2023 new van upgrayedd

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NederVan

Active member
I am super excited to be picking up my new 2023 AWD low top 144 passenger van. I'm a lifelong van guy. I had tons of bay window buses and a single split bus early on along the way but my true loves are vanagon syncros. I've had 10 syncros (only one west) through the years with the last one being heavily mod'ed with a SVX conversion. This time I am coming out of a 2016 4x4 low top 144 crew van. I ordered my 2016 as soon as I heard you could order 4x4 and took delivery in nov 2016. It has just shy of 100k on it and has never even hiccuped. Because I refuse to be fucked for additional dealer markups I had been had considering retooling my current van, going further with the suspension than the RIP kit I put on in 2017 but I was able to find a new AWD 2023 on the lot at MSRP. I will be removing all the benches and replacing them with a smart floor system and 2 seats. I am a condo'r and not a camper, this will be build for colorado 4 season, on and off road travel as my daily driver and for a weekly overnight trip from CB to nederland. I was hesitant to move from 4WD to AWD but I found no new 22 lowtop 144 passenger vans so I'm jumping in with this AWD. I have a RIP kit with 265/75/16s on my current van but am considering the Van Compass 6.3 or waiting for an Evictus setup for this van. Getting past all the little dick energy jokes and "how big of wheels will fit question", is there a consensus on a sweet spot with tire size and both on road and off road usability? This van will be above 8000' most of it's life and be used for non technical but long rough HIGH country roads in the summer and will have a light load typically. I have used two sets of wheels in the past with duratac studs in the winter and KO2s in the summer but want to use only one set on this van. The van will be driven in "fuck it's dumping but I have to go anyway" weather over snowy passes way more frequently than any situation I may need to air down the tires for. I am considering falken wildpeak at3w. Any colorado folks experienced with that tire? Looking for any advice from folks who have done something similar.
 
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Peppy

Member
I've run the AT3W on a bunch of my vehicles including: FWD Lexus RX300, 3rd gen 4runner, Subaru Impreza, and Colorado ZR2. I won't hesitate to put them on my 23 Sprinter when it arrives in March. They have been great in the snow on every vehicle. Their Winter performance does drop off in their final season of use, but that's to be expected. I've driven on them in pretty much everything Colorado weather, roads and trails can throw at them.
 
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coguzzi

Active member
hmm, wonder if we ever met, im from CO myself (boulder/denver/lafayette) and have been life long van guy as well with split window busses and 6 syncros, most subaru powered and my favorite was also my SVX. since relocated to Quebec 4.5 yrs ago and regret it every single fn day
 
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NederVan

Active member
coguzzi said:
hmm, wonder if we ever met, im from CO myself (boulder/denver/lafayette) and have been life long van guy as well with split window busses and 6 syncros, most subaru powered and my favorite was also my SVX. since relocated to Quebec 4.5 yrs ago and regret it every single fn day
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Could be. I lived in Nederland from 1997 to 2018 when we moved to Crested Butte. I'm still in Nederland weekly for business.
 
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NederVan

Active member
coguzzi said:
ha, from 97-18 myself. syncro community is pretty small. ps, if i move back CB is my dream location
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CB is not quite as dreamy as it used to be unless you want to mingle with near billionaire douche bags. Plenty of Sprinters though.
 
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coguzzi

Active member
NederVan said:
CB is not quite as dreamy as it used to be unless you want to mingle with near billionaire douche bags. Plenty of Sprinters though.
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i hear ya, not the dirtbag ski/mtn bike bums it used to be. still my favorite ski town for "the town". forgot i lived up coal creek for a long time to, almost at the top
 
OCD Josh

OCD Josh

Why, Corndog? Why?
New-ish to Colorado, but I've been really liking the Toyo Open Country A/T III in the snow and ice here in Durango.

I have 265/75-16 on the stock steelies and Agile 16mm spacers.

