Under Construction

In the beginning of our journey to a van conversion, we thought a Sprinter van would be ideal. I especially liked the all electric Roadtrek E-Trek, but there was no way we were going to shell out the $160,000+ starting price. We figured we could do it our way for around a third of that price and we did. We looked forward to being able to park in any normal parking space. Our analysis revealed several factors that brought us to buying a 2015 Diesel Ram Promaster high top 1500 with a 136″ wheel base instead. Our plan evolved into selling our old 1985 Winnebago Chieftain 22 and dropping our RV storage space, saving us $100 per month. Instead of a storage space for the van we sold our aging primary vehicle, a 1999 Toyota Avalon, to DR’s parents. We were then able to park the van in the carport of our mobile home as explicitly allowed by the park rules, on the condition that the van not be equipped with any type butane or propane. We ultimately eliminated all high top Sprinters as they are just too tall to fit in our carport without major construction. The other factor was that the Sprinters are less than six feet wide inside and we wanted to sleep transverse (across) and DR is six feet tall. The Promaster is just barely six feet across at the level of our platform bed. Because the Promaster is front wheel drive it is much shorter than the Sprinter and fit into our carport. After dealing with unreliable vehicle issues with our old RV and since we were going to have to replace the Avalon pretty soon anyway we decided to buy a new rather than used cargo van. We decided that since we were going to invest in a brand new van that we would order it from the factory exactly the way we wanted it. This probably cost us a pretty penny, but we’re glad we did.

My father wisely convinced me to pay up for the 3.0L Eco Diesel paired with the computer controlled manual transmission. I have not been sorry. Like my father I’ve never been into the inefficiency of overpowered vehicles and the Promaster’s little 174hp four banger diesel scoots along perfectly at a very affordable 22.5 mpg, especially compared to our old RV’s 5-7 mpg. This gives us a nice 500 mile range on a full 24 gallon tank of fuel. The DEF fluid is a slight pain, but only requires attention every 1500 miles or so.