Our nearby Y has several 15-passenger vans for hauling kids, one of which is this extra-long wheelbase (155″) Chevy along with several Econolines. Obviously, the Chevy came late to the 15 passenger market, and took advantage of that to make theirs with a longer wheelbase instead of extending the rear section like Dodge and Ford did, and which were implicated in lots of roll-over incidents. It made me wonder how it stacked up against the triple-axle van we saw the other day. I think I got their scales about right, and the triple still has it topped, but with a lot more work though.
What else used the 155″ wheelbase? Their long dually trucks?
Now imagine if they had used one of those to add an axle on. It’d be fit for limo service.
Nope, the crew-cab pickups (8′ bed only until the GMT400 in the mid-90’s) had somewhere around a 164″ wheelbase. Not much was shared between pickup and van platforms save axles, drivetrains, mirrors, and some interior parts.
GM had been making cube-van chassis with 155″ wb since sometime in the mid-late ’70s.
Wow, the YMCA is still using G20 or G30s!? Either that YMCA branch is underfunded, thrifty, a mixture of both, or something else. A YMCA branch in Clackamas, OR has two (maybe more) early 1990s Chevy Bluebird Micro Birds with the current YMCA logo, but they are on private property as well as hard to get a good photo of. Did the Chevy G-Series have rear air conditioning or was that something the Express introduced? While the Chevy and GMC vans are not as good as their FoMoCo counterparts in terms of going forever and being cheap about it I would never buy a 15 passenger Econoline because of that dang overhang. Watching someone bash in the side of their Econoline’s overhang while making a sharp turn is a painfully funny sight indeed.
I am still getting used to “old” fleet vehicles on the West Coast since anything from the 1990s or earlier in larger fleets back in New York is probably a large truck or box van. School Districts in New York get money from the state if they get rid of a bus after it is seven years old as part of an incentive. Some school district around Sacramento is still using pre-1992 Ford Econolines with the raised roof, Fed Ex in Los Angeles has some pre-1992 Econolines, and I saw a propane company that had several pre-1988 Chevy Pickups in their fleet.
This is in CurbsideClassicland! We don’t toss out perfectly good vehicles, since they don’t rust here. They only got rid of a really ancient Dodge a few years back.
One of the YMCAs around here was still running an ’85 G30 cutaway with a 16-passenger Blue Bird school bus body, up until a few years ago. 350/TH400/dually with ridiculously low gears. It drove like a little tank, but by 50mph it’d be screaming.
In one oft-remembered incident, a volunteer ignored the advice given them and hopped out on the freeway with it. After about ten miles of doing 70, it lost power and died. I got the call. Turns out they’d been unknowingly redlining it the whole time. The lower radiator hose was the first weak link to go, but they pressed on (what dummy light?). Eventually the temperatures became too much, and the engine was willing to suffer no more.
I was sure they’d blown it up. How could they *not* have? But that small-block had nine lives… to my utter astonishment, no further damage was done.
Upon hearing this, the volunteer smiled and quietly told me: “I was going 70 when it happened – but it can do 80 easy.”
I always figured it was turning in the neighborhood of 3500 RPM at 55. Can’t *imagine* how fast that poor motor was turning doing 80… and still can’t believe it held together! (Its eventual retirement came due to rust. The drivetrain is now in a dirt track car somewhere.)
The SBC can survive incredibly high temperatures: it’s very popular to the demo-derby-idiots for this very reason. Sure, they built a bajillion of them, but it’s sad to see one die an undeserved death nonetheless.
Guess I could have worded that better. Short version: the motor survived, and went on to provide two more years of service before the bus was deemed too rusty to continue using. I’m told some dirt track guys bought its motor and tranny at that point, both of which still worked fine.
I’ve always thought it would be great to have a ‘superbed’ pickup, with the cab of this van and a bed that’s about 14 feet long. Us non-construction guys need more volume than weight…..
Of course, some slack-jawed yokel would buy it and fill all 14 feet with bags of gravel, and boom – lawsuit city.
The Euro vans have that option available.
I guess it would look like this. Loading it with bags of gravel isn’t a good idea, I agree.
(Photo: Ter Hoeven Autohandel)
Holy cow, that’s one long wheelbase.
I rode in the very back of an extended Dodge van once, on the Interstate, in a windstorm. The driver exhausted himself sawing that steering wheel hither and yon trying to keep the van straight. But the back end still had a very hard time staying in the same lane as the front.
I wonder if the XWB Chevy was easier or harder to manage.
Well not sure about the Dodge Vans, but I can speak about the Ford Econoline and Chevy Express thanks to my Federal Government work going between Denver and the Gulf Coast.
This 2007 Econoline was an extended wheel base version (though it was only configured to hold 12 since the 4 person bench seat’s floor mounts were moved up to the 3rd row) and even though it was only two years old it had 60K miles on it. Sister Hazel as we called it squeaked, rattled, was noisy, burned oil, had a wee power steering leak, and the drivers had to work somewhat constantly to keep it in a straight line, but not so often when she was just hauling about 5 people. Having Sister Hazel as the cargo van was not such a great idea since most of the weight was on or behind the rear wheels, but I made sure the drivers were aware of this and that they needed to be more careful.
