For most of the 13 years I have been working for a construction company, I got whatever hand-me-down they had available. Mostly Suburbans (the bosses daughter's).
Once they offered me a cargo van that was in pretty good shape. I turned it down because of rear visibility. The shop used it for running parts for a couple of weeks until someone backed into something and caved the rear doors in. They must have sold it after that, never saw it again.
I prefer the 1/2 ton crew cab 4wd with the ARE shell that I have now. Just wish it had better rear springs.
James
not a fan of vans for surveying at all - worked out of a Dodge minivan in 1989, and it wasn't the proper survy chariot to say the least. We currently are using extended cab F-150's, 4wd with Silvershield covers and organizers. Other than spending even more money on a HercuLoc cover, this seems to be our best survey rig.
We are on our second 3/4 ton van and it is the perfect choice for municipal work, meaning not a lot of off road road. The 3/4 ton can easily climb our 8" curbs to get off the roadway and can carry a large capacity of tools. We often are tasked with a wide variety of things in the course of one day. We have the box that has pull out drawers in the back and the side door that slides open. We leave the middle open and it easily handles the TS-RTK-Level and other more delicate tools. The sliding side door is preferred because you don't have to swing a door open to traffic when parked in a narrow median.
We love ours and it's equipped with an assortment of the the flashing LED lights that gets attention. Those rotating yellow lights are just ignored but people actually notice ours and slow down. Plus they use almost no electricity and you don't have to worry about running the battery down.
Our old white elephant had the 350 chevy motor and got terrible fuel mileage but our new one has more horsepower and gets twice the mileage.
The front is very roomy with enough areaq to build a nice box/table between the front seats for a desk area.
We usually do like the utility guys in parking lots and back into spaces. This reduces the problems when leaving and the lack of visibility.
I give our 3/4 chevy van a big thumbs up for what we do. It gets stuck easy because of it's weight so we just walk more than we would if we had a 4wd pickup. But we can borrow a gator or other vehicles when we need all terrain vehicles.
Deral
just called and checked on price for a 6.5' bed chevy. $2,200 delivered.
the undercover tops we use run around $900 installed.
i would agree silver shield gives you better access. and i don't know if it is $1,300 better. just my opinion.
you can always have your assistant be a spotter.
I had to do that yesterday. A log had fallen across the road. With a tape measure I figured I could clear it if I get as far to the right as possible. I had him spot and he directed me under there with just a few inches to spare. Then we did it again on the way back. I need about 7' clearance.
Vans don't look as cool. You may not care, but a lot of guys do.
FYI I can tell you that I have proof that less than 1 out of 12 field surveyors choses a van if given a chance. At least in our company.
(We have both suburbans and a 4x4 van, and the van is rarely used.)