Colorado Camper Van: Chevy Astro long term review

Snowgeek135

Observer
I have been meaning to do this review for quite some time and with recent forums posts regarding CCV I felt it was time.

A little history, I have a 2004 Chevy Astro with what is now 118,000 miles and a CCV top that Derek installed 4 years ago. I wanted a 4x4 poptop camp van and my budget was $16,000 total build.... this meant that anything with the name Sport in front of it was out and so was a good high quality Syncro Westy. With a heavy amount of inspiration from T.Low I chose the Astro as the base for my build which would include a lot of work by me and a pop top company.

After much research of the two companies that offered poptops for Astros GTRV and Colorado Camper Van and after talking with Derek many times I chose CCV. I had very open eyes as there were some bad reviews already floating about Derek and CCV. I made this choice for a few reasons;
1. because he was willing to be flexible to work around my timing (obviously with a great amount of lead time)
2. He offered a H top style pop top for my rig vs a V top from GTRV this meant that I could sleep two adults (albeit short) and a young child all up top at the same time
3. He offered some features that no one else offered.

Communication with Derek was a little slow but overall he answered all my questions and followed through on everything he promised including an advanced time frame and a comfy pop top that I use a lot both for camping and as a great spot to get out of the cold and heat of my adventures including skiing and bike racing.

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When I picked up the van I was pleasantly surprised by the finish quality of the carpeting, tenting, and bed pads. While there were some spots that the carpet was not perfect they were in minor places and were in areas that I rarely see nor do they effect me in any way. After 4 years with the van these areas have not gotten any worse in any way.

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I chose to go with triple wall fabric adding insulation to the top for our colder trips, and also chose the Amazing Fan as part of our package. These two things have been life savers keeping the temperature in check as every one of our trips has included small children. The triple wall fabric has stood up to a lot of use but I do have two areas where the fabric has rubbed on some of the lift hardware and worn some of the water proof coating off of the internal surface of the fabric. I have covered this with some shoe goo type adhesive and this has taken care of the problem.

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I did have some issues leaking during our 3rd and 4th rainy excursions. This only occurred with the top in the poped up position and I have never experienced leaking with the top down. I asked Derek about it and he said he rarely caulks the seam between the roof and the fabric and rarely has a problem. I have determined that the leak was caused where the fabric is forced to follow some small but abrupt contours of the roof. I have caulked that line between the fabric and roof panel and now have no issues.

Keeping water out brings up the big quirk of the Astro pop top….. NO RAIN GUTTER arg! On both Ford and Chevy full size vans there is a rain gutter running around the full top of the van and the roof has no abrupt curves. With out this rain gutter there is no perfect stop for the fiberglass top. The seal sits down upon the edge of the roof hanging over sightly in all areas….. this causes a bit of an issue with the doors and the seal. I think this might be remedied if the top was designed just for pop tops but since it is likely a Hi-Top roof mold being adapted to the Poptop aplication it is a bit quirky. As the top has nestled down on the the van over the last few years I have had to cut some of the fiberglass top up a bit to make better clearance for the doors to pass by the seal. In the end it is not perfect which is partially the vans fault and partially caused by the fiberglass top itself.

There have been questions about the fiberglass top and some inconsistencies in the mold. I have a few, no doubt, as I am assuming all of us CCV Astro owners came out of the same mold. To be honest I never even thought about being frustrated about it. While you can see some ripples there they are covered by the gel coat and are not visible when standing on the ground. My worst one is small enough to be covered by my thumb and only noticeable when looking over it with a fine tooth comb. These have not changed nor delaminated in any way over the last few years.

I did have a rather sizable issue with the attachment bar that is attached to the fiberglass top where the tenting material is connected.......long story short some of it was beginning to separate from the top. Derek had used a glue that had proved not to be strong enough under the heat of the sun. When I contacted him about the issue he knew of the problem offered to fix it if I was in the area or send me the glue to fix it myself. Being in Boise I asked him to send it to me and I tackled the issue. The top has been put up and taken down probably 150 times since then with no issues.

What do I think after 4 years of owning a CCV top? I think that Derek does a great job, his designs are innovative and it seems that he trys new things to make them better....That of course comes with its own set of issues, sometimes things work and sometimes they don't. But it offered me a feature packed comfortable top that I love and use regularly. If you are looking for something that has the fit and finish of a factory VW top or a Sportsmobile top ccv might not be for you...but remember if sportsmobile made a astro top it would be in the neighborhood of $2500ish more similarly equiped. CCV is offered on more vehicles than sportsmobile, and has way more space than anything you find on top of a VW. If you are incapable or unwilling to doing some maintenance this is not the top for you. If you are like me and go into the project with open eyes you will be happy with the $7000 you spent!

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Van on the Run

New member
Great write up. Your experience with CCV was very similar to mine.

"When I picked up the van I was pleasantly surprised by the finish quality of the carpeting, tenting, and bed pads. While there were some spots that the carpet was not perfect they were in minor places and were in areas that I rarely see nor do they effect me in any way."

^^^^Agreed, I was quite happy with the finish on my pop top as well. There were a couple minor things here and there but for me it wasn't anything to write home about.

For reference I had my CCV pop top installed in 2013. During the summer of 2015, I traveled the Southwest and PNW living out of van for nearly 100 days, no issues with the pop top during that time. Currently, everything works fine and as it should.
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Herbie

Rendezvous Conspirator
There have been questions about the fiberglass top and some inconsistencies in the mold. I have a few, no doubt, as I am assuming all of us CCV Astro owners came out of the same mold.

To clarify: Is Derek sourcing (or producing) new tops now? When I spoke to him about CCV pop-tops in 2010, his business model was to source fiberglass hi-tops from junkyard vans and refurbish them. In the past, whenever there was reported variability in the quality of the finish on the tops, I have always attributed it to this process.
 

1der

Observer
To clarify: Is Derek sourcing (or producing) new tops now? When I spoke to him about CCV pop-tops in 2010, his business model was to source fiberglass hi-tops from junkyard vans and refurbish them. In the past, whenever there was reported variability in the quality of the finish on the tops, I have always attributed it to this process.

He has his own molds and has the tops laid up local to him. He used use new tops from Fiberine quite a bit, but there were compromises with that approach. It has been a long time since he used junkyard tops.

The CCV molded tops are designed to be pop tops.
 

710m

Observer
My EB Chevy got a fiberine top from CCV this summer. I don't think he does enough Chevy's to justify a mold.
 

Snowgeek135

Observer
This has now been answered ......I think that by 2012 they were new tops. I had asked for the initial gel coat be black and Derek checked with the manufacturer. I saw the top before installation and it seemed new.... But if there was a remanufacturing process it might be hard to know.



Ryan
 

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