The 15 passenger 2008 Chevy was 8 months old, had 12K miles on it, and was easier on the drivers as well as the passengers because it did not try to wander all over the place and was more refined. However, during wind storms on I-70 the Chevy would get a bit squirrelly and somewhat noisier, but Bear the Chevy did not misbehave on the level that Sister Hazel would. Ideally Bear should have been the cargo vehicle with its more stable wheel base setup, but most of teammates and I did not want to spend thousands of miles in Sister Hazel.
That is a long wheelbase. I always agreed that Chevy did an extended van “the right way”, with a longer wb and a proper longer side panel. The Dodge and Ford looked so tacked-on.
As for the rollover issue, I have always understood that to be more about center of gravity than about wheelbase. Fifteen people sitting in those tall bench seats raises the center of gravity of one of these (already tall) vehicles A LOT. The typical case seemed to be someone who didn’t drive these much (if at all) and through inattention or inexperience, getting one wheel off of the edge of an interstate highway, then making a sharp turn of the wheel to get back on the road – and over she goes.
On Ford Econolines the seat hardware is raised above the rubber floor so when you take it out there is not a flat floor.
In the Chevy Express the rubber floor is flush with the seat hardware resulting in a flat floor which makes it easier to load cargo.
However, the Chevy Express has an inch or so of foam underneath their rubber floor which not only makes it easier on your feet during long drives, but raises the rubber enough to be flush. The Ford Econoline has no such foam under their rubber floor as far as I know. So, at first you think the Econoline has higher seats.
I agree that the Econoline and especially the Ram Van (which has a seam since the 15 passenger version is not a factory job) look worse with their overhangs. Seeing someone dent the overhang on their Econoline because the rear swung wide is funny while at the same time kind of sad. The new Transit also has a rear overhang or as I call it, a Badonka Donk.
It’s not really mostly a CG issue, which isn’t all that bad, unless of course there’s a huge roof rack load too.
The issue with Ford and Dodge extended vans was that the weight was poorly distributed when fully loaded and especially with a roof rack load, which was often at the rear too. With a single wheel/tire in the back, an extreme emergency maneuver, the vans would oversteer with the pendulum action of all that weight back there, leading often to overly-rapid counter-steering and then a roll-over.
Dodge just bailed, and stopped production of the 15 passenger version. Ford added duallys to its, which clearly helped with stability. And Chevy did this, which made it intrinsically the stablest of the bunch, even with single wheels.
The Chevy was never implicated in these rolll-overs, and still build a similar extra-long wb van today; the only one on the market properly suited to 15 passenger use.
From what I have read (and I was involved in one lawsuit on these, involving a pre-1992 Ford) the CG moves both upward and rearward with additional passengers. This additional weight load does not just sit on the floor, but is mostly suspended in a seat that is 2 feet or more above the floor. The percentage of passenger weight below seat level (like legs below the knees) is pretty small. Also, the higher the speed, the higher the tendency to roll. Both of these tendencies are markedly higher in a 15 psgr model than in either a standard full sizer or in a minivan. I don’t doubt that a longer wheelbase helps stability, but these things with a full load of passengers are quite tippy. I would say that it takes quite a bit less than an extreme maneuver to tip one of these when loaded and at speed. I believe that the Feds eventually required ESC on all of these, including the Chevies.
I may have understated the CG issue; certainly it’s a significant factor. But the Chevy had a dramatically reduced incidence of these accidents, and was specifically held up as the way to do a 15 passenger van properly.
It’s how all the European vans do it, with extra-long wheelbases. The extended rear Ford and Dodge were fundamentally flawed with their excessive rear overhangs, leading to potential gross weight shift and resultant instability
Given how tall some raised-roof cargo vans/campers/conversions are, I’m still inclined to think that excessive rear overhang is a more serious factor than just CG, which I still think is not all that bad on these.
Let’s not let the facts stand in the way of Ford bashing.
Here is a gov’t performed test of a 2003 E350 and a 2004 Savanna 3500 with it’s ESC enabled and disabled. http://ntl.bts.gov/lib/30000/30100/30175/809704.pdf Note that the configuration of the Ford with all that weight behind the rear axle actually decreases it’s likelihood of roll over (2 wheel lift as described in the report) with the 15 passenger load vs with the 10 passenger load. Putting that weight behind the axle causes the vehicle to spin out rather than lift it’s wheels.
Specifically note chart 5.3 on page 50. With 10 occupant loading the E350 experienced 2 wheel lift on the road edge recovery test at 44.6 MPH. With the 15 occupant load it required 47.9 MPH to cause 2 wheel lift. The GM 3500 on the other hand with the ESC disabled had two wheel lift with 10 passenger loading at 39.8 MPH and with 15 passenger loading experienced 2 wheel lift at only 34.9 MPH.
