Ford transit or ldv? - Reccomendatios

[scoffsred]

Hi all, im thinking of spending a few grand on a pick-up and i wondered if any of you had a prefference over these two veichles, i know its not a lot of money , but i would prefer a tipper with a 3500kg payload and a double cab, anybody got any horrors stories worth telling, or are they a reasonably good bus?

Cheers in advance

[lutonlagerlout]

vehicle thread
LLL

[scoffsred]

Cheers my man, i looked earlier and couldnt see that sorry:p

[lutonlagerlout]

cabstars seem pretty bullet proof,uncomfortable for passengers seems to be my main and only gripe
LLL

[dig dug dan]

would prefer a tipper with a 3500kg payload and a double cab

A 3500kg payload? don't you mean a 3500kg gross weight?

The Cabstar double cab has the biggest payload of them all at 1200kg. The transit is under 800kg!

[lutonlagerlout]

our non tipper cabstar has a payload of 1650 kg dan,
LLL

[scoffsred]

let me get this right dan, the payload on a transit is less than a tonne, that seems very light, when a bulk bag is around 950 kg, that was the main reason for getting one:(

[dig dug dan]

wow! thats the best yet. no one can beat that!

[dig dug dan]

he payload on a transit is less than a tonne, that seems very light, when a bulk bag is around 950 kg,

Only on the double cab. The LWB tipper is about 1200kg and the non tipper is about 1500kg
The cabstar hold the weight better. it never looks overloaded, even when it is

[scoffsred]

the problem is that i'm only spending around 3k and i've only seen old rust buckets in the nissan range where as the the transits look in better condition, plus i'm thinking parts will be cheaper and easier got. BTW i've revised my thinking on the the whole tipper idea after reading the van thread LLL kindly pointed out, im gonna go for a drop-side of some kind.:rock:

[lutonlagerlout]

it takes me 5 minutes to shovel a tonne of anything thing off red,i know lads driving round in 10 year old cabstars and they reckon they are great motors
i used to have a ford transit tipper and boy oh boy did that guzzle juice
used to cost me a fiver to start it up
LLL

[scoffsred]

Cheers LLL i'll have a look on auto trader and see whats available, like a said, i havent got a lot too spend, the owner of the local woodyard uses a 17yr old ldv and swears by it, cost him £1700 sheets 5-6 yr ago and its still goin strong, reckons he's only spent a grand on maintanance in the time he's had it too, then again he's a geordie so he's probably billy bullshitting me:D

[Rich H]

I've had a couple of transit tippers. Never again. Expensive to buy, guzzle fuel, gutless when loaded and rust to pieces. Very seldom hear a bad word about Cabstars.

I'm running an ex-BT transit SWB with a 2.5t plant trailer for the lads and a Ranger pickup for me. The new Ranger is much more powerful than the old one (98 v 140bhp) and I love it. Perfectly happy with a tonne on the back and as LLL says doesn't take long to shovel a tonne (takes me a bit longer than 5 minutes to shovel a tonne of scalps off it, though!!)

My thinking with the van+trailer is that I can keep the trailer and replace the relatively cheap vans when I need to.

[scoffsred]

i've an 03 plate l200 4life which i'm slowly wrecking, i've dented the tailgate countless times and its like a bog in the footwells, it was a good idea at the time but i've decided that they just arent for this line of work, even though it looks great. i'll just have to slum it in a cabstar if i can get one within my budget.

[Tony McC]

I've an L200 4Life but it doesn't really get hammered as, these days, I'm only moving my training gear around and the heaviest piece of kit is the block splitter.

I have to start lugging around a plate compactor in the next batch of training sessions, so I'm going to invest in a little trailer as the chance of me lifting even a relatively lightweight plate up onto that tailboard is somewhere between nil and buggerall.

I do wish the 'boot' of the L200 was just 150mm or so longer: I have some screed rails and a lute that are just a fraction too long to fit in without being at an angle and it can make packing stuff away quite a challenge, sometimes.

While training in Ireland over the past fortnight, I did over 1200 miles (roughly 4 times the length of the country - I have a LOT of family back there) and while it's not as comfy to drive as my owld Shogun, she's a lot less thirsty (diesel at roughly 68p per litre in the Republic) and a bit more powerful. The turning circle is poor - getting off the boat at Holyhead involved a 5 point turn to get aligned properly for the off-ramp!

Still: she's a good blend of versatility, comfort and reasonably good looks ... a bit like Mrs Taz, when you think about it!