The Misadventures of Our New Tow Vehicle

What's an adventure without a little drama?  Ours currently relates to the saga of our new tow vehicle, which we ordered on the 19th of January, and it rolled off the assembly line during the first week in March.  It is a critical piece of our puzzle, as it allows us to stow our gear far more efficiently than with our present tow vehicle AND it allows us to carry our bikes out of the elements.  The outside date given in the original estimated delivery range was mid-April, so with it now being a full month past that date, our anxiety is mounting.  Especially since Ford Logistics notes that on average a cargo ship requires 18 days to cross the Atlantic Ocean (the vehicle is made in Valencia, Spain).  Add in the time needed for the trip overland, and from factory to dealer it takes about five weeks once it is on a ship, and that's without an Amtrak derailment creating an unforeseen bottleneck.  And the last we heard, it was still sitting on the dock in Spain.  But while we are waiting for it to arrive, I'll tell you a bit about how it fits into our plans.  

Having such a compact and efficiently designed trailer means that the choice of a tow vehicle is very important, and it is a highly personal choice to make.  Our trailer is exceptionally light (less than 1,200 pounds, fully loaded), so the majority of gasoline powered cars being produced today are capable of towing it - some better than others.  Our 2001 Frontier 4x4, with a supercharged V6, was far more power than we needed.  And our 2013 Mazda CX-5 is capable of towing the trailer very economically, but there is barely enough space inside it for our gear on such an extended trip, and that means that we'd sometimes need to unload half our gear to get at something we would only use on occasion.  And that would also mean we'd do the same drill in reverse when that item was once again ready to be stowed.  So what was the solution?

With both the Frontier and the CX-5 it would have been our preference that neither vehicle had any back seats - a flat floor on which we could build something to store our gear and keep the dog safe would have been ideal.  But it seemed such a vehicle did not exist, at least until we realized it was possible for us to buy a commercial vehicle.  Once we headed down that path it led us to several small cargo vans that are currently on the market.  Of those, our needs were best met by the Ford Transit Connect, which is basically two seats and a 4' X 4' X 7+' long box (the long wheelbase version) that can be accessed from sliding doors on either the street side or curb side, or from the rear barn doors.  It not only gives us a means to store all of our gear in a manner that allows us to get at anything without having to dig through a pile of other stuff, but it was so cavernous that it became possible to easily store our bikes INSIDE - something we had never before considered as a possibility.  No more hoisting them up on the rooftop where there was the ever present danger of driving under a bridge or overhang with insufficient clearance, or hanging them off of a hitch rack where they'd pick up lots of road grime and obscure our tail lights.  Likewise, no more leaving them out in the rain, or advertising their presence to prowling thieves at a campground or shopping center parking lot. 

A 2014+-style Ford Transit Connect Van.

Not having the bikes on the roof allows us to avoid a lot of mileage-scrubbing drag vs. carrying them on top of the vehicle or trailer (this is problem for all vehicles, but especially with highly fuel efficient vehicles, where Consumer Reports has found that it can drop fuel economy by as much as 35% on some cars!).  The slightly taller and longer Transit Connect should improve our overall aerodynamics, providing a better slipstream from freeway winds for our camper.  And despite having 20% more power and torque than our CX-5, the rated mileage is actually a tiny bit better, plus the added torque should mean we'll get far better gas mileage while towing the trailer, especially uphill or into a headwind.  With the CX-5, our actual mileage on a 9,000+ mile trip in 2013 was a bit better than 23 mpg overall.  We're hoping to get 2-3mpg better than that with the Transit Connect.

But that is IF our new van shows up in time.  It turns out that demand for fuel efficient commercial vehicles was very high at the end of last year, as business owners had attempted to minimize their capital gains by adding to their fleets before year's end.  So, at least locally, Transit Connects are sold about as fast as they appear on dealer lots (I suspect that is also because the dealers don't carry much inventory, opting to save space for vehicles with higher margins, such as SUVs and the fancy full size trucks).  "No worries!," we had thought when we ordered, as back then we had anticipated that we wouldn't embark upon our adventure until after Labor Day.

The delay has caused a small degree of havoc for us, as we need precise dimensions to determine how best to fit all of our gear inside, or even to determine if we'll be able to take along everything we'd like to have with us (some of which is not essential).  It was only last week that we were finally able to get our hands on a Transit Connect at a dealer to take some measurements.  While that was helpful, it made it clear that things will be tight enough in some areas that we'll need the van to clearly know what will work and what ideas will need to be abandoned.

So more and more items that we need to check off our todo list are piling up: 

• Preparing our house for listing,
• Having our house appraised,  
• Getting the van fitted out with our custom storage solutions,  
• Breaking the van's engine in before towing (1,000 miles recommended),
• Installing 7-pin wiring and a brake controller on the van, 
• Selling the CX-5, 
• Finding a storage unit and determining how big it should be for the few possessions that we won't part with, 
• and so on.

We aren't near to being in a panic yet, but we're hopeful we'll have the van within the next month.  Beyond that, and each day's delay will be compounding our anxiety of whether there will be enough time for all of the pieces of this puzzle to come together on time. 

Fortunately for us, the sale of our house is not a critical component of our plans.  With prices rising we'd be likely to more than make up for the cost of keeping the property maintained while we are gone, but we'd prefer not to have to come back to Idaho in the spring to do that.