I recently bought an LDV g10 and have been waiting to see how it would perform on a decent trip, both road handling and space wise. For those who need a bit of background, Leyland was going bust and was purchased by Shanghai automotive industrial corp (SAIC) and wanted to break into the people mover niche, after fairly decent success rate with the v80 commercial van. Anyone with an eye out for a new van would probably have seen them around and thought wtf? Well I did anyway, and after a fair bit of research, came up with a vehicle that suits my needs.
The g10 comes out in 3 variants, the "van" being the commercial with the basic poverty pack, air con, 2 speaker sound, cruise control abv abs and all the ab abreviations that mean not much to me. The 7 seater, which differs by way of 6 speaker sound and all the previous along with Bluetooth etc, but with carpet and hood lining which deadens road noise. The 9 seater, yep 9, think room to burn, differs only by way of leather seats. If leather seating is your want, then expect to pay $3000.00 more than the van and 7 seater which come in at $29990.00.
The vehicle takes premium unleaded and was reportedly meant to use 11.7 per 100, however after removing about 170 kilos of rear seating and replacing it with about 50 kgs of windsurfing gear I was averaging 9.1, for the last 500 kms. The engine is a turbo 2.0l four cylinder and is expected to push a fairly large aerodynamically challenged vehicle around, under all circumstances, windy or not. Some cross winds did make things interesting on the odd occasion but the tyres are light truck models (215x70 r16) and could be replaced with 225x70s, without too much difficulty. One interesting thing I found was the tyre pressure display on the dash, flash as a rat with a gold tooth.
Road noise was virtually non-existent and handled the West Australian inland roads like a sedan.
There was a bit of turbo lag, but was easily compensated by the ZF gearbox, so when it came time to overtake I never felt underpowered. In fact it zips along at a fair clip. (110 kph, I swear, your honour)
So after a round trip of about 900 ks, I decided the vehicle was worth a gamble on my behalf. The best time to try out a new restaurant is when they are newly opened and out to impress. 
Select to expand quoteikw777 said..
I like the woodwork.
I like the boards, very nice 
Select to expand quoteS018 said..
Can't believe how neat it all is.....
You ever get to see how he set up his home workshop, you will realise why its so neat 
Good looking van, really well priced and spec'd ,massive KW for a van, really interested to hear how it performs over the long term.
Love car manufacturers though, empty shell van costs the same as fully decked out passenger version, WT!
Select to expand quote33frupus said..
Do the seats roll out the same way as a Kia carnival or are they bolt in?
The seats are bolted to the floor on runners, which slide off and re-attach to the floor. A bolt and split pin hold the runners in place, which, when the seat is upended gives access to the runner. Took about 3 hours to do the job. Seats are now covered in plastic and stored (inconveniently apparently) in the spare room.
Did I mention you can fit a 44 litre esky between the front seats? For all that lemonade?
The key fob is interesting too, the key part comes away from the fob (disabling it) and attaches to your elastic key holder in your flotation jacket (if you wear one).
I did look at the kia carnival, but the ldv is longer by about 250mm inside. My boards are an average of 246cm, so the nose of the board meets the middle of the front seats, without nearing the tailgate.
Also forgot to mention, rear wheel drive. Which is easier to get out of a bog than a front.
Can you post a six month update, any problems ect, lot of metal for the money!
Suprised they havnt matched the Koreans warranty, cheers
I can keep an update on the mechanical side of things going, the 3yr 100,000 ks should cover any issues. I was a bit surprised to see only the basic warranty offered and declined any further additions to it. If it's not covered by the manufacturers warranty, the aftermarket ones usually aren't worth the paper they're written on.
Too many boards? Nah, too little space
Select to expand quotepepe47 said..
I recently bought an LDV g10 and have been waiting to see how it would perform on a decent trip, both road handling and space wise. For those who need a bit of background, Leyland was going bust and was purchased by Shanghai automotive industrial corp (SAIC) and wanted to break into the people mover niche, after fairly decent success rate with the v80 commercial van. Anyone with an eye out for a new van would probably have seen them around and thought wtf? Well I did anyway, and after a fair bit of research, came up with a vehicle that suits my needs.
