Building the Escape Pod
If you own or ever owned a 2010-2016 Sprinter in the USA, you can claim between $880 and $3,500 as part of a class action emissions settlement. But you have to submit the claim by October 1, 2022.
Continue reading “PSA: Claim up to $3,500 in Class Action money for 2010-2016 diesel Sprinters”
News coming out of Overland Expo East this week (Nov 2018) suggests that Iglhaut, one of the big German 4×4 Sprinter conversion companies, will be accepting orders in the USA soon. That means true 50/50 split full time 4×4 with locking differentials. But it isn’t cheap.
Continue reading “Want a true 4WD Sprinter with locking diffs? Iglhaut Allrad is coming to the USA.”
Some of these van conversions blazed the trail, some are recent additions. What sets them apart is attention to detail, clever techniques for solving problems, and adaptations based on what their owners use the vehicles for.
Ready for some van porn? Read on… Continue reading “Vanspiration – adventure van builds we admire”
There are lots of holes in the metal van walls that you can use for mounting your wall panels. It’s not always easy to accurately find those holes and mark them on the panel. But, like most things, there’s a tool for that.
Because the van was late arriving (or rather, our van got sold to someone else and the dealer lied to us about it), the garage started filling up with parts we’d ordered.
It’s really frustrating to have a ton of things to put in the van and no time to work on it.
The Fedex and UPS drivers want to know what our special project is. We really got good value from our Amazon Prime membership this year!
We ordered a four wheel drive sprinter on the day they first came available in North America. The dealership completely screwed up, and sold our van to somebody else – probably on purpose. All I’ll say is, never use Wilson Motors in Bellingham, WA. They are dishonest and care more about how much money they can save than about customer service.
Luckily, they’d found a replacement 4×4 which kind-of sort-of was OK for our needs. We took it rather than waiting another six to ten months for a replacement to get built in Germany and then shipped across.
We didn’t end up with most of the options we’d ordered, like suspension seats or the Active Safety package, and the van we took home had several things we’d never have ordered – what use is an alarm system if you’re parked in a forest? Or alloy wheels on a dirt road? Or the crappy Becker GPS system.
Still, it was a crew van (one row of passenger seats, windows in the sliding door and behind the driver) and had 4×4, which was our primary reason for waiting so long for the van. Plenty of room inside for the conversion we want to do, and hopefully the 4×4 will look after us when we’re heading to remote mountain bike trails.