You want to talk turkey? Let’s start with the only vehicle where the manufacturer tried to buy back every single one that had been sold, to be sent to the crusher, because they kept self-immolating. In 1994, Nissan offered top Blue Book values or more for them (up to $7k), as well as $500 discounts on new Nissan vehicles, after four recalls couldn’t fix persistent engine fires. But apparently, a few die-hards wanted to keep their Nissan Vans, although this is the first and only one I’ve seen in decades. And I’ve been saving this one for two years, just for Turkey Week. I wonder if it’s gone up in flames since then?
The Nissan Van’s problems are highly ironic, given that the very similar Toyota Van (above) has become perhaps the ultimate roach in places like here, having long ago replaced the VW Bus as the rolling box of choice for certain segments of the population. It’s a rugged and durable as it gets. I promise a full CC on them shortly. So what went wrong with Nissan’s?
There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with Nissan’s Vanette, which is just another representative of that class of of Japanese vans that are/were to be seen all over the developing world, as well as in Japan. Simple, rugged, with mediocre dynamic qualities, to be sure, their ilk in varying sizes are still being made by the millions in China today.
But when the minivan explosion in the US hit hard in 1985, with the Caravan/Voyager twins, the Japanese suddenly found themselves on the outside looking in. So they quickly adapted their work horse vans to conform to US safety standards, which explains their ant-eater front ends. Power trains were also beefed up, given American’s preference for automatics and air conditioning.
And this is where Nissan stumbled, big time. They shoehorned in the larger 2.4 L Z24i engine into the engine bay that had previously been occupied by smaller and more austere engines. Combined with fuel injection, A/C, etc, the engine bay became prone to overheating and engine fires, especially when a leaky valve cover gasket allowed oil to spill on the exhaust manifold. But that was only part of the problem.
Four recalls were initiated to solve the overheating issues, which also contributed to the fires. A whole new cooling system was part of the recall, including new radiators, fans and warning system. But problems persisted, and Nissan started offering to buy back owners’ problematic vans. When word of that got out, a class action suit was initiated, which led to the settlement offer of the buyback of all vans.
That only came to about 33,000 vans, sold in 1987 and 1988, mostly in California. The debacle cost Nissan some $200 million. So if you’ve never seen one, it’s understandable. I wasn’t supposed to either.
Wasn’t there a similar recall on the early ’70s Plymouth Cricket? I remember a newsphoto in the paper showing flatbed loads of new ones heading straight to the crusher. Does anyone else remember this?
I don’t. But then I haven’t seen one in many decades. Of course, there might be other reasons for that!
A little further research on the Cricket does not suggest anything like that.
Hey Paul can you tell Me where this van is I would like to own it I do know it is in Eugene Oregon Please contact Me at 541-476-0245 ask for Doug
Only ONE Plymouth Cricket still exists. Period.
That was the first-gen Honda Civic. Years after I bought my Shove-It (Chevette) and after I was liberated of it by circumstances…I was driving a tow truck. And one of our contract garages was a Honda dealer…I should say, a Pontiac dealer with a corner for Hondas. That’s how it was then.
But anyway…walking to work or cadging a ride every morning, I used my position to hunt around for cheap wheels. At the Pon-Hon store, I noticed about 25 old Civics in the back. I made inquiries…and was told, they were not for sale; Honda had bought them back and they were headed for the crusher.
That was 1982.
I’m too young to remember these (although I did know of their existence). I remember those wierd ass Toyota Vans, though: they reminded me of a duck when I was little.
Is the Nissan’s engine under the driver seat like the Toyota vans?
/loved my two Toyota vans
Essentially the same.
That is definitely a rarity. I’ve never seen one before but I don’t think they were ever sold new in Canada.
I wouldn’t want to work on one of these. Engine accessibility is not great.
Yeah, that’s pretty much identical to the 80s Toyotas. I did a tune up once and had to remove the passenger seat and lots of carpeting. Overheating was/is a common problem with Toyota vans as well. A wise owner replaces the radiator every 30k or so.
The Toyota and Nissan vans always made me think of the box that other minivans came in.
In Ireland , Toyota bought up all the last generation rear-drive Starlets because of severe rust issues. I believe that only a few re-engined rally cars escaped the cull.
