Ultimate UTE VS Wagon challange for touring and camping setups

hey guys steve here from australian 4x4 adventures and this one is all about comparing this car to this ute in touring setups huh [Music] [Music] so so had a question a couple of queries about what's going to be the best setup for touring based on a wagon or a u what gives you better storage what gives you better usability the cost differences the jvms all of the little details trying to cover all of for you on what's better what's better for your setup what's what i prefer on my setup why i went for a wagon why tommy went for a ute and what's what's going to be best for touring versus even even the high country uh touring that we do is different to touring what they'll do in queensland because they're mostly on the beaches and just doing soft roading stuff because all those queenslanders are a bit you know and i'll just watch all my subscribers from from queensland just unsubscribe no no it's all good i still love you guys i'm coming up there at christmas time i'll see you soon so jessica so just gonna really try and do a comparison between the two now couple little challenges between us on on how to set up and who can do it the quickest and then a couple of more finer details on why these things are set up differently and how they work as well and we're going to run through the different types of setups you can do so first off let's look at mine so my setup is obviously in in back of the way and you would have seen my custom build of my drawers that i've done on my youtube channel if you haven't go check it out it's a really cool video on how to build your own drifter style drawers these are on these are on teflon slides to slide beautifully nice little video go watch it like and subscribe while you're at it no anyway so i've gone with this setup because it's the best use of space foot i want in my camping setup i went with the fridge down low because my wife is relatively short and she could never reach anything at the top anyway it also meant that i didn't have to have a drop slide to and which reduced weight for me everything was a bit nicer i've got a 87 litre dual zone my coolman fridge i like it it's a good fridge whether you agree with it or not it's it's worked for me it's pretty cool overall being the jewel zone obviously you can have fridge one side with both sides just chocolate and alcohol in there really like any good camping trip no alcohol left in there that was something just drank it all no i drank all mine last night everything's nice and warm it's so warm uh obviously with this one as well i've inbuilt the table so i don't have to worry about carrying an extra table inside the carator because it's all integrated in there's less things i have to carry obviously i am limited a little bit on table space because i'm down to this i've got a little bit on the tailgate i can use as well but it also means if i want to open that bottom drawer i have to move the stuff out of the way so there are limitations to what i've got here i've also got a little leg that goes under this to stabilize a bit more but for general quick roadside stops that's it i'm done ready to have lunch pretty much as we are so for me inside my drawers is basically where everything else happens so i've got my induction cooktop frying pan underneath all that is cleaning stuff gloves tea coffee jet boil everything else is all in bags these are the calmate bags that low profile so they can i can stack too high inside the drawers everything stacked away in bags for me is key to help keep things organized a couple of extra lights obviously oil sauces salts peppers all that sort of condiment stuff in there cutlery roll for me that just works best because it's it's compact you can have as much as you want there works really nice uh extra lights and of course my toaster what do you have why don't you have an off-road tap and sticker right there this is what happens when you're camping with george what what what is this look at that a little bit wonky i think he's gonna pull it off yeah wait the sticker or something else so now the interrupts are after george so that's my essentially my pantry setup and cooking setup for for everything everything i need is in that one drawer right there to do all the cooking in the top drawer is more the tools and utensils so i've got lights power cords tie downs silicon sprays bug sprays all the tools all the accessories pegs everything else first aid kits is basically up in this top drawer here a lot of that stuff probably doesn't need to be there but this is also a daily drive for me and i use it for work so some of those tools get get used for work so that's sort of constantly in there all the time doesn't mean there's a fair bit of weight in the car though in the same note they slide really nicely up on top is where all the rest of the storage goes so chainsaw bag generally a couple of chairs in there and then some soft furnishings up to sort of pack it all in nice and tight so it doesn't go anywhere down the sides of the of the drawer sets um extra jumpers all the bits and bobs you can see my charger up there at the end and everything else sort of just gets stuffed down there to keep it out of the way on the other side [Music] same thing stuffed all soft furnishings down there and my inverter up the back there to run all the induction cooktop airfryer all the rest of the stuff travel buddy pointing forward so i just pull the headrest off of this off of the side seat there it acts as two things one i don't see it when i'm driving around so it sort of just makes things a little bit more aesthetically nicer in the car out of sight out of mind also means the door can never come open because if it does it just hits the back of the headrest and it doesn't go anywhere anyway so i end up with a pie in the back of my head that's a bonus lighting-wise in here i've got an led strip light that runs across the top here with a little remote control so i can turn that on and off i can also change the colors to whatever i want so at night time you can change it to orange keeps all the bugs down it's also a nice