I also need new wheels

[MaryAnn]

Anybody have experience with small commercial vans that will fit in a standard garage? I will be buying new for health reasons. This isn't for transporting a tuba...it's for a cross country move with me and my two cats and a second driver. I plan to keep it after I arrive at my destination and use it for my standard shopping etc. (AZ to southern VA.)

It would be nice to be able to tow a Uhaul trailer, but I don't know if vans are set up that way.

[PMeuph]

I drive a Ford Transit at work once in a while. I believe you can get it set up as a passenger van (the way we have it) or as a cargo van (no windows). It has decent towing capacity - 5000 lbs to 7500 lbs depending on the engine. It comes with three possible heights, but even the highest would fit in a standard 7 foot garage door. It fits in a regular parking spot, so if you garage is not tiny, it should be alright.

Handles alright (I preferred the old E Series vans), The gas cap is in a weird spot, but otherwise I thinks it is a good van.

It might end up being too big for a daily driver, or too costly as I doubt you'll 20 mpg with it.

[MaryAnn]

I looked at the Transit Connect a while back. I was looking for something even smaller than that....

Wade, if we go when we think we will, which is around the 1st of the year, we will take the southern route. Thanks for the warnings; I made a 6000 mile road trip from Tucson to VA to NY and back in June of 2016 with my huge truck Bubba and my travel trailer, all by myself, and did fine although there were scary spots. Not people scary but road scary!! The Penn Pike was down to one lane and full of heaves and I really didn't know how semis could get through there. I had mile after mile of the trailer bucking over the heaves and no more than four inches on either side....it was the Major Yikes part of the trip and I don't particularly want to repeat that. Also after that, most anything will be easier.
The only "people scary" was, (heh) meeting up with Schlep in Amarillo. Twice my size....and a nice guy. He did post a picture if you want to look for it.

PS: Bubba would have gone in the garage, barely, height-wise, if I had not bought a cap that was four inches taller than the cab. My bad, didn't think about it, which is why I'm thinking about it now.

[Ken Herrick]

An important point to consider: "Towing capacity" is often overstated. What really matters is the combined weight of the towing vehicle and the trailer. Often high towing capacity ratings are based on the towing vehicle being empty. Adding a couple people and a relatively small amount of load often leaves a greatly diminished amount to be towed which, of course includes the weight of the trailer itself. Another factor is the downward force on the tow ball, some high rated vehicles can not take much weight on the tow ball without becoming tail heavy and thus hard to control. A fully loaded van will likely not have much safe/legal capacity left


A bit of a web search will find information on this with comparisons of different vehicles. Do some research and stay safe!

[tofu]

Yeah - you can never have "too much" towing capacity or low end torque. Another thing to take into consideration - you want a truly robust transmission purpose built for towing in the tow vehicle. So many people ruin transmissions with a single heavy cross country haul. They think "well it's just a one time deal". I even see people hauling heavy loads in trailers using a car with a CVT - which just can't handle towing - no matter what manufacturers say. Manufacturers do mislead people with the figures they put out. I haul my classic cars to shows in a 24 foot aluminum Featherlite trailer and when it's loaded with one of my larger cars like my 12 cylinder 1934 Packard 1108 Pheaton which by itself weighs 5750 pounds with a 147 in wheelbase and over 6 feet tall, with all that combined trailer/car weight & height you really come to loathe high side winds, bad pavement, tight curves, mountains & heavy tight fast moving traffic on highways with bad drivers - it can be nerve racking. Every time I do it I come away with a load of respect for the overland truck drivers who do it day in and day out with big rigs.

[Ken Herrick]

GOOD points, Tofu!

MA, do your research and do your $$$ sums. Medium to long term it could be better to pack a small shipping container and send it by truck, keep your present vehicle to do the trip, then change vehicles when you are settled in your new location.

Good luck and best wishes!

Ken

[timayer]

I'm certainly not here to tell you how to do your move. That's too much of a personally-specific question. I've done cross-continent road-based moves twice. Once Connecticut to Alaska. Then Alaska to New Hampshire.

The first time I did it, it was with one other driver, and the car loaded with stuff to the point of not being able to see out the windows. It was ok, but there was a base level of stress I could have done without.

The second time, I planned a bit better and mailed a TON of stuff ahead of time. Certain things (tubas, glassware, framed pictures, etc...) came in the car with me. But clothes, sheets, towels, etc...were all mailed ahead of time using the slowest possible schedule the USPS had to offer (my goal was to beat my belongings to New Hampshire). That worked a lot better. It was surprisingly economical to mail everything. And the cars were still pretty loaded up, but much more reasonably, and the drive was LOT more enjoyable. Since I was leaving Alaska, loading things onto a shipping container was prohibitively expensive, which is where the USPS came in.

But to Ken's point above, and in my experience doing these sorts of things, if you can swing a small shipping container, you'll be a lot happier in the long run. There's nothing quite like taking the day-before-I'm-leaving-holy-crap-I-need-20-more-square-feet-of-trunk-space jitters off your shoulders. Lightening the vehicle makes the drive a lot more enjoyable.

However, like I started out, moves are (a) never fun, no matter how you do that; and (b) very personal experiences. So take my experience simply as it is - one person's personal lessons learned from two experiences.