You better hope so because working on them is a cast iron PITA

What I haven't seen mentioned is anyones tolerance to quirks on some of these high mile vehicles. Some quirks are easy fixes some are not or more expensive than it's worth to solve. I'm talking occasional things like rough idle once in a while, shifting funny occasionally, heater ductwork maybe hanging up depending on settings, rattle you can't quite pin down, CLE coming on for no reason, lights that burn out more frequently than others, etc, etc...

I recently sold a C3500 dump that I owned for a few years to complete some projects.Truck had 240k on it and I maybe put 500 miles a year on. It had some or all of these quirks but never left me stranded and always hauled the mail. That being said, It would drive me nuts if i was depending on to make a living.

Its pretty easy to swap VW diesels into those, you get 50mpg. Your Arizona van would be a good candidate

That is interesting.

Is there a shop anywhere in the USA that routinely transplants VW diesels into older Chrysler minivans?

I would guess that pre-1995 models with OBD-I no longer have to get emissions tested, except in California.

I remember reading years ago that Chrysler was building special minivans for VW to sell under the VW nameplate as the “Routan.”
Did any of those get VW diesel engines for the European market?

My fuzzy memory seems to recall that VW “tweaked” the front end shape and grille of their Chrysler built minivan Routan version to make them slightly more aerodynamic. Cd of 0.31 versus Chrysler’s 0.34 if I remember right.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Routan

https://www.allpar.com/d3/model/caravan.html

sample quote

Richard Beck wrote that Motoring Life claimed a new Chrysler Voyager SE 2.5 l turbo diesel got 65 mpg. One in every three Voyagers sold in Ireland was a Grand version, which the magazine called “the luxury limousine of the MPV sector,” at over £45,000. All Voyagers offered the choice of gasoline or diesel engines, the Voyager getting the 2.4 liter with either five-speed manual or four-speed automatic, and the Grand Voyager with the 3.3 V6 and an automatic - both had the 2.5 liter turbodiesel as an option with a five speed manual.

end quote

What I haven't seen mentioned is anyones tolerance to quirks on some of these high mile vehicles. Some quirks are easy fixes some are not or more expensive than it's worth to solve. I'm talking occasional things like rough idle once in a while, shifting funny occasionally, heater ductwork maybe hanging up depending on settings, rattle you can't quite pin down, CLE coming on for no reason, lights that burn out more frequently than others, etc, etc...

I recently sold a C3500 dump that I owned for a few years to complete some projects.Truck had 240k on it and I maybe put 500 miles a year on. It had some or all of these quirks but never left me stranded and always hauled the mail. That being said, It would drive me nuts if i was depending on to make a living.

Seems like about 25 to 30 years ago Consumer’s Reports magazine tried to evaluate motor oils by having engines rebuilt by the same company, then running motor oils in those engines for 1500 miles change out periods in Taxi Cabs service in New York City. After 1000,000 miles of service the rebuilt engines were torn down and wear parts were measured. Consumer’s Reports wrote that this method “failed” because they could not measure “statistically significant” differences in the dimensions of the wearing parts versus new.

But to me the most interesting part of that long ago CR report
was that some taxi cab companies in New York City had a long term policy of changing conventional motor oil at 500 miles,
and claimed that they could prove by their records that it was cost effective in the long run.
This was before synthetic oils were widespread.

I wonder if any NYC Taxi companies still use conventional oil and change it at 500 miles?

I know in the mid 1990s there were big 18 wheeler trucking companies that claimed that
non-synthetic Shell Rotella changed frequently was doing better than synthetic oils run longer.




Today overnight radio stations run synthetic Shell Rotella ads about every 20 minutes all night.

Looks good for that many miles. We have a 2000 Toyota 4Runner with close to 250,000 miles on it. It runs great, handles great, doesn't use any oil. I just took it on a 500 mile trip and drove it 75 mph the whole way. Got more than 20 mpg and it didn't use any oil. Really can't complain about that rig. Never had any big problems with it, just regular maintenance and normal wear and tear. It eats front brakes if you use them hard but that is about the only weak area on the rig.

I have a buddy with the same 4Runner and he upgraded to later model brakes with bigger wheels and tires. I don't remember exactly what he did but I think the next generation of brakes can be retrofitted. They are an inch bigger and require the 17 inch rims rather than the 16 inch rims that these came with.