little ambient light rather than having a bright white led it sort of just gives you a better feel around camp it doesn't blind you when you're standing at it it's just it's just nicer overall also with the razor rebar i got the the pole light one facing either way so i can have this light facing out to do to for setting up camp somewhat not whether the wheels open or shut and obviously this light facing forward so i can get light inside to the back of the cab to help with extra bright light if i need more lighting on the inside there so the the the main heart of what all of this works off of is i've got a 200 amp hour dcf lithium battery tucked in behind the fridge here so that pretty much runs the entire set up for me under the anadrive dc dc 40 amp plus charger so it's putting in just over 40 amps with the charge as soon as you start the car it's also got a 300 watt solar panel up on the roof so that just pumps in charge all day long so it pretty much stays at 100 most of the time until i start running the induction and the airfryer and everything else because that drills a lot of power but with a big solar it keeps up with it all and it does it does the job for me so for me this is sort of a long-term solution for off-roading that i don't have to go to civilization for i can carry 40 liters of water on the back here because i don't need the extra fuel i've got 270 litres of diesel underneath so i can go 1500 1800 k on the one tank so between fuel stops is few and far between i could live out of the back of this car for close to a month with the size fridge i have the amount of fuel amount of fuel and food plenty of plenty of time out of the back of it also with the back of a wagon shelter is always going to be a big thing obviously specifically with a 200 series there are other other wagons on the market so the the gus the gqs those type of cars don't have a lift up back door a 270 awning is fairly critical for a wagon set up like this because it gives you shelter across the back of the car you can have you can have all this stuff set up no rain gets in it's rained pretty much all this weekend we've been away so far had the awning set up nothing's got wet we've been at work do everything we wanted to do there's a couple other videos coming from this trip to be able to see some of the rain and some of the escapades have been getting up to so i reckon for me and the way i drive and the trips i want to do this is by far by far more beneficial setup for me i do a lot of i wouldn't say hardcore four driving but but substantial four wheel driving so having a longer ute tray and everything else where departure angles can be a little bit tricky it's a bigger tray to get through some of the tracks it's harder to park in car parks and shopping centers and whatnot for me as much as this is a big car it's still relatively maneuverable with a whole lot of stuff inside it yes i think there's a bit of a compromise on overall volume of space because obviously in a canopy you're gonna get more space but it's the question is is the benefit of the canopy outweighing the fact that i can probably go further because i've got a more maneuverable car that's that's that was my question i had to myself the type of stuff that i do the high country stuff which is all tight tracks this this was it for me all right so that's my setup that's how i like it now it's time for mr tommy lincoln to start doing his thing so he has got a what usual car 2019 that's an old navarro 2019 navara with one hell of a canopy set up on it so i'm oh i'm up i'm fighting an uphill battle here this is going to be a good one so i'm gonna let tommy speak for this one and it's not my words it's all tommy's opinions so just enjoy and just what what's this first of all i'm a 50 50 set up so i'm a chippy by trade so i have to carry my tools every day it's my daily drive it's my work car um so on this side i've got my tool set up which is about maybe a third or half of my tools that i carry usually so i've got all my cases it's a bit messy at the moment um you know all my power tools gas cooker the lights in here as well just to light it up so i could save myself in the morning up here i've also got uh just extra storage for things like socket sets uh drill bit cases masks angle grinding discs everything in here so if you try to use as much space as possible as i can in a canopy i think the best thing to think about is maybe using storage from the top to bottom um if you think about using up from bottom to top it used usually ends up being a bit of dead space at the top so that's what i've tried to fill there by getting as much out of as i can so that's essentially my tool side um you know run try again using as much space as i can i've got a whole bunch of batteries sitting on the back wall here uh coffee machine that's obviously a work um and then yeah just all my tools and use as much space as i can so working around the back obviously spare tyres on the back of the car not underneath because i'm allowing as much room underneath the car as i can so i can fit you know big water tanks long range fuel tank air compressors air tanks all that the amount of space i've got underneath the car um that can all go there which is kind of the the main reason why i went for the tray as well because i want to use as much space out of the canopy as well as in the campy obviously roof rack on the top as well allows me extra platform on the roof to really um allow me to take a lot more stuff come around the side so this is my kitchen side obviously passenger side is usually the side that most people run the kitchens on for me is definitely for roadside stops as well warning up here 270 degree awning works perfect for my canopy setup being the main hub of the car around this area so opening it up all on gas struts obviously i've got my 85 litre fridge um stand up fridge and a canopy i think is definitely the way to go uh when you have your chest style fridge you tend to encroach on the other side too much um which obviously is limiting space on the other side of the canopy as well as having to set the fridge back so far for the doors to close um