I dont understand those figures either

 

[dleeallen]

At 10k miles per year the civic uses 250 gallons vs 1000 gallons the van burns. 750 gallon savings at $2.50 is $1875. Fuel would have to be over $5 to save $4k.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[drsmonkey]

I bought my Chevy AWD as both a trip and DD for me rig. Once I got the interior half built out my wife (and baby, and dog) claimed it instead. She only puts about 100-200 miles a week on it, but she won't drive anything else, so I ended up selling our Subaru.

 

[dleeallen]

I bought my Chevy AWD as both a trip and DD for me rig. Once I got the interior half built out my wife (and baby, and dog) claimed it instead. She only puts about 100-200 miles a week on it, but she won't drive anything else, so I ended up selling our Subaru.

I love mine for hauling kids!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[GR8ADV]

This was actually a real part of our discussions when investing in a new travel vehicle. We thought long and hard about outfitting a Sprinter because I could use it for commuting and could justify not spending an additional 30k on a new vehicle for that purpose.
.
ymmv

 

[zuren]

Thanks for the replies.

I definitely need to think more on this but as my luck seems to be going these days, I got the kid strapped into the VW this morning heading to daycare/work and quickly discovered that one of the rear brake calipers siezed up sometime between Sat. night and Mon. morning. I couldn't get it to free up so I'm in the van today and had to add another "To Do" to my list.

Someone made the comment above about the "cost" of having a vehicle sit. This is 100% true! I'm already dealing with issues on the van since it does sit most of the time and this "sitting cost" is also part of my equation for ditching the VW. However, it was nice to have a "spare" vehicle to jump in when I discovered that the VW had a problem this morning.

 

[dleeallen]

Thanks for the replies.

I definitely need to think more on this but as my luck seems to be going these days, I got the kid strapped into the VW this morning heading to daycare/work and quickly discovered that one of the rear brake calipers siezed up sometime between Sat. night and Mon. morning. I couldn't get it to free up so I'm in the van today and had to add another "To Do" to my list.

Someone made the comment above about the "cost" of having a vehicle sit. This is 100% true! I'm already dealing with issues on the van since it does sit most of the time and this "sitting cost" is also part of my equation for ditching the VW. However, it was nice to have a "spare" vehicle to jump in when I discovered that the VW had a problem this morning.

A spare vehicle is definitely handy but I've always found it more work than it was worth 99% of the time. Maybe if I had a nice warm dry garage for the spare to sit in it would work better.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Bbasso]

A motorcycle makes for the perfect spare vehicle And it can be part of the van's trip when desired.