Comox questions

[Alice]

Hello,

I am seriously considering buying an automatic star wagon turbo and I have a few questions that I'm getting conflicting answers to. Perhaps some of you can help?

1. What have people towed with their Delica's? And where? I have a 15 foot welded boat with a 40 horse Honda. The boat weighs about 1000 pounds, the trailer about 400, ( and it does NOT have trailer brakes), and the motor about 250. I want to buy a vehicle that can trailer my boat (and gas), to the west coast or anywhere roads can take me, ie up and down mountains. Can the Delicas do this? If it can, any thoughts about trailer hitches would be appreciated too.

2. Has anyone installed cruise control on their Delica's?

Thanks in advance for your answers. My Toyota Tercel connected with a buck last weekend so although I've been shopping for the perfect vehicle the issue has come to the fore front! What I want is something that can handily tow my boat, something I can sleep in, some thing I can use to explore back roads and something that doesn't use a lot of fuel.

What do you think? Is the Delica the vehicle for the job?

Alice

[The Pinkfingers]

Hi Alice -

Welcome to the forum!

To answer your last question first, yes people have installed cruise control... but not us so I'll someone else answer the rest of that question. If you use the search function and input "cruise control" you should get alot of info.

First question second, the delica can tow that, but (and hopefully folks with heavy trailers and stuff can jump in here), whether the delica should tow that without trailer brakes or a brake upgrade is another question. Delicas weigh about 4000 pounds and they are diesel, so they can handle heavy loads, albeit slowly if it's really heavy. But I'm not sure I'd want to be going down a long steep hill without brake help.

A few folks have done some brake upgrades to great success. Many folks have trailers and are often towing one thing or another behind them.

[BCDelica]

That sounds like a prefect sized boat for towing behind a Delica; mine is a 16.5' Alum with a 75 hp that we towed to the Cariboo and Bamfield ways several times. And the boat had plenty of gear and WVO jugs stored in it during those trips. Having towed several weights of trailers ourselves, can comfortably say that a trailer 2000 lbs and under pulls quite nicely, slowing you down in the mountains just a bit. 3000lbs of trailer is a different story, using trailer brakes of course, this weight slows the vans down considerably. In every other regards the Delica handled a 3000 lb trailer great, recently pulled out of a campsite with all four wheels on a travel trailer locked due to a safety pin accidently being pulled - dug nifty deep trenches but the Delica in 4wd didn't even spin a tire. Ensure that the Delica you buy has serviced; brakes, wheel bearings, differentals and transmisson. Also you can pull out in Bamfield on a low tide with no wheel spin on a sea weed covered ramp, while the full sized 4wd p/u are spinning tires quite well.

A Delica has a vacuum system, and have met a owner who installed a cruise control sys and rated it a 8-9 difficulty on the 1 to 10 scale.

Cheers

Interested in a WVO powered Delica with a hitch?

[konadog]

We haul a utility trailer around everyday for work. Mulch, soil, gravel, garden debris - Like BCdelica says, NOT more than about 1000 kilos (2000lbs). For us it is seldom as much as 750 kilos. The bus has no trouble with it. And I don't know anything about a real cruise control, but before about the middle of 1993 the delis do come with a dash-throttle / lock. Its there for start up, not cruising, but on the long straight bits I use it to hold the throttle even and stretch out my knee

[Schwa]

Got a hitch installed at E&H hitches in Burnaby, very strong... We tow a 17 foot 1980 Double Eagle fiberglass boat with a no-brakes trailer (going to retrofit brakes soon) up and down some pretty steep hills and about 30km each way to the lake. The Delica handles it quite well, although it is speed-limited going up the hills with only 85hp. Just upgraded to L400 dual piston front brakes for more braking power, we'll see what kind of difference that makes.

[Artacoma]

16ft 50hp about 1500lbs
not too fast up hills but managable.