Water or Plastic Water Tank?

[Jeanne Gallagher]

Hi there,
We are kitting out our 4x4 and are trying to decide on what type of water tank to get.
It seems both steel and plastic have benefits to both but plastic seems to be slightly better.

Can anyone advise please? Looking at around 100litre capacity.

Thanks alot
Jeanne

 

[mhiscox]

I have had steel, aluminum, plastic and fiberglass water tanks, and suspect you might be happiest with plastic. It depends a little where the tank is going to sit and where you are going. One could, for example, make the claim that it'd be easier to get an emergency middle-of-nowhere patch to stick better steel tank, but given that that is unlikely to happen, plastic has the fewest negatives, I think. And I have had very good luck at not having any detectable taste or odor leech from polyethylene tanks.

That said, lots of upscale boats use stainless steel, and dairies and other food processors have stainless tanks more often than plastic, so I'm thinking that in spite of the fact I've never had problems with plastic, stainless apparently is the easiest to keep clean.

Depending on where the tank is mounted, one obvious advantage to plastic may be that if you get a translucent tank, you can tell at a glance how much water you have without resorting to a level gauge. This is the situation in my Sprinter camper and it's really handy. (Though you can't much tell it's translucent in the picture.)