The g10 comes out in 3 variants, the "van" being the commercial with the basic poverty pack, air con, 2 speaker sound, cruise control abv abs and all the ab abreviations that mean not much to me. The 7 seater, which differs by way of 6 speaker sound and all the previous along with Bluetooth etc, but with carpet and hood lining which deadens road noise. The 9 seater, yep 9, think room to burn, differs only by way of leather seats. If leather seating is your want, then expect to pay $3000.00 more than the van and 7 seater which come in at $29990.00.
The vehicle takes premium unleaded and was reportedly meant to use 11.7 per 100, however after removing about 170 kilos of rear seating and replacing it with about 50 kgs of windsurfing gear I was averaging 9.1, for the last 500 kms. The engine is a turbo 2.0l four cylinder and is expected to push a fairly large aerodynamically challenged vehicle around, under all circumstances, windy or not. Some cross winds did make things interesting on the odd occasion but the tyres are light truck models (215x70 r16) and could be replaced with 225x70s, without too much difficulty. One interesting thing I found was the tyre pressure display on the dash, flash as a rat with a gold tooth.
Road noise was virtually non-existent and handled the West Australian inland roads like a sedan.
There was a bit of turbo lag, but was easily compensated by the ZF gearbox, so when it came time to overtake I never felt underpowered. In fact it zips along at a fair clip. (110 kph, I swear, your honour)
So after a round trip of about 900 ks, I decided the vehicle was worth a gamble on my behalf. The best time to try out a new restaurant is when they are newly opened and out to impress.
Congratulations. Nice job.
Bit of an update for the fuel system. The specs ask for premium unleaded, to which I've interpreted as 98, however most of this has been wasted money.
I recently decided to just go with 95 octane and see if it made any difference. The car has been more responsive and there hasn't been as much soot over the back tailgate. I'm no expert on fuels, but this seems a little strange to me. I would have thought the car would run cleaner on the higher octane stuff.
Select to expand quotepepe47 said..
Bit of an update for the fuel system. The specs ask for premium unleaded, to which I've interpreted as 98, however most of this has been wasted money.
I recently decided to just go with 95 octane and see if it made any difference. The car has been more responsive and there hasn't been as much soot over the back tailgate. I'm no expert on fuels, but this seems a little strange to me. I would have thought the car would run cleaner on the higher octane stuff.
Car looks great!
Depends what they're tuned for. My guess is the cars designers figured its target market (big families/soccer mums etc) would probably go for the cheaper 92/95 octane, and therefore the fuel ratio's were designed to suit. If you're planning to hold onto it for a while, maybe consider getting it tuned? An update to the ECU and you might get your fuel efficiency down into the 8L/100km range. From memory its about $300 for a dyno tune.
Great van.
Is it the LDV G10 short wheelbase people mover?
Did you go for 7 or 9 seater?
What is the length from the back door to the back of the front seats? Long enough for a 245cm board?
Cheers.
The tuning idea sounds good Ozpricey, however seeing as it hasn't had it's first service yet, I'm going to work on the premise of "if it works, don't fix it".
Aus729, in the third photo you can see the nose of the board behind the front seat (with the tailgate closed). The board on the bottom is an sl 66, which is 246 long. (same as the 64 and 58) above it.
I went for the 7 seater, as the only difference between the 7 and 9 seater is leather seats ($3000,00 extra for the 9). The price is the same for the van and the 7 seater, so I opted for the people mover because of the carpet and interior roof lining (deadening the road noise).
Also, I wouldn't call it a short wheel base. The ldv wheelbase is 3198mm as opposed to the lwb delica 3000mm. It may be described as such, but the handling is much more like a sedan than the lwb delica ever was. (my only comparison..and previous w/surf bus)
Keep the updates coming if you can. When you read the reviews the testers had the car for about a week, not exactly real world conditions.im sure a few golf and jeep owners could have benifited from a bit of extended testing. Your gears worth more than the van!
