What about using a Ford Transit connect to pull a tear?

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Re: What about using a Ford Transit connect to pull a tear?

Postby WizardOfOdds » Mon Feb 03, 2014 5:45 pm

That's the "chicken tax" mentioned in the article.


No, I don't think so, to quote the article ...
the U.S. still hits delivery vans imported from overseas with a 25% tariff. .....
The company's wiggle room comes from the process of defining a delivery van. Customs officials check a bunch of features to determine whether a vehicle's primary purpose might be to move people instead. Since cargo doesn't need seats with seat belts or to look out the window, those items are on the list. So Ford ships all its Transit Connects with both, calls them "wagons" instead of "commercial vans." Installing and removing unneeded seats and windows costs the company hundreds of dollars per van, but the import tax falls dramatically, to 2.5 percent, saving thousands.


Looks to me that they ship them as "passenger vans" to avoid the "chicken tax" and keeping them as passenger vans does not impose a "chicken tax"

About the oranges & apples:
The "wagon" version comes in with an actual, usable seat, full carpeting, a headliner, and plastic panels covering the painted steel walls.


That may be true, the article says
"On a recent afternoon, a handful of vans passed through the warehouse unmolested as passenger wagons."
,but I believe the metal exterior panels to cover the window holes, a new floor panel and all the labor and disposal cost at least as much as any interior decor. Even exchanging the seat, considering the price difference, they seem a lot more like two slightly different varieties of an "apple", or at most one apple is painted orange. Wouldn't it be interesting to see the actual cost numbers?
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Re: What about using a Ford Transit connect to pull a tear?

Postby MtnDon » Mon Feb 03, 2014 6:33 pm

There are lots of weird customs things... Decades ago I know that Toyota imported its pickup trucks with the boxes just strapped to the frame. After clearing the port customs the boxes were then bolted in place. That saved some tariff.
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Re: What about using a Ford Transit connect to pull a tear?

Postby eggsalad » Mon Feb 03, 2014 6:37 pm

MtnDon wrote:There are lots of weird customs things... Decades ago I know that Toyota imported its pickup trucks with the boxes just strapped to the frame. After clearing the port customs the boxes were then bolted in place. That saved some tariff.


Doing it this way, they were officially imported as "incomplete vehicles" (a truck without a bed), and "auto parts" (a bed without a truck!). This allowed Toyota to avoid the "Chicken Tax" they would have encountered by actually bolting the bed down.
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Re: What about using a Ford Transit connect to pull a tear?

Postby H.A. » Mon Feb 03, 2014 7:47 pm

[.....
Last edited by H.A. on Wed Feb 03, 2016 8:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What about using a Ford Transit connect to pull a tear?

Postby rowerwet » Mon Feb 03, 2014 8:18 pm

they are finally gonna import the 7 passenger version to North America next year, It will be very interesting to me, but there is no way it could have the tow rating my Grand Caravan does 3,000 lb stock.
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Re: What about using a Ford Transit connect to pull a tear?

Postby rowerwet » Mon Feb 03, 2014 8:25 pm

grantstew8 wrote:It took a while to find but I knew I'd seen this photo somewhere before. There can't be too much traction on the front wheels; concerning when cornering.

Image

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Image
:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

these both remind me of the day I watched four guys trying to load a large fiberglass boat onto a float on trailer, since the tide was out, and they were rather burned and a little in the bag from a day of deep sea fishing, the loading operation didn't go so well, the boat was just a few feet short on the trailer with the back bumper of the truck in the water. they were trying to use the winch to pull the boat that last few feet when the cable snapped. They gave up and hauled the whole mess up to the parking lot, they used the nylon anchor rope to tie the boat to the winch (after discovering how much nylon stretches on a winch) then drove off with the back end of their Bronco II almost off the ground, the front end bogged way down and the boat slapping the keel every time they hit a bump, because it was hanging off the back of the trailer. I don't know if they made it home or not... cornering must have been fun. :frightened:
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Re: What about using a Ford Transit connect to pull a tear?

Postby eggsalad » Mon Feb 03, 2014 10:48 pm

rowerwet wrote:they are finally gonna import the 7 passenger version to North America next year, It will be very interesting to me, but there is no way it could have the tow rating my Grand Caravan does 3,000 lb stock.


Well, why should it? The Transit connect has an engine half the size of a Grand Caravan. The GC is also MUCH larger.
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Re: What about using a Ford Transit connect to pull a tear?

Postby mezmo » Tue Feb 04, 2014 12:29 am

Hey Grant,

grantstew8 wrote:It took a while to find but I knew I'd seen this photo somewhere before. There can't be too much traction on the front wheels; concerning when cornering.

Image



What is even scarier than just the looks of this setup is how they did the hitch on the Chevy
SUV. I saw a pic of that somewhere, along with the pic you posted, and if I recall correctly,
the hitch was mounted on the tailgate - not even on the end of the truck body !

