CK20 Pulls out mini van

[toddbiss]

Well I had someone show up at my house to pick up something I was giving away on Craigslist. I see him walking up the driveway and hoped he had just parked at the bottom, well when I went outside he asked if I had a chain. Honestly I didn't think it would pull it out, he had backed into the ditch and one rear tire was off the ground and my driveway was all ice. But I put the diff-lock on and it pulled it right out! The chains had a lot to do with it.

 

[dennis52]

Well I had someone show up at my house to pick up something I was giving away on Craigslist. I see him walking up the driveway and hoped he had just parked at the bottom, well when I went outside he asked if I had a chain. Honestly I didn't think it would pull it out, he had backed into the ditch and one rear tire was off the ground and my driveway was all ice. But I put the diff-lock on and it pulled it right out! The chains had a lot to do with it.

These CUT's are fantastic for the work they can do.
I once managed to pull out a water tanker (unfilled) bogged on slippery mud with my 30 year old 17 hp Kubota.

 

[VTFireftr]

I have to admit I pulled out my F250 4x4 last winter when I slid off my road.

Took a little work since my road was all ice and I had trouble getting traction with my CK30. Once the tires hooked up, the truck came right out of the snow bank.

 

[kiotiken]

When I went to get the kids from daycare last night, the plow truck (GM 2500) put a wheel in the ditch at the end of the driveway and had one back wheel off the ground. Don't think he was happy, but I sure thought it was going to be fun to run home and grab the CK30! Unfortunately, I never got to use the tractor, we tried with my wife's AWD Sienna mini van with a chain to the trailer hitch and it popped right out.

 

[IndyIan]

Oh, I like that, big tough plow truck pulled out by a minivan:laughing:
How do you like the Sienna? Any troubles? Good mpg?
We're going to need an AWD/4WD family hauler soon and they are a possibility.

I pull people out of the snow banks on our driveway quite often with my Tracker and its only 3000lbs, but in 4 low with snow tires it does pretty good. My tractor will be quite an upgrade though, but I haven't had a chance to use it.

 

[kiotiken]

Oh, I like that, big tough plow truck pulled out by a minivan:laughing:
How do you like the Sienna? Any troubles? Good mpg?
We're going to need an AWD/4WD family hauler soon and they are a possibility.

Well, unfortunately, if you need AWD and it's got to be a mini van, Toyota's your only choice now, as far as I know.

We do like the van and had 0 issues for the first 60K km. Right before Christmas, the AWD transmission literally blew up! The extended power train warranty kicked in and they replaced the tranny, transfer case (shared fluid), paid our towing and 3 out of 4 days of a rental van (can't get all the kids in my car). I'm sure glad I wasn't paying that bill!

The AWD is incredible though, at least as good as my last Subaru and better than our Mitsubishi Outlander was. The problem with the Sienna is if you get AWD in say the LE trim (it goes CE,LE,XLE,Limited), you don't get all the same features as you do in the normal LE. To get all the features we wanted we ended up with the Limited AWD, which rolls in around $60K all told. I've never spent that much on a car before, and I somewhat regret doing it this time.

My parents have an older Sienna and my dad is unable to pull the boat out of the water at the end of the year, just not enough traction. It's nothing for me to pull out, no tire slip at all. It's stable as anything in the snow, and since it's my wife's car and it's what the kids are in most of the time, AWD wasn't really an option in my mind. Just be warned, all trim levels of the AWD use run flat tires because they couldn't get a full size spare in there. If you put winter tires on, you really need to stick to run flats because you wont have a spare, and that limits your choices and costs you dearly!

Stated mileage for the Sienna AWD is worse than the regular Sienna but the same as the FWD Honda and Chrysler vans. It doesn't get that mileage, even with my wife driving, but I've never own another van, so I can't compare.

Once you get over driving a mini van, they are REALLY nice to travel in. I wish I could have convinced my wife to drive an F250 crew cab instead, I would have been able to haul the tractor!

 

[IndyIan]

Hmm, well exploding transmissions isn't exactly what I wanted to hear! Thanks though for the write up, I'd be looking at a used one and I guess it will have to have an extended warranty if the trans is known to be fragile.

I'll have to see how the AWD version of the Dodge Journey ages, hopefully well. I'd like to spend $10-15k and it sounds like the Sienna will be quite old before it gets down there in price.

 

[kiotiken]

Exploding transmissions isn't what I wanted to hear either! According to my dealer, they've never seen such "catastrophic transmission failure" before. Not that you can always believe everything they say, but I couldn't find much on the web, so it may have been an isolated problem. I believe the last year Chrysler made an AWD van was 2006, you might be able to find a low mileage one in good shape.