I’ve never even seen one of these either!
The Toyota vans of that era also had lesser heat issues with plastic and rubber parts getting cooked underneath. Seeing that 4-cylinder slanted over almost horizontal, along with the accessory driveshaft that extended forward from the crankshaft pulley to the front of the vehicle, makes one say “wow.”
And speaking of strange van trivia, how many of you are aware that the new Toyota AWD vans have NO SPARE TIRE (not even a compact one), since the normal under-floor compartment where the spare tire normally sits is not there due to the driveshaft going to the rear axle. This was a deal-breaker for one of my friends when they were van-shopping last year. Somebody should make a front or rear spare tire mount for these rigs (I suppose a receiver-hitch-mounted contraption that swings out of the way to access the rear hatch would be the most practical, although still very inconvenient).
Do the new Toyota vans have run-flat tires? (My wife’s Mini Cooper S had this issue, since the supercharger meant the battery had to be relegated to the rear of the car, and that meant no spare–thus run-flats and the insurance to cover their expensive replacement should they need to actually run flat.)
The Toyota van does not have an accessory drive shaft all the accessories are driven off the crank pulley. It was the Previa that has that problematic accessory driveshaft and the engine almost laying on it’s side.
I once inquired of my mechanic about one of these Toyota vans. His reply: “They are very good vehicles but from a selfish perspective, I’d rather you didn’t.”
It seems to me that a handful of these made it to the midwest, but I cannot recall seeing one in years and years.
They are hell to work on but don’t often need much.
They don’t take abuse well, either.
I had an old Toy van…always wanted one; and when one appeared in a used-car lot, without rust holes, I ponied up the cash.
Unfortunately for me, it had had issues; overheating; probably a bad head gasket at root. And replacing the engine was a non-starter…the engine was unique for that model in the States.
I drove it as long as I could, adding copious quantities of coolant; but one night it started running hot while I was without liquids and passing through the ghetto. No WAY was I going to stop; and I didn’t; but when I got to where I was going (work) the engine was not well. It did cool off without obvious failure; and I did drive it away; but there was no hiding what had happened to it.
That engine was very,very close to the engine that was in a small Toyota (Toyoda said the I.D plate!) forklift we had at a boat shop I worked at back in 86-89
Name the the 3rd box van from Japan to complete the tri-fecta.
Mitsubishi, Mazda & Isuzu all did them in the early 80′s, no idea which one made it to the US though. A local dragstrip has a Holden (Isuzu) Shuttle with a jet engine in it…
The Mazda Bongo made it to Canada as the Kia Besta … I just finished writing something up on that.
The Mitsu is the one that made it to the US and sold in really small numbers. A local engine rebuilder had one they used for deliveries. I saw it still running around a few years ago.
I saw a Nissan Van on the road a few years ago. I’m not sure how the people who were silly enough to keep them keep them on the road. I don’t think Nissan supports parts for them in anyway, other than somethings that are the same for that engine in other applications.
I have actually driven a Nissan Van back when they were new. The cool option they had was a refrigerator in front of the engine box. Just big enough for a six pack of cans.
To keep the game going can someone name the car that came before than that had a refrigerator option?
Surprised everyone’s forgetting the third van in the set – the Mitsubishi. From five feet away, you had to look for nose markings to tell the difference between the three. Prime example of what you get when the government sets down the specifications for the class.
Correct….at least those were the 3 we got here in the US.
My uncle had the mitsu out on the cape. He bought it when he lived in Cali and drove it cross country to his retirement home on the cape. From what I hear they sold it for scrap about two years ago with a little over 200k on it and bought a Sienna.
There was one other car that I can think of where all the cars were recalled and scrapped. The Chevrolet Copper Cooled, or something like that. It was an early, like 1920s or ’30s attemp by Chevrolet at air cooling. It failed. They got back all but one of them, that one was owned by Henry Ford who would not sell it back. I heard it’s at the Henry Ford Museum now.
Excellent. I had a powerful nagging feeling that I was missing something when I wrote that. And I just re-read that story recently. Thank you; maybe I’ll do a quickie post on it.