Cheers,
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Re: What about using a Ford Transit connect to pull a tear?

Postby grantstew8 » Tue Feb 04, 2014 7:06 am

mezmo wrote:Hey Grant,

grantstew8 wrote:It took a while to find but I knew I'd seen this photo somewhere before. There can't be too much traction on the front wheels; concerning when cornering.



What is even scarier than just the looks of this setup is how they did the hitch on the Chevy
SUV. I saw a pic of that somewhere, along with the pic you posted, and if I recall correctly,
the hitch was mounted on the tailgate - not even on the end of the truck body !

Cheers,
Norm/memzo


Here is the link....Additional chains and a block of wood under the tailgate attached to the hitch. "Kids don't do this at home" :lol:
http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_nov2007/RedneckFifthWheel.htm
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Re: What about using a Ford Transit connect to pull a tear?

Postby mezmo » Wed Feb 05, 2014 12:01 am

Thanks for the ink, nice to see all of the "engineering" again !
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Re: What about using a Ford Transit connect to pull a tear?

Postby angib » Wed Feb 05, 2014 4:29 pm

jseyfert3 wrote:It's annoying how they downrate towing capacity in the US, presumably to get people to buy bigger towing vehicles.

I don't doubt there is plenty of marketing cynicism in tow ratings everywhere - I think manufacturers would declare all vehicles as unsuitable for towing, if they could get away with it. Sizes also come into play - here in Europe, the CRV is the largest vehicle (yes, really) sold by Honda so they need to give it a useful tow rating, whereas in the US they've got (more profitable) models to push tow-ers towards.

But before comparing American and European tow ratings, you also need to compare American and European towing practices. The big difference is that in Europe towing is limited to 50mph or 60mph and lots of things revolve around that. Europeans use much lower hitch weights, typically 4-7% or trailer weight, so even at their lower towing speeds, they are skating on the edge of sway.

Those lighter hitch weights also end up as lower maximum hitch weight limits issued by the tow vehicle manufacturers, so that 3500lb tow rating is likely to be combined with a 165lb maximum hitch weight.

Incidentally, this is where the ratings in both continents start to look the same - which makes me wonder if the real limit is hitch weight, not trailer weight. In many cases, the same vehicle is limited to 165lb hitch weight in both places, it gets rated to tow 1500lb in America (11% hitch weight ratio) and 3500lb in Europe (4.7% hitch weight ratio).
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Re: What about using a Ford Transit connect to pull a tear?

Postby jandmz » Thu Feb 06, 2014 12:53 am

MtnDon wrote:There are lots of weird customs things... Decades ago I know that Toyota imported its pickup trucks with the boxes just strapped to the frame. After clearing the port customs the boxes were then bolted in place. That saved some tariff.


That's also why the Subaru BRAT came with seats bolted into the pickup bed. That classified it as a passenger utility vehicle, instead of a pickup truck.
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Re: What about using a Ford Transit connect to pull a tear?

Postby rowerwet » Thu Feb 06, 2014 7:11 am

to meet ridiculous new EPA MPG targets manufacturers are also putting gears in the econoboxes they sell that don't give as much power, there has been a bunch of talk about this in car mags, I haven't seen any real numbers on gear ratios to prove it. The slower speeds in the EU and the fact that most EU cars are standard instead of auto may come into play as well.
(side note, my Focus transmission is a standard that is shifted by the computer to make it drive like an automatic)
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Re: What about using a Ford Transit connect to pull a tear?

Postby CCrew » Fri Jul 31, 2015 8:25 pm

A lot of FUD in this thread I tell you so I'll drag it to the top! :-)

We have a 2014 Transit Connect and we love it. Yes, it's rated 2000 lbs in the US for tow capacity, but funny thing is that it's rated 1200 KILO's (2620 lbs) in the EU as the Tourneo Connect and it's an import to here from Spain so go figure. The first generation (pre-2012) Transit Connect is not rated to tow.

We've towed with ours no issue, and as a matter of fact will be towing a 5x8 U-Haul trailer from VA to Denver next week. It'll fall off on big hills by 8-10mph with a heavy load, but on the flats it's just fine and will run 70mph no issue.

Comfortable, Incredible visibility greenhouse, well behaved, was cheap (we paid $23k against a $29k sticker price for a pretty loaded one) and it's roomy as all get out. You can fit a sheet of plywood flat in the back side to side, although front to back you need the hatch up. the 6 speed isn't the Focus dual clutch, and the motor is the 2.5 Duratec which is one of the most solid 4cyls Ford ever made (4 cylinder Ranger). If something happened to ours I'd buy another in a heartbeat. Current project is a mini trailer in matching color.

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Re: What about using a Ford Transit connect to pull a tear?

Postby ParTaxer » Sat Aug 01, 2015 9:33 am

Nice Transit! Thanks for the report. It is one of three vehicles that I am considering once mine dies.

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