Hello 4WD Nissan Van Owners, I need your help. My husband and I want to buy a Nissan cargo van and convert it ourselves into a camper van. The discussion in our home is….do we need to do a 4WD conversion? My husband (the theoretical engineer, who likes to save money and get good gas mileage) says we don’t need a 4WD conversion and I am trying to convince him that we do need a 4WD conversion. The problem is I have ZERO knowledge of the mechanics of motorized vehicles or 4WD components and so I can’t convince him. Can you please help? He says rear wheel vehicles have a bad rap and now a days they come with stabilization blah blah that keeps them from swerving around in the back. He says we can load the van down with weight to also keep it from swerving. And that big, treaded tires are more important than 4WD. He also says the 4WD isn’t worth it unless you’re going to do a lift and the lift will make the van unstable and unsafe on the highway. Is that true? (We would want the lift for deep snow and rock in Colorado.) I think the 4WD will help significantly with driving through bad weather and snow on the highway and over passes, making it significantly safer (he says no). I also think we need the 4WD for washboard dirt roads, scree, deep snow, and camping in national forests. We plan on using the van on rocky, sometimes steep, dirt roads in the Rocky Mountains and camping off the grid in places like in Moab. We don’t want to “go 4-wheeling” for the sake of “4-wheeling” but we want to be able to get to remote places. Right now, our all-wheel drive Subaru Forester is usually able to get us to “most” of the places we like to camp. Besides backcountry stuff, we also plan on using the van for long distance highway traveling across the states, going from Colorado to Key West to Maine. And then on top of it, there is one more pretty big problem…..Quigley doesn’t do a low 4WD conversion, only a 4-high. We can’t go with another vehicle (Ram, Sprinter, Ford) because we are both over 6 feet tall and need all the leg room that the Nissan van provides on the passenger side. We know we can go with Advanced 4WD Systems for a conversion and get a low gear but then I’m worried about it going “limp” and I haven’t read good things about Advanced’s workmanship. Whereas I’ve read great things about Quigley’s attention to detail, professionalism, reputation, etc. If we go with Quigley and don’t have the low gear, does that mean we won’t be able to go on steep rocky inclines or through deep snow or mud or sand, or steep slick rock surfaces? We won’t be doing a lot of that kind of stuff but will definitely be in those situations from time to time. Will the 4-high gear work in the situations I just described??? If not, then even I can’t convince or justify a 4WD conversion for $11,700 to my husband. Any advice, recommendations or descriptions of 4-high situations would be greatly appreciated. Thank you, thank you, thank you for your time!