Hi,
I'm looking at replacing my Delica with another van. These LDV G10 are being advertised new for about $26k drive away. This would be the commercial van. It looks reasonable from online reviews and videos. How is this one holding up? I'll have to measure the rear tray length.
If the choice comes down to a second hand a Hyundai iLoad that has done 100,000 km or one of these for the same price I'd be tempted to get one of these. Plenty of time to decide as I have to save up.
I bought a Renault trafic. Had it for almost a year and can't fault it. They are much cheaper than the iload for what you get, I guess Renault are trying to grow their market share. The trafic is more expensive than the G10 but if you take into account fuel and servicing costs you would claw some of that back over time. It's worth a look.
Select to expand quoteinit9999 said..
I bought a Renault trafic. Had it for almost a year and can't fault it.
Well it is a Nissan after all.
Hi Moby,
I've now done 10,000k and these haven't been hard miles either. Two weeks out of four it sits at the airport, and for that reason I bought a battery booster/starter which has still not been needed.
At around 5,000k I thought I had a problem with turbo lag, but I've since recognised the problem as a reluctance to change down at lower revs. Sitting at the lights for about 10 seconds, you notice it then engages first gear with a very slight nudge. Giving the throttle a bit of a tickle has it changed down and well powered up. I'm not sure that by removing the seats, it's found more measures of power, but it's certainly giving that impression.
I've been doing regular oil changes, and keeping an eye out for any discolouration or metal filings on the sump magnet, but the 5w30 oil has been clean on each change.
Still happy with the purchase and at this stage wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone looking for a reliable bus. Although, in saying this I'd also recommend they bought it from anyone other than challenger ford rockingham
We checked the LDV vans today. The manual two seater goes for $26k while the auto goes for $30k, the same price as the seven seater with the much nicer interior. They seem quite good but I did not take one for a test drive as I'm not in the position to buy now. I'm kind of more interested in the bigger LDV van as they have a large storage area and one of the reasons I'd like a van is for storage.
However I'm a bit wary about spending $30k on a Chinese car.
Its good to hear the first 10k of driving have been trouble free and it sounds like you know your cars Pepe47.
in regards to the Renault Trafic, I mentioned them to my mechanic and he said no way. I did not mention the LDV to him but I guess he'd say something similar. I'm also interested in the Ford Transit but there are so many horror stories of them on the Internet.
Windsurfing to has an interesting clip on the Pro's vans. Good for ideas. I'm planning a trailer renovation because it will be cheaper than a van. This yr I hope.
Select to expand quotestehsegler said..
You have too many boards... how to you know which one to use ;-)
ONLY 3 what are you talking about, that's enough for a short trip if you have a rough idea what the conditions are going to be like when you get there.
If you're going on a road trip to everywhere, with your better half, the 6 or 7 boards would probably be about adequate, especially if she is lighter than you, and doesn't need the board you're on.
Hey Pepe47
We have been looking at the LDV G10 7 seater for a while now with a view to keeping it as a 4 seater primarily and removing the other 2 middle seats when the urge to go camping overcomes us.
Can you elaborate on the storage cases you have in the back and whether you bought these off the shelf or had them custom made?
Also, how did you mount the timber under the board rack? We would be looking at doing something like this as a bed support ad we have an SUV tent for over the rear door.
How difficult would it be to put the 2 middle seats back in the van ? Do you know if the seats fold flat ?
I know its been a while since you posted thius but hopefully you'll stumble on my post and any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Hi Bonniebee,
The storage cases were home made. I knew what I wanted and didn't like what most of the pre-made shops offered. So, I did it myself with the added bonus that I could drink on the job. So with a decided stubbie of inspiration I set to it. My apologies for the amount of space I'm going to use, but here goes. (any help with making images smaller would help).
Then it's just a matter of setting up the framework for the boards. Hope this helps.
Btw, if the urge to go camping can overcome the need to take the seats out periodically then yes it can be done. But at a cost of 3 hrs of your time. Hope you can make out the images.
Here's mine from a few years ago. Not the mast cover to protect the mast from UV damage.
