AxWomble

Our friendly MOT place has advised us to grease the unions with the flexi pipes before - to stop them seizing solid

Our old AX had that when we bought it - in the form of a very lightweight shell and two sticking calipers 😂

Bonnet open warnings. I can almost always tell if it’s slightly open - it just looks wrong somehow. But I see lots of cars driving round with the bonnet released to the first position, so maybe it’s a useful feature for most

Nice to see the ‘instant’ MPG readout too, if you want to do some informed hypermiling

Heated Mirrors - we didn’t even realise our van had them until we were doing a journey from London to Norfolk in freezing fog 😬 Thought I’d press the HRW button on the dashboard for the fun of it and the mirrors magically cleared! Prior to this, I’d presumed it was a redundant switch for a higher spec van with glass in the rear doors. Especially as our van is povvo spec and doesn’t even have airbags or ABS. Not a feature I use more than a few times a winter, but very useful to have in certain conditions

I do find this useful for smooth downshifting, in all fairness 😂 and for maintaining speed if you need to drop a cog on a steep uphill

I do find this useful for smooth downshifting, in all fairness 😂 and for maintaining speed if you need to drop a cog on a steep uphill

You’ve got some good mitigation with that plan - can’t go too far wrong, unless it grenades. Keep us posted!

My in-laws got a Tentbox Lite last year and they go away with it all the time - used to have it atop a Nissan Pathfinder, that went poorly and now they’ve got it on a XC70. He’s done a diesel heater in a box thing so they even use it over winter. Big estate+roof top tent is a great combo!

Handy to know the going rate for this kind of thing - ours will be up fairly soon, once the new van is liveable. What did you put it up for?

Or alternatively, a Vivaro/Trafic? Same sort of T5 size but a bit cheaper and might get you a more comprehensive conversion if you’re lucky. They’re obviously less popular so you’d have to look harder. Would echo what @cobblers says - a Relay/Ducato/Boxer is really a class above a T5 in terms of size, and will feel a fair bit less like a car. Ours has never met a parking space it couldn’t fit into, but it’s always tight. A T5 would always fit with no extra thought required.

Crumbs. That’s a bit iffy. We’re putting belted minibus seats in our new van but we are at least using the original installation hardware in the same way the manufacturer intended. I guess they’re not testable on the MOT beyond checking that they’ve been installed with some level of good practise - although the gov.uk page on this seems to suggest that unless they’ve been glued to the floor, anything goes 😂 “Additional seats should be fitted securely so that they are likely to remain in place in the event of an accident” https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/converting-a-van-to-carry-passengers-in-the-rear/converting-a-van-to-carry-passengers-in-the-rear

Is it one of those wooden beds or a proper crash tested steel frame jobbie? I find it odd that big motorhome manufacturers can sell 5,6,7 berth vans with travelling seats that have seatbelts but about as much structural integrity as a park bench 😬

That doesn’t look bad at all - I’d investigate what the “some rust” is, but otherwise looks a steal!

Most of the 2.5s I see around are belching smoke, not a good sign! The 1.9s aren’t exactly smooth but they’re tougher and used in more applications - easier to get them sorted if the worst happens