Hi from Dartmouth Nova Scotia

[patriceboivin]

Hi,

I am about to purchase an L400 Super Exceed from BC and have it shipped to my location.

[mark]

Congratulations Patrice (and welcome to the forum!)

I recently started driving an L400 Super Exceed as well, and so far have been thoroughly enjoying it! When does yours arrive?

[Doug Colson]

Hello
My son and I drive Delicas here in the Dartmouth area. He has a white L300 and I drive a black with grey lower area lifted L400. We have meet a few times with other Delica owners locally to chat and exchange ideas. I have talked to a few people on the phone as well. We were talking about having a meet during Christmas but that did not happen. I'm hoping to arrange something mid January. It would be great to meet you even if your ride is not here yet. Do you have a ETA? Maybe we can wait until you get your van. There are 5 or 6 vans around the area.
Welcome to the world of " hey what is the thing your diving? Looks cool"

[patriceboivin]

That would be great, would love to attend a meet -- to ask where you bought your insurance from, any problems with registration in NS, etc. I have met you already I believe, we chatted briefly in the parking lot in Bedford near Pete's Frootique a couple of years ago. My wife teaches at Cole Harbour High, she's known as "Mrs. B".

Expecting the vehicle in late February / early March, not exactly sure.

[Doug Colson]

Yes my son had her for Englisha few years back. I know your wife. I heard you were getting a Delica over the weekend from my son Colin. It looks like it will be the end of the month if not into Febuary be for we can arrange a meeting. Looking forward to meeting you again and maybe getting the vans a little dirty. Mud will was off.

[patriceboivin]

Well my van apparently is at the Autoport in BC, the train leaves tomorrow (Saturday).
Should take 2-3 weeks, I guess Canada doesn't have high speed trains anywhere.
But it's a long distance, driving it myself would have taken about a full week.

Hopefully the train won't blow up or derail.

The Autoport here in NS is full now it seems:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scot ... -1.2601957

[Doug Colson]

We are just about to Fredricton. GPS tells us that we have 5:50 hours and mins to go. Home stretch!

[Doug Colson]

Hey Pat
We made it home around midnight last night. Great trip. We had no problems what so ever. Let us know when yours will be in and we can get together to see it and celebrate. Good luck and my it arrive early.
Doug

[patriceboivin]

Look forward to it.

Today I saw Autoport cars stored in the Mic Mac Mall parking lot of all places. There must be at least fifty cars/trucks there now. And one poor guy from a security company who has the fun job of keeping an eye on them for hours and hours. Reminds me of some of my summer jobs years ago.

[FredVenne]

So this is where the maritimers are hanging out... Well I'd love to go for a meet with you guys! I'm in Westville, NS. Let me know!

Cheers,

Fred

[Doug Colson]

Good morning
Hello Fred great to hear from you. We will certainly let you know when we are going to have a meet. The more the merrier.
Pat what's the word? Where is the train? Is it close? Craig and I had a fantastic trip home. Could not have prayed for a better trip.

[patriceboivin]

It is in the parking lot at the Autoport, it arrived Thursday evening I think.
I stopped by the side of the road, gaped at it through the chain-link fence and took some pictures of it.

Of course no one works on weekends in the Autoport office. I even had trouble getting through on Friday afternoon, I was starting to think they were all out drinking on a Friday afternoon but eventually got through to the receptionist who said "yes it arrived, but we are waiting to hear from the 'rail' people. They will contact you when they are ready."

Now it's Sunday, it's raining and it's just sitting there.
Has been sitting there, in plain view, for 3 days now. Of course I keep driving back there, it's about 10 minutes away from my house.
They moved it by one lane. All the Porsches which were next to it are gone, they processed those. Now there are Audis all over the place, the Ro-Ro ship must have offloaded a bunch of them. They are loading them on the train.

I feel like a kid whose ball fell on the other side of a chain-link fence, staring at it, with no way to retrieve it.
Is it a crime to go steal your own vehicle???

But I don't have the original copy of the registration papers from BC yet, should get them tomorrow or Tuesday. Once I have those I can get license plates.
I already have auto insurance purchased for it.
I booked an appointment for the rustproofing for Friday.

