L200 Pickup – Quick Question

I know all the short comings of pickups, but they are useful for work! The only issue I have is where to put the bike 😉

Has anyone got/had one and will the bike go in the back with the seat backs dropped down? Guessing wheels off, and probably in a bike bag.

My current Outlander is costing too much to run for work, so looking at trading it against a 2009 Animal. I would go for something else and new, but I can only fit a 5m long vehicle on my parking space or park it on the street (residents parking) so am kinda stuck with the older short bed L200 as my only option!

Cheers!

you do realise it’s a pick up?

Used to have an animal, take front wheel out and fits on a diagonal

The back is full of tools, pumps covered in sewage, bits of pipe, pressure washers and filthy overalls… so there is no room for a bike too when I am out working!

I tend to take the bike on the roof at the moment, but if I can get it in the cab then it is more secure, out of harms way and reduces the drag! Basically the idea is so I can get a ride when I finish work without coming home first since I tend to be working in the Lakes and Dales!

Candodavid – was that in the cab, or the bed?

and a pickup will cost less to run?

Yes – it won’t belong to my father who is currently being shafted by the shortfall between what he gets for the mileage from the company and the actual running cost. It was a company car but the tax was killing me.

A pickup has a beneficial tax status – can be run on the company and hence paid for before we pay any tax on it. Plus I can separate stuff covered in sewage from me and the family which has got to be a good thing no?

Yes – it won’t belong to my father who is currently being shafted by the shortfall between what he gets for the mileage from the company and the actual running cost. It was a company car but the tax was killing me.

A pickup has a beneficial tax status – can be run on the company and hence paid for before we pay any tax on it. Plus I can separate stuff covered in sewage from me and the family which has got to be a good thing no?

Presumably though that means its an additional vehicle, whereas the Outlander will do both work and play – so you’ll need to factor that in?

Nope the Outlander will go.

Seperate sewage and family. If its a dual work/family vehicle you’d carry spores etc etc into the pickuo during tge course of the day anyway.

Cheap run around for family duties IMO and a Transit.

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Have you tried driving a transit up to a remote hill farms in winter Hora? Or offfroad across muddy fields?

I actually do use 4×4 on a semi regular basis – although the Outlander gets out of it’s depth pretty quickly (I just borrow my Dad’s D-Max when it is getting too much!) the 4×4 setting has come in handy on a fairly regular basis and it is probably the only soft roader that is coated in filth due to where I take it!

Been “helped” out of the odd field by the farmer in his tractor in the past!

I did consider a 4 motion VW but it isn’t really ideal and costs quite a bit more!

So no one can actually give me an answer to the question of can I fit a bike in the back with the seats folded? In a couple of years I am hoping to have moved so can reconsider vehicle options – at the moment there seems to be a choice of one!

If i was putting pumps and sewage in my car it wouldnt be my car it would be the works car.

With wheels off you can get a bike across the back seal of an escort so i cant see why you wouldnt in an l200

I could certainly fit a bike in the back of a double cab Navara with the seat bottoms folded up.
Maybe need to take the front wheel off though.

Cool, cheers. I never tried it when I had the Navara since I had a roll cover with a couple of bike racks mounted above it – dead handy. But since this has a cab and no roof bars I am having to rethink. The added security of popping it in the cab is a bonus though.

Trailrat – that is part of the reason for changing to a pickup – so it is a company vehicle rather than private. However due to massive parking restrictions here (small market town in the South Lakes) where space is at a premium I can’t really have 2 vehicles! We will probably move in the next couple of years as the stairs are getting too much for the outlaws (18th C town house with narrow steep stairs), which may give me more scope to think about running 2 vehicles or alternatives! Alas we need about another £150k which I can’t get on a mortgage to move to somewhere more suitable and I can’t see that happening!

So no one can actually give me an answer to the question of can I fit a bike in the back with the seats folded? In a couple of years I am hoping to have moved so can reconsider vehicle options – at the moment there seems to be a choice of one!

Capt

Unfortunately this been STW myself and Hora just found the ‘holes’ in your plan, which you should be ‘plugging’ before mentioning it to your wife 🙂

And you can see why we were confused, in that you were just swapping one vehicle for another. What about a trailer for the work stuff instead?

And since you can get two bikes across the back seats of both a 5 series and X-Type Jag (leather cleans easily), I can’t imagine its a problem.