Alfa Sud buy back and compensation payments
The Citroen Birotor had the same factory buy back.
For your reading pleasure, I present a road test of the trifecta of Japanese mini-vans that invaded the US market.
http://books.google.com/books?id=qwAAAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA90#v=onepage&q&f=false
A friend used to work for Australia’s national telco from the 70′s to the mid 90′s and had a lot of experience in these vans (commercial versions at least), he preferred the Nissan & despised the Mitsubishi. For one point a Nissan engine will run longer than a Mitsubishi, they always seem to start burning oil early.
Ironically the Nissan departed the local scene first, the Mitsubishi is still around built on the same fundamentals and not updated for a long time (complete with 1 star ANCAP crash test rating), while the Toyota was completely redesigned a couple of years ago, as were the VW & Hyundai vans.
I remember that Chevrolet thought about re-badging the Toyota van in the early 80′s as part of the NUMMI deal, I think they were thinking about making it there too along with the Nova, but it never panned out, though I have seen a sketch of a Chevrolet badged Toyo-Van.
There is a Mitsu van up the road from me. I have actually seen a Nissan van around here but only once. The Toyota’s are great rigs.
Well this makes me feel not so very smart. I have the 87 nissan p/u sibling to this van with a frozen z24. Always wanted the van because I considered them very reliable based on the performance of the pickups.
I am sure I remember Nissan, Toyota, Mitsu, and Isuzu. Only problem is that I spent a lot of time overseas until the start of the eighties. Old timers disease may mean that I’m remembering something from Guam or Hawaii.
It looks good anyway. Perfect for a serviceman.
Heaps of those Nissan vans here but not with a big motor all the other makes are common Mazda mitsi toyota isuzu
Haha…I think those are the same wheels used on the Infiniti M30, just with a different center cap!
I’ve never seen one of these on the road. I vaguely remember the Stanza Wagon and Axxess – those were weird cars, too.
What a weird coincidence…I just saw a blue Nissan van last week in the Ballard neighborhood of Seattle. I pointed it out to my wife and said how rare it was to see one. She wasn’t too impressed. I had forgotten about the recall/buy-back story. Rare indeed!
Come to New Zealand Paul – all those Nissan vans are here (and plenty more besides!). My favourite stupidly-big-engine-in-small-van award goes to Nissan for the version of their Homy van (the Vanette’s bigger brother) which was available with the 300ZX’s 3.0 V6. I don’t think they caught fire, but I rode in a 92ish model once, and it was super quick but the over-powerment made it feel even more flimsy – I swear the engine was trying to break free…
Of course even Toyota wasn’t immune, as they did a factory-ambulance version of their 1990s Hiace van which came with the 4.0V8 out of the Lexus LS400. One was for sale here a month ago, it was both terrifying and magnificent!
And re small vans, my company car (hah!) from 2000-2004 was a year-2000 Mazda Bongo van. It raised cross-wind instability to an art form. To make matters worse, it was purple, with a vinyl wrap of large fruit all over… Once I was sitting in it and saw a small child lick one of the 90cm grapes… (I worked for a juice company at the time, still do, but Mazda 6s without signwriting are the norm nowadays).
There is a local “sleeper” Mitsubishi van that attends the drag strip meetings with roof racks and plumbers gear attached, but has a Chev V8 in it and runs a 9.2 sec quarter mile!
Thanks for posting this. Our family bought a 1984 Toyota Van LE (stick shift!) in July of 84. I still have it (about 121K on the clock….lived in rusty Cleveland OH its whole life too!)
As long as it doesn’t overheat, it’s a great vehicle. Other than routine wear items, the only things that have gone bad in 27 years are the starter and brake master cylinder (currently in shop for that…starter was about 12 yrs ago). The thermostat stopped working and an aftermarket one was installed as well….otherwise…typical 80s Toyota reliability!
My 2 year old saw the page open and said “daddy’s van!” (mine is a similar burgundy color). If you need any details when it’s time to write up the Toyota, please don’t hesitate to get in touch w/ me!
You know, there are plenty of these and their eerily similar competitors running around doing work stuff here in Japan (with their much smaller, much more basic engines). In fact, the modern ones in particular seem to have taken on a bit of a special “coolness” for a rougher type of guy who dyes his hair bright yellow and wears too much jewelry and clothing that is very loudly designed. Kinda like a certain type of pickup truck owner, now that I think about it.
