All purpose Van Elgrand or Alphard or Alternative?

[DMENTDGT]

Hi, im looking for a van that I can use for work and also use as a family car.
Anyone had a Nissan El grand or a Toyota Alphard that can give a review on them or an alternative like them that can be used for both causes.

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[Franco Cozzo]

I'd be suspect on using it for both work and family car, even though some people movers are on van based platforms - they've got different suspension tunes.

If work purposes you're only going to be carrying 350-500kg worth of stuff in your van, it might be OK but forget it if you're thinking about 1000kg payloads in a people mover like an Elgrand or Alphard.

E51 Elgrand has a payload of 440kg and thats it - its big, its looks like a van but its designed to carry 7 humans (or like four obese ones).

Hyundai iMax has a bigger payload of just over 800kg, but she's no Elgrand or Alphard when it comes to comfort.

Povvo spec Kia Carnival has 684kg payload

The more you move toward comfy people mover the less weight you can put in the back of it for your work vehicle.

I think its going to be a compromise here.

[Interceptor]

PLEASE dont buy a grey import.... they are nightmares when it comes to parts availability.

[Dr Terry]

Originally Posted by Interceptor

PLEASE dont buy a grey import.... they are nightmares when it comes to parts availability.

^^^^^^^ Exactly.

Dr Terry

[Interceptor]

To elaborate, grey imports are fine when they're something that an enthusiast owns and doesnt use regularly, in that example, they're not something thats going to cause a problem if you need to wait weeks to turn up from overseas, and an enthusiast is going to love the car enough to be patient enough to accomodate the wait times, and resourceful enough to source a lot of the parts themselves where workshops will simply dump it in the "too hard" basket.

A work/family/daily driver is a car where people *cant* afford to have the vehicle out of action because they're waiting for parts.

The ElGrand is a great people mover, a mate has one, but the longer he keeps it, the more it deteriorates, first he needed to replace the springs as the aftermarket springs & shocks that were on it when he bought it were too low and it was destroying itself on the goat tracks around here that are called highways, Nissan didnt want to help apart from telling me several important parts were unavailable, anyone else I spoke to told me to import something from Japan if the grey import wreckers in Australia couldnt help, then when another workshop cobbled together a "kit" for him, it raised the right height back to normal, but the shocks were pathetically weak and the springs couldnt handle the weight of his family!
The end result was a set of secondhand springs and shocks from a wrecker in NZ turned up and fixed the problem.
Theres other little things that have failed over time that are letting what is an otherwise fantastic vehicle down.

The biggest selling point of grey imports is that for what you get at purchase time, theyre cheap, but once the honeymoon is over......

If you're intent on getting a van with seats for more than 2.5 adults as well as being used for carrying a load/tools/work duties, I'd seriously consider a Hiace Commuter, strip out the last couple of rows of seats and add a cargo barrier.

[Interceptor]

For a grey import option, have a look on carsales for a Hiace Super GL or a Grand Cabin GL, they look to be based on the same Hiace vans that are common in Australia, so parts availability should be reasonably good.