The reason for swapping – the Outlander *was* a company car, but the BIK was stupid, so we bought it (and the other one the same) off the company to run as private. This hasn’t worked out too well financially – my father has an Isuzu on the company which is working out much better financially than the Outlander.

I have a trailer, but driving around with one permanently attached is a bit of an arse, especially on windy Lakes roads. I take it when I know I am going to be picking up and moving something very large or filthy though (big 200+ kg pumps etc) and will continue to do so.

He is keeping his Outlander as his private car, since he has a drive/double garage and space. I don’t have the room for doing that, and since my father bought both Outlanders it is his car anyway and he wants rid of it 😉 I will then get another company vehicle, and to keep things tax efficient – and so we can reclaim VAT – that needs to be commercial. Due to the nature of our work it needs to be a roughty toughty 4×4. Due to my parking limitations it needs to be a single vehicle and no more than 5m long – hence a second hand short bed model (or the new Trojan, but I don’t know about driving around with a prophylactic brand name on the side of the car is really a good thing….)

Pickups do work very well for the kind of work we do, and the dual purpose functionality is ideal… if I had space to park one I would probably go for the VW or Ford, but I don’t. Got my fingers crossed that the new Defender is going to fit the bill in a couple of years time though.

The new defender that doesnt exist yet….since dc100s gone back to drawing board

Oh – and cheers for the point about Jags/BMWs. I was thinking of throwing one of those dog hammock style seat covers in the back to keep the mud off as a quicker solution than a bike bag – and cheaper.

So long as I can still sneak my working week bike rides in I will be happy – I tend to set off from either where I finish for the day and just explore using an OS Map, or stop off on the way home for a pre-planned route. Think I may get one of those GPS Mapping cycle computer things next to facilitate my exploration 😉

That’s the one Trail Rat – but it is coming and will be a much more modern vehicle which may suit me if the dimensions, price and economy work out better 😉

Oh – and comfort!

Nearly went with a Defender now, but just couldn’t live with it beyond being used as a straight van.

Dunno , the reason the dc100 was junked was they went to the states and said, yep this is what we are releasing to your market and got laughed at …. No we want a defender not that evoque lookalike.

I suspect that will just be a restyling exercise then – rather than a ground up redesign.

Probably!

When I had a L200 I bought a hammock type seat cover for the back seats and, with wheels off, managed to get two bikes in without needing to alter the seats. I do the same now with my Defender 110. The hammock is quite useful especially when you have one bike to transport as you can use the front seat straps to secure the bike by strapping them to the rear headrests. Hope that helps you.

Can somebody link me to an example of these hammock back seat things being talked about?

Re: hammocks – we have a couple of cheap ones from B&M that dad picked us up. They work very well and are waterporoof although the lab is a bit heavy and clumsy and broke the middle zipe (that lets you put one side down for someone to sit in).

This is the kind of thing: http://www.orvis.co.uk/store/product.aspx?pf_id=2e73

Very useful for keeping the dog safe (they can’t fly down into the footwell during an emergency stop) and they hide stuff behind your seat.

TBH I’d go with a decent rear bike rack that you can remove got one of these http://www.maxxraxx.co.uk/for my Shogun Sport has security cable just put decent locks on it I know if I was pulling bikes in and out of the back seats even without wheels the pedels would ripp the crap out of the seats.

If you want me to test it for size (carefully! 8O) let me know after all the Shogun Sport is just a L200 with a boot. 🙂

For family trips/camping/holidays etc I am thinking that a tow bar carrier may be a good plan… but it would get in the way badly during the working week! This is why I don’t use one at the moment.

Sounds like the hammock is a good plan, and only £15 so not going to break the bank giving it a try either! And it sounds like the bike will fit too – which is a good thing! Worst comes to the worst I will just get a set of Whisperbars fitted to the roof (£178 less my usual discount and VAT) and stick the bike on the roof as I do at the moment. If everything works out as envisioned then I can flog the Whisperbars from the Outlander and Buzzrack to fund something else bike related 😉

This is, of course, all assuming that we decide to go ahead with it next week (seems quite likely). If I had the space and the money I would probably buy the used Shogun Commercial they also have in stock (£6k) to run as my work vehicle and then either buy the Outlander of my Dad for a family car or get something else a wee bit cheaper for that purpose. Alas space and cash are both notably absent from my life!

Don’t the seats fold back like cinema seats then?? great navara design, really pleased with that feature.

Back seats are hardly ever down in my Navara