help me convince my wife.....

[Daddyman]

Hi all,
I'm new to the site and find the delica to be a potential exellent vehicle for my road tripping young family of 5. -However.

There dosen't seem to be too much support out there when it comes to parts. I spoke to the parts guy at nanaimo mitsubishi on vancouver island and apparently you can be stuck waiting for months. I hear much of the same at toyota.
Is there something you guys know that I don't?
What do you do in the case of an accident or you need new headlights or something like that?
cheers

[Green1]

a lot of the importers stock common parts, and the rest can be had in a month or so for cheap, or in a couple days if you have money (I got stranded needing a new radiator and an importer told me he could have one from Japan in 2 days for me)
the other secret apparently is that if you find a part number you can order them through mitsubishi on their regular shipments as long as you don't tell them what vehicle it is for (they get cranky if they find out it's for an import)

[Daddyman]

thanks green1,

[EnviroImports.com]

I was told that Malahat auto parts, is now starting to stock parts for the delica, and a few are here now as parts vans, also here in Victoria LORDCO is starting a type of data base for delica parts, No you can't walk in and say I have a delica and everyone will know what you mean, some one may even say go see a doctor about that, But if you go see PHIL at victoria lordco on burnside then has started a cross refrence list of what our parts are but under different names, Mitsubishi has alot of parts out there. everything I had previously brought in from japan, I found at lordco under othe mitsubishi names.

and if your wife really need convincing, have HER pay for the fuel in ANY mini van or suv for the next month, I was paying $40/2-3days (explorer) regular gas, my uncles toyota prius van is $70/week taking the kids to school and work thats all the driving he does,
my surf, $50/1.5 weeks-2 weeks, 2.4L Turbo diesel,
and my delica is a bit better on fuel than my surf.
enviromentaly even if you dont get a delica you should go to turbo diesel anyway. even get it on wvo(waste vegitable oil) one day,
your either trying to help the green house has problem or your making it worse.
and with multiple kids, a delica is a no brainer. as far as I can find its the only afordable 7 passenger vehicle that gets great milage, unless your rich enough to get the dodge sprinter with the benz diesel, and that will only run you $60000. + tax of course hahahahahah


hmmm, can you tell where my feeling are lol
the wife is lauging at me now saying "no honey, dont hold back... telll them how you really feel" lol

[delicanuck]

Hey Daddyman,

Well to begin with, I would say that there *was* something we knew about that you didn't and that was this forum. Your on to us now though.

My wife had a number of issues with the car and of all of them, the only one that really has required some management is that the side door is on the traffic side. Just the same though, here are the others:

She didn't want to buy another toxin spewing monster -
My Deli drinks biodiesel and WVO conversions are pretty easy to do too.

She didn't like the seat belts. -
Inertially activated shoulder belts are made for grown-ups and don't actually fit that well or work that well for car seats, particularly if your baby and seat combined weigh less than 65 Lbs. I retro-ed in some non-inertial lap belts which work better with car seats, are easier to get on and off and they don't rely on your car seat/baby combined weight being over 65 Lbs. So now my seat belts are safer than the new ones, at least for car seats.

She didn't like that there was no big block of steel in front to deflect the oncoming idiot.
When ICBC does an adjustment, they figure out who was "at fault" as in, who caused the accident and these are the statistics that we typically see. The other ICBC statistics are that in almost all cases, almost all accidents were avoidable by the other driver. Really. If an idiot wants to crash into me, with foresight and good driving technique, I can almost always avoid him. I'll see if I can find those stats somewhere, I know a bunch of people at ICBC because I have had several "accidents" but under rather odd circumstances. So anyway, that's why about 18% of the drivers have just under 90% of the accidents. Although doing so is not politically expedient, those high risk drivers are easily defined and identified. If you aren't one of them, you probably don't need to worry about them, rather, maintain your good driving habits.

She didn't like the prospect of owning a rolling money pit that would sit in the driveway in front of our other money pit, waiting for... ha ha.. parts.
Well yeah, sometimes, some parts are hard to find. In my experience so far, the folks at Abbotsford Japan Auto have been able to pull any regular part right of their shelf, e.g. filters, belts, clutch, pressure plate, brakes etc. Anything else I \'v asked them to find they did find and offered express air service in a few days or send it in their next container in a few weeks. For instance I ordered a custom, high performance stainless stell exhaust system from AJA and they had it in in a few weeks. With installation, it was about $100 LESS than a Midas peice of crap. I would expect most of the other dealer will be more or less the same. David at Japanoid.com just took a tail light fixture off his own van for me.

OK well, the passengers have to get out into traffic. That's the only real issue for us and so we just manage it. After all, my kids will probably make and play with explosives, and swing on rickety old "Tarzan" swings out of canyons, and climb on the storm drains into mean people back yards and all those things that I did... I didn't die. Statistically, the stairs in your house are probably more dangerous. ( Did I mention that I have 4 relatives in the insurance business?)

Things that she will like about Delicas?

You won't get stuck... anywhere. Its real four wheel drive, not "AWD" aka any wheel drive.

Your up high and can see what's happening in traffic.

No one is likely to steal such a unique and easily identifiable car. ( Do you live in Surrey?)

The swivel captains chairs in the mid row make baby-in-car seat management pretty easy.

Seats 7 or more! Gramma and the dog can come too! And with two zone AC, you'll all get to breath. Plus, the groceries will still fit in the back.

Its a total babe magnet! ( OK well try to imagine that your a woman driving past a construction site with a dozen recently buffed and oiled shirtless construction workers, flexing on the curb.)

Its really nice to drive.

Its really crappy for picking up hitch hikers.

My wife really likes our now.

[Daddyman]

wetcoast my friend i must say you were the deal clincher.
you had my wife giggling and saying words like (cute reply).
looks like were goin shoppin as soon as i call malahat auto and lordco to put her totally at ease...YEEHAAW.

[EnviroImports.com]

great to hear,, Phil at lordco in vic doesent start until 11 am, he is one of the managers, tell him Noel told you to call. ive started him a cross refrence on delica & surf parts.
Happy shoping,

[Daddyman]

wetcoast my friend i must say you were the deal clincher.
you had my wife giggling and saying words like (cute reply).
looks like were goin shoppin as soon as i call malahat auto and lordco to put her totally at ease...YEEHAAW.

[Daddyman]

Thanks delicanuck,
we are stoked at this point and waiting for our banker to extend the line of credit...