Hmm. Hard to know how to comment on this. I remember all of these box vans, but only for seeing them around occasionally. They reminded me of the original Big Three vans from the early 60′s, with the (relatively) flat nose and forward seating positions, and dog house for engine access. Great for space utilization, but pray to God you never have a head on crash.
What’s really amusing to me, is that empirically, these thing are awful. Poorly engineered for the market they were sent into, and with predictable high failure rates. But reading comments like, in effect, they all do that; change out the cooling system every 30K miles; or if it doesn’t overheat, it’s great; make me think of how crappy these things must have been.
Also just how much suspension of reality goes on with certain vehicles. If there were different nameplates on them, we would hear the same old sarcastic remarks. It’s probably good that Nissan got these off the roads, but again, like the “secret” warranties, they were forced into doing so.
Nothing new under the sun. A turkey indeed.
Buckeye Nissan in Columbus, Ohio gave us one as a loner in, say, early 1987. Somehow they needed more time to scrounge up parts for mom’s ’72 Datsun 1200.
At age 9, I kinda liked all the space!
Compared to the Datsun and the ’70 Mustang I grew up it, this was a rumpus room!
I remember it was on a snowy winter weekend.
Holy shit did it slide around! And my dad was a good Canadian driver!
And oh so tippy!
The buyback wasn’t a bad deal for those of us that bought them used. I drove my ’87 GXE for a couple of years and made a couple thousand bucks off the buyback. Never had a bit of trouble and probably wouldn’t have sold it back except I was worried about getting service replacement parts going forward. I had 4 small kids and you talk about the perfect travel vehicle. The mid-ship captains chairs swiveled to look backwards and with the sunroof open the kids loved it. I remember the service manager at the Nissan Dealer said they had to remove the gas tank and cut a 3′ section of the wiring harness out of the middle of the van as proof to the manufacturer and then they hauled them to a scrap metal yard and crushed them.
I actually own one of those rare Nissan vans!
I just acquired it recently and been fixing it up to be streetable again.
check it out:
http://datsmo.wordpress.com/2012/01/26/the-nissan-van-aka-gc22-or-vanette-in-other-parts-of-the-world/
Awesome of you to mention the Nissan Van as a curbside classic!
Thanks!
-goki
Does anyone happen to know where this van is I would like to owen it I already have three on the Mitsubishi version 541 476-0245 ask for Doug
We’ve got one you can have- it’s not near as nice looking as the one in the pic, but it is the same color and it runs!
Where are You located I might be intrested.
southern Oregon
My dad bought one of the Nissan vans, after I literally begged him not to. It was in immaculate condition, and was literally loaded with every option they offered including the sunroof, captain chairs, and the fridge up front… but it had a blown head gasket and cracked head and I knew exactly who my dad planned on getting to fix it. Me! The seller only wanted $300 bucks for it though, so my dad bought it anyway.
It had already had all the recall related upgrades done, and getting a head wasn’t a problem, but replacing it was a nightmare! Access to the engine from the top was pitiful, even after removing all the acess panels I couldn’t get to the manifold bolts on the exhaust at all. We ended up having to drop the engine out from the bottom by removing the front cradle, and then re-installing it.
He found out about the buyback after we fixed it and got almost $6,000 for it from Nissan. You’d think he would have given me some of that, but you’d be mistaken… I didn’t even get a dime for the work I did on it.
I worked on many of these vans as a 36 year Datsun Nissan tech only saw 1 or 2 that had fires and most of those were from neglect because the engine was so had to get at
sent many to the crusher
I’ve been a huge follower of this style of van for a few years, and recently caught a great example of the third legendary 80s Japanese minivan – the Mitsubishi.
Been working on repairing it a great deal. It was purchased non-running for $800 and had a bad timing belt and host of other problems, most of which I’ve been learning auto mechanic skills to repair.
http://www.etotheipiplusone.net/?p=2769 is a good shot of it so far and I have a build report thread running on the site just for it.
One of these days, I hope to have the whole trifecta.