Choosing a van

As I had a good idea what I wanted to do, so the next step was finding a suitable van. After visiting a lot of car dealers and searching the net I managed to narrow it down to a few options. The van had to have seats that folded into a (nearly) flat platform, preferably on one side, leaving the other side as seats so I could still transport the family around on my days off without having to remove the bed.

There were a few options that would have given me significantly more room in the back, the Toyota Alphard and the Nissan Elgrand to name a couple. These vans are big vehicles and as such come with big engines. But for me a 3 or 3.5ltr V6 motor was just going to be too expensive to run so I discounted these vehicles and started looking for something more fuel economic.

Top row: Alphard and Elgrand. Bottom row: Serena and Stepwagon.

So I started looking at the smaller vehicles, and three seemed to meet the criteria. I discounted the Nissan Serena after talking to a few mechanics and discovering that the fancy CVT transmission needs its oil changed every 15000km at a cost of $160 just for the oil alone. So that left two, the Honda Stepwagon and the Toyota Voxy/Noah.

There seemed to by a big shortage of these two models for sale in Wellington. In fact I couldn't find a Stepwagon anywhere, the closest one on a car yard was in Whanganui (over 2 hours away). I drove a Voxy and liked the model but not the particular car. My wife pointed out that it was exceptionally ugly and suggested I drive a Stepwagon. There were heaps of them for sale in Auckland eight hours away by road. So a trip to north was in order.

In Auckland I drove a number of Stepwagons and Voxys. I had convinced myself that the Stepwagon was the way to go, but was a bit disappointed when I actually drove them. They didn't have the presence on the road that the Voxy had, and felt a bit cheaper and more plastic. This may just be because the stepwagon is 400kg lighter. As it would also need to tow trailer loads firewood over the hill I decided the extra weight could be advantageous. So a Voxy it would be, all I had to do now was find one that ticked as many boxes as possible: dark colour (most are white or silver), mag wheels, turning middle seats (to face the back), less than 100000km, tinted windows, and within budget.

After a busy day running around many car yards I ended up with this van. Its a 2005 model with 86000kms on the clock and it ticked all the boxes.