Just put 2300 miles on a rental Titanium.

[tim53]

...and even my wife told me to try to buy it from the rental company when I turned it in. So I tried. They put me in contact with their sales rep, who asked when I'd be interested in buying one. When I said "I want the one I just dropped off", they didn't seem to know how to deal with that.

I normally drive a 2001 VW Eurovan MV weekender, which is a great camping vehicle. It's got 167K miles on the body and transmission, and ~35K on a new engine. It was in the shop when I needed to go on this trip, so my wife thought I should rent a car instead of driving it before the worn suspension components were replaced up front. There were about 3 cars in the rental lot when I went in last Friday. They'd just finished washing a Chevy Cruze for me, but I saw the TC off to the side and told them I wanted to try one of those out.

I have to say that I was pretty impressed with the performance and comfort for long distance driving (on one day, I had to drive 700 miles). The family was with me the first day for a wedding we attended about 4 hours away, and they all liked the comfort. I loved the color, even (Race Red). It had the glass panorama roof and leather buckets in all three rows. It didn't have the larger touch screen though, but since I've never driven one of these before, I didn't know what I was missing and wasn't disappointed. The mileage was terrific for such a roomy vehicle. Worst tank was 23.75, coming back from Delta, Utah to where I next bought gas in Las Vegas, with a strong headwind most of the way. Best tank was going north to Salt Lake City with a tailwind, at 29.3mpg. For comparison, my 24-valve VR6 Eurovan gets about 19.5 mpg on a good day on the highway, and about 13 or 14 mpg driving it to and from work on surface streets... ...and only burns ethyl.

I've not tried the ecoboost version of the TC, of course, but I would prefer something like that if I can get one in the LWB version. I see on some of the threads here that it is available for the LWB cargo van, so I'm wondering if I can buy one of these and add at least the 2nd row of seats for carrying family members. Or, maybe better yet, are there plans for camper conversions of these vans that I can follow to make my own convertible seat-bed or camper interior?

TIA for any suggestions. I'm going to keep browsing for low-mileage used vehicles (first choice to keep costs down), but might consider new if I can find one rigged out the way I want it.

-Tim.

[Spooner]

Glad you liked it! I did just what you are talking about-found a 2015 with 15k on the odo and saved a nice chunk over buying new. I am up to 33k now 6 months later and still in love with the van.

[G B L]

That Race Red TC will be for sale soon . You should be able to follow that car; I have gone to several used car web sites and the Rental TC's seem to have around 15000 miles on them. The discount could be very good .

Hope you find your match.

Edited June 25, 2016 by G B L

[tim53]

There's a red cargo LWB with the ecoboost engine in San Carlos.  Tempting, but I'd probably be killed upon pulling into the driveway.

[G B L]

The difference between the cargo and the titanium would be noticeable 

If you have the Vin of the one you rented you should be able to track it down.

[tim53]

Wish I'd thought of that.  But I didn't.  Well, my fam liked the red, except my son.  he thinks it's too bright.  I like the blue and the black ones, too, though.  Too bad most are white.  I don't like white, but I don't hate it like I hate silver.  

 

-Tim.

[mrtn]

You can always have it wrapped

 

[G B L]

The used car web sites have lots of used TC wagons I even saw a Red Titanium.  The only thing I noticed is most of the passenger wagons have lift gate's.  The thinking must be most  mini van people want lift gate's . Swing doors for me!

I will have to check out wraps , they sound interesting. 

[mrtn]

There are great different colors with different metallic and flake effects available in wrapping vinyl catalogs, glossy and matte. The latter will be more expensive as you can't really have visible seams as they show more than the glossy ones. So you need to use more vinyl to complete it. Also the paintwork under the matte vinyl must be immaculate.

European passenger/liftgate models are called Tourneo exclusively. Trim levels go up to Titanium. Barn doors are on Transit models only. 

[tim53]

I didn't mind the lift gate on the "Red Sled", but I've been using big lift gates for more than 20 years on the two VW Eurovans I've owned.  I do miss the double doors on my dad's 1966 Dodge van, though.  And I'd kind of like to try them out with a TC XLT wagon.  I still wish that the ecoboost engine was available in the LWB wagons.

[G B L]

The lift gate is available on all models here Wagon and Van, but finding a Lift gate Van on the lot would be more difficult . 

I think I was fortunate to find a Black XLT wagon with Swing door's. The 1.6 was never available for A TC that I would buy so I can't miss something that could never happen. 

[Fifty150]

On 7/16/2016 at 7:02 PM, tim53 said:

There's a red cargo LWB with the ecoboost engine in San Carlos.  Tempting, but I'd probably be killed upon pulling into the driveway.

San Carlos has a Ford dealership?  

[103west43rd]

Town Ford, Redwood City, close enough.

Buy it tim53, you only live once.

[Slonie]

So, did he do it?

[tim53]

I didn't mind the lift gate on the "Red Sled", but I've been using big lift gates for more than 20 years on the two VW Eurovans I've owned.  I do miss the double doors on my dad's 1966 Dodge van, though.  And I'd kind of like to try them out with a TC XLT wagon.  I still wish that the ecoboost engine was available in the LWB wagons

On 2/20/2017 at 1:09 PM, Slonie said:

So, did he do it?

Sadly, no.  And I have a vacation home to build in the coming months, so another car purchase won't be for a while.

 

-Tim.

[Beta Don]

The first TC we drove was a van with the twin doors and we thought we would really prefer the twin doors  -  Love the way they open 270 degrees to lie flat against the side of the van

Until we drove it, that is  -  The twin doors look very nice from the outside and you would never guess how big a visual obstruction the foot wide blank spot in the middle gives you when using the inside mirror  -  I couldn't see anything behind me with a quick glance in the mirror and it took my eyes off the road for way too long to make any sense of what I was seeing.  The inside mirror is almost useless and I knew I'd never get used to that.  After just a 10 or 15 minute drive, we both knew that the twin doors were NOT going to work for us, so we quit looking for used TC's which did not have the lift gate.  After owning it for several months, we really like the lift gate  -  When it's raining, it's very nice to have a dry place to get under when loading or unloading and the door is high enough for even a 6 footer.  Another plus  -  Only one window wiper! 

Don

[Fifty150]

After driving Econoline vans at work for years, I've gotten used to the fact that the rear view mirror is useless unless I want to see my van's interior.  Ditto for turning my head to look over my shoulder.  I've learned to trust my mirrors.  Which is the exact opposite of what you really should be doing.  Trust but verify.  Check your mirrors, then turn your head to look.  But with cargo vans, there really isn't much of an option.  Just like driving a truck.  The only thing that you can rely upon when driving a truck is the mirrors.

[mrtn]

Well, luckily you can have a direct rear view camera and a "rear view mirror" screen mounted.