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  • From: Antoine Gendreau Turmel <fermecouleedouce AT gmail.com>
  • To: "Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>" <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] advice for market vehicle purchase
  • Date: Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:37:38 -0500

Title: Re: [Market-farming] advice for market vehicle purchase
I bought a 2006 sprinter van this winter and I love it, but I have not used it yet for vegetable deliveries. Mine is a passenger van with the rear seats and all and I use it as our second vehicule right now.

Two things I love about it:

-You can stand up in it (i’m 6’1”) That makes loading and unloading MUCH easier.

-It has great fuel economy. It get around 20MPG when it’s loaded (I have the extra long version with high roof). The smaller ones get about 25mpg from what i’ve read. This van has more than twice the cargo area of my chevrolet express, yet has better fuel economy. Not to mention the mercedes turbodiesel engine that can last more than 600 000 miles...

The biggest drawback to the sprinter van is that it’s a complex german vehicule and you can’t service it at your local auto repair shop. You have to make sure you have a dealer (dodge, mercedes or freightliner) near you that can service it. Having to drive 200 miles for a check engine light is not something you want to be doing.

The Ford Transit seems like a goog vehicule, but it’s way too small for my needs. It seems Ford is making a bigger one in Europe, but it is not available (yet) in North America.

Hope this helps.


Antoine G Turmel

Ferme de la Coulée Douce
St-Antoine-de-Tilly, Québec
www.FermeDeLaCouleeDouce.com  



Le 05/02/12 16:07, « Beth Spaugh » <lists AT rhomestead.com> a écrit :

Our old pickup wasn’t worth fixing up for inspection so we are shopping for a market vehicle.  I have been using our RAV4 for market, but we are thinking of getting a larger market vehicle.  We have pretty well settled on used Ford Transit Connect or used Dodge Sprinter.  Do any of you have experience/guidance with these?  We’d pretty much settled on the Transit but I am a little leery of not being able to haul 8 foot anything and the Sprinter is the only other one that has really attracted me.  I heard rave reviews of it a couple of years ago and it was supposed to have 30 mpg mileage, but the reviews are more down around 20.  
 
Oh, neither of us enjoys fixing machinery, so reliability is a must.
 
Thanks.
 
Beth Spaugh
Rehoboth Homestead, Peru NY
http://rhomestead.com     http://www.facebook.com/rhomestead

"How we eat determines, to a considerable extent, how the world is used." - Wendell Berry
"Without power over our food, any notion of democracy is empty." - Frances Moore Lappe

 
 


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