The van is amazing though. Details I noticed, some probably seem silly to people who have a Delica already:
-- From what I could tell it's about 4" higher off the ground than the car which was parked behind it (a Honda Civic maybe? Looked like Prelude to me but they haven't sold those in years; now "Civic" has so many models under that name it doesn't mean anything anymore).
-- the bottom of the van is above the centre of the tires. Like a pickup truck. Must be a real suspension system, unlike what most cars have.
-- the paint is so shiny that you can see the sky reflected in it.
-- it is tall! I am starting to wonder if I will be taller than I am, I suspect it is. I compared with the height of those Porsches, it was almost as tall as two Porsches stacked on top of each other (only use I can see for a Porsche, really).

The more I think about it the less I understand why Mitsubishi discontinued these SpaceGear models (did they introduce new diesel regulations in Japan at some point?), and why they aren't selling them in North America where there are thousands and thousands of campers and outdoor enthusiasts. Is it because the car manufacturers are all copying each other and just pushing "SUVs" and "crossovers" (whatever that means)? I just don't get it.

I keep thinking of things to do with the van, I have a list but I suspect it will change once I've driven it and gotten used to it -- some things I am considering now probably aren't really needed or relevant, but maybe there are other things I may add to the list.

Oh I posted pictures of the van on the 'net, within two days someone from Vancouver contacted me, offering to buy it.

Anyway, should be soon now, I hope to have it by tomorrow or Tuesday.
Oh and my wife will be happy too, she was getting tired of having to get rides from colleagues to return home from work.

[patriceboivin]

Just went to check, the van isn't there anymore. They moved it.

I hope that means they processed it and I can take possession tomorrow...

(driving there, I decided "crossovers" is just a fancy name for "hatchback" -- like the AMC Pacer, ref. http://goo.gl/nqwP0P )

[Doug Colson]

Hopefully just one more sleep. Then the grin starts that you can't get off your face for weeks or months. Give me a call. I would live to come see it.
Cheers

[patriceboivin]

Well I have it now, been driving around aimlessly for a while, just because...

I can see the top of the roofs of all the vehicles so far, except for one large GMC pickup truck and city buses. But they don't really count.

This is a truck really, much more robust than I expected! I am very happy. I feel like I am driving in a steel van while everyone else is driving in vehicles made of aluminium foil.
and it is definitely taller than I am at 5'9"... a LOT taller. If I raise my arm as high as I can, I am sure it doesn't match the height of the roof. LOL

I am not used to the length of the van... parked in a few parking spots but I need more practice.

Is it normal to have 7" between the top of the tire and the edge of the wheel well above it in the rear, and 6" in the front? I am wondering if the bright red shocks under the van are doing something novel.

Buttons buttons everywhere...
an "i" button that doesn't appear to do anything, at least nothing that I noticed so far.
an amber light button which powers the green light parking pole, though the pole only comes up 2/3 of the way. Probably seized a little.
a radio/cd console with no slot to insert CDs... I am guessing it's somewhere under a seat, but haven't found it yet. It's too dark now, will check under the seats tomorrow.
the compass is blinking N/S, I guess that means it needs to be reset. Will drive in a circle I suppose to see if that resets it.

haven't figured out how to ensure that the consoles and lights remain bright enough to read at dusk, esp. the top of the central console.
don't know yet how to tell the air circulation system to just blow warm air, not go by a target temperature.

the holes for license plates in Japan are not spaced the same as in Canada... Not sure I am allowed to drill extra holes in an official license plate (?) I must say my province likes to ding people when they register new vehicles, they charge a hefty fee!

the Odyssey used to have 11 coffee cup holders... only saw three so far in the Delica but haven't done a thorough search. I intend to buy a centre storage unit to add more cup holders.

1994 in Japan was a different time, I found two ashtrays in the van so far. Not very useful anymore, are they. Reminds me of our 1997 Odyssey which had ashtrays in the rear as well as in the front.

Went through a Tim's drive through with my family, my wife had to order, pick up the food, pay... because she was on the left side of the vehicle.