So much for your theory that the longer wheel base of the GM vans made it intrinsically more stable. The fact is concerning roll over the GM vans are significantly less stable when the ESC is not enabled. Enabling the ESC does help as one would expect and Ford 15 passenger vans also were available with stability control. Note the GM vans also benefited from a greater curb weight which means that the height increase of the CG was actually less than the Econoline with the same loading.
Using the shorter wheel base does make the Ford slightly more prone to produce a spin out which certainly isn’t desirable but is much less likely to be deadly than a roll over event.
Me; a Ford basher? I thought i was the famous GM Basher.
And just why would anyone disable the ESC, other than for testing purposes?
My understanding from at least one very deadly accident nearby, and the resultant coverage from it, was that it was precisely the tendency of the 15 Pass Econoline and Dodge to spin out that often cause the problems, since the drivers tended to over-correct.
In the incident I’m speaking about, it was a van full of forest fore fighters, with a roof rack full of gear, and the driver hit a mountain highway turn too quickly, the rear broke out, into the gravel shoulder, which upset its balance and cause it to slide off the road, rolling over before or after it left the roadway. But this is all from memory.
Needless to say, in the face of litigation and NHTSA inquiry, Ford started fitting its 15 pass Econolines with dual rear wheels. Good move, but a bit too late.
Driver training on the dynamics of these vans has turned out to be a significant factor. Many accidents were at the hands of drivers who had no experience in the dynamics of a fully loaded large van, which is intrinsically much less stable than the passenger cars they were used to driving.
Many organizations that have these vans have been required by their insurance carrier to have some sort of certification to drive them with passengers aboard. Good call.
There are no Ford standard passenger vans that were equipped with dual wheels from the factory, any that do have dual wheels with the standard van body are aftermarket. They did make Advance Trac with RSC (Roll Stability Control) standard on their 15 passenger vans in 2006.
I’d love to see this supposed NHTSA inquiry that singled out Ford 15 passenger vans. I can find lots of studies and inquiries into all 15 passenger vans but none that reached the conclusion that the Ford 15 passenger was anymore likely to be involved in fatalities.
I cannot find anything that indicates NHSTA singled out the Ford as more likely to roll over than the GM or Dodge vans. I found lots of studies and recommendations concerning 15 passenger vans in general.
This study http://www.tn.gov/safety/stats/Historical/15-Passenger_Vans.pdf that shows that Ford 15 passenger vans were involved in 41% of the fatal roll over crashes while GM 15 passenger vans accounted for 38% and Dodge 21% in the state of TN in the years 1994-2007. Note the Ford Van has consistently outsold the GM twins combined and far outsold the Dodge. In the previous study I linked to they indicated that at that time Ford sold about 1.5 times as many 15 passenger vans as GM nationally. So it would seem to indicate that Ford vans are less likely to be involved in fatal roll over crashes on a per capita basis.
Certainly one wouldn’t turn the stability control off on a 15 passenger van but how the GM handles w/o the stability control tends to indicate that its longer wheel base does not make it intrinsically less likely to roll over. Maybe GM made the stability control standard because their own testing revealed what this study showed that it was in fact more likely than the Ford to lift 2 wheels, the precursor to rolling over.
Certainly in many cases the underlying problem is the driver being inexperienced with driving a fully loaded 15 passenger van which of course will not respond like common passenger cars. In fact that is one of the main recommendations of the NHTSA brochures as if proper maintenance and inflation of the vehicles tires.
Thinking about it, I’ve driven two or three GM vans of this vintage – all had the 155″ wheelbase.
Rumor had it there was a front suspension under these rigs; never having been under one I can neither confirm nor verify. Yet from sitting way too many miles in either the driver or passenger seat, I can safety testify these weren’t your granddaddy’s Cadillac in the ride department; maybe more like your granddaddy’s log wagon. Yes, I know about the whole GVW and ride quality thing, but I figured since Dodge and Ford could eek some semblance of ride quality from their vans, GM could also.
I have to agree with JPC’s recent comment in that I do not have the highest level of fondness for these. However, GM did do a very good job with the next generation of vans.
We used to have a couple of these at work (state highway department) for VIP tours and various inspections with the senior staff and their minions. Their driving dynamics go from bad to scary when loaded with 12 to 15 big men. The situation was not helped by the maintenance shops opinion of a vehicle’s fitness for service. Check engine lights, driveability problems, violent shaking, violent direction changes by letting go of the wheel, loud scary noises, doors that fly open, hoods that fly up, exhaust fumes in the cabin, etc were the type of stuff we used to have to put up with in our work vehicles.
Vehicles truly are better these days. Despite the same care and attention by the shop and employees, our work vehicles turn into sh*tboxes, not deathtraps these days. We don’t have doors and hoods flying open anymore at least.
I drove of these for the salvation army as a volunteer driver picking up bell ringers. I don’t know about high speed but this thing (2010 IIRC) was economical with a 4.3. Biggest drawback for me was that it was too big to be driven at the mall at christmas. Better than the school bus that I drove earlier but way too big for that job.