We’re getting dumped on right now and I’m about to dig it out and head to my shop:

97D599E2-D2DA-409E-A386-C564F9C89CFF.jpeg
 
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NederVan

Active member
home from picking it up in Santa Fe. First drive was 700 miles from the dealer in Santa Fe > Boulder > Nederland > Crested Butte. Over all it's a superior vehicle and the AWD is dynamite for Colorado driving. I went through brutal winds down south on 25 and shitty I70 conditions confidently. No Buyer's remorse but there was some sort of issue coming through Poncha Springs that seemed to briefly limit power output strangely that went away after a few minutes of turning the vehicle off.
 

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Chaski

Well-known member
This is totally useless info, but I had to post it anyway because it was the first thing I thought of when I read your thread title.
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Chewbacca

Chewbacca

Member
I'm a big fan of Wildpeaks as well as Toyo AT3s. Have one set of each on my Landcruisers. I will put one or the other on my Sprinter here shortly. Both are very solid.
 
OneNiner

OneNiner

Adapt and overcome.
NederVan said:
home from picking it up in Santa Fe. First drive was 700 miles from the dealer in Santa Fe > Boulder > Nederland > Crested Butte. Over all it's a superior vehicle and the AWD is dynamite for Colorado driving. I went through brutal winds down south on 25 and shitty I70 conditions confidently. No Buyer's remorse but there was some sort of issue coming through Poncha Springs that seemed to briefly limit power output strangely that went away after a few minutes of turning the vehicle off.
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If you get the problem again, it may be a throttle body failure especially if the van will run but at no more than 60 mph with the pedal to the floor.
 
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NederVan

Active member
OneNiner said:
If you get the problem again, it may be a throttle body failure especially if the van will run but at no more than 60 mph with the pedal to the floor.
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how complicated was that repair? I will be driving remotely a good bit and thinking of a drive to the west coast. This doesn't fill me with confidence.
 
OneNiner

OneNiner

Adapt and overcome.
Relatively involved.

The mechanic has to access the throttle body from underneath the van. Repair took a morning at the dealership.

We drove for two months down in the US SW earlier this year without a problem. The failure occurred on the day the dealer had the van for a number of recalls. It happened within 20 minutes of me picking the van up and I had to return it to the dealer. They cleared the error message which allowed me to return home, 2.5 hours north from where the dealer is, to wait for the part to come in. The drive back was normal.

I took the van back down to the dealer a week later. The engine light came back on when I started it and I was limited to 60 mph + very slow acceleration and the paddle shifter would not work either. I could not clear the error code with my code reader.

Look for the speed limitation, the slow acceleration and the paddle shifter no longer working as sure signs that the throttle body has failed. The dealership's Sprinter service manager, who is very experienced and whom I trust, told me this was a very rare failure.

I posted a thread in the Fall and your post is the first one I have seen that could be related to my problem. I have had no one else report a similar problem. So, your problem may not be the same.
 
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NederVan

Active member
First improvements are done. I'm in Mexico at the moment and won't get to see it till late Thursday. I have a couple hours to decide if I want the VC 4.3 kit installed now while I am out of the country or wait for the Evictus system to be available. I'm leaning toward now. 326680982_485881043726371_8743981755768450992_n.jpg
 
jstar89crx

jstar89crx

Well-known member
NederVan said:
home from picking it up in Santa Fe. First drive was 700 miles from the dealer in Santa Fe > Boulder > Nederland > Crested Butte. Over all it's a superior vehicle and the AWD is dynamite for Colorado driving. I went through brutal winds down south on 25 and shitty I70 conditions confidently. No Buyer's remorse but there was some sort of issue coming through Poncha Springs that seemed to briefly limit power output strangely that went away after a few minutes of turning the vehicle off.
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I wonder if you experienced the same thing I did on my 100 mile delivery home. I was on the freeway going 60 for 30 mins or so and then the limit went to 70. I had the pedal to the floor and the van would not go beyond 65 or so. I turned on cruise control and set that to 80 and it still wouldn't budge. Finally I pulled off, shut the van off, turned it back on and the problem was gone. I have a 600 mile round trip drive to do this Friday which will be the first freeway run longer than about 30 minutes that I will have taken since then. It will be interesting to see if it happens again.
 
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