and also the cost added cost of drop down slide the added weight of a drop down slide really starts to add up so for me this is really where i spend most of my time at camp i've got my pantry set up in here on slide out draw there we continue on to my table extension so this is somewhere where we usually spend most of our time cooking this is a setup which is changing soon into a a more sort of elaborate setup but for the moment this is the the main setup we've gone for and from here just another added extension that i've done myself is just another table which then sits on the leg so when it comes to table space or tray space or kitchen space in general i feel like a ute definitely has a lot more usable space we can use my pantry that's where all the pots and pans and food sits that's always going to be out when we're cooking anyway so that's always out table extends and we've got another extension on top of that in terms of the top jaw that's usually where i keep all my car stuff work stuff so i've got a whole bunch of tie downs ropes ratchet straps gas bottles uh eat herbs uh what else couple pots and pans in here just a whole bunch of stuff it's kind of like my mandrel essentially i've got everything i really need in here um which is uh which is useful for keeping stuff out of the way and packed up nice and neat uh i wanted when it came to setting up the canopy i wanted a space where i could just sort of put some stuff so for me this is where my camera stuff goes i put my camera bag up here um and just general bulky stuff that doesn't fit in the drawers so if you have any big items of food or something like that that can just sit up here also houses my travel buddy um so that's just a 12 oven um which is perfect size for what i need and up here is what i've also got similar to steve as well with my dc and the driver and the drive dc dc 48 plus charger so that charges the batteries 2 000 watt inverter with ac in and out so i can charge the car through 240 as well as use 240 accessories off it hooked up to that is my 120 amp hour lithium iotec battery which runs all my 12 volt accessories 85 litre bushman fridge uh for me i've come from a chest fridge in the past i had a what did i have a 38 liter waco i've also got a 70 litre waco at home um i've found getting used to this was hard to begin with but once i'm now used to it i mean i find this so much more um economical uh for for packing storage-wise it's so much better for me a little freezer up the top there's party pies in there ice tray you can keep stuff frozen um and yeah for me this for me a a stand-up fridge in the canopy is definitely the way to go um it just doesn't take up as much space all of my 12-volt system which pretty much covers that size behind the fridge is all behind there out of the way out of mind um and and it just keeps it a lot neater uh insulation obviously is a big thing when it comes to aluminium canopies um the heat obviously during summer really starts to uh to really get to the canopy so i've got uh from some foil water work which i've you know spray painted black i've chucked that on the canopy obviously being black it does get quite hot so that things that keeps things cool inside the canopy there's also a fan which is on the temperature temperature sensor behind the fridge which then cools all the electrics and stuff down during the hot times or if the oven's on it gets hot they'll kick in at a certain level and start to circulate some air to get a cooler [Music] right here so this is going to be an example of pull up at a roadside stop we want to get something out of the fridge we want to start making some lunch we're going to have a sandwich for lunch and just nice and easy so you've got a couple kids in the backseat quick and easy so for me so far i'm halfway there pretty much it's [Music] table set up ready to go inside here so i'm going to go with an avocado give the kids some rum yeah keep them quiet little bar bread cutlery roll and i'm ready to start making some lunch so i'm not going to go into making lunch because obviously that can depend on what exactly you're making but essentially that's ready to go right now table's done that probably took up trying to put a little time up but that was probably less than 30 seconds from the point of me getting out of my car and having everything ready to start making lunch so maybe maybe we could have a look at what tommy can do with his [Music] all right i'm a bit hungry after pulling steve out of a bog hole because he owns a 200. i'll quickly set up some lunch open the canopy [Music] jump in the fridge avocado and we are pretty much good to go i'd say that's probably line ball for both of us being pretty much exactly the same so so i don't think that speed is going to be a factor in either of our setups i think the biggest part is probably going to be how the fridge gets used yep and you've got a hell of a lot more overall volume of space than i do but granted that i mean you probably have a little bit more in your jaws yep but i've only got half the space in my canopy being used yep you've got a whole other side so you can put it you can put just a separate box just on one side at one side to carry the rest yeah or i could have more drawers you know in the other side as well so yeah when it comes to the fridge obviously uh the upright fridges aren't sort of a half and half so i've only got a small little freezer compared to a fridge so if you're going away in a long trip and you're doing some you're freezing some items or whatever yeah i obviously can't run that i can you know fit my other fridge on the other side if really need be but again that means just another fridge i need to get yeah yeah because i've got my split is like 37 and 45 or something like that i think so i can have a 37 litre freezer for plenty of frozen food yep and then the other side is purely food for drinks and condiments avocados what not fireball 35 or that's george's by the way um so i think that's probably a benefit of the chest phrases also there's an economical uh thing between chess phrases versus upright phrases uh upright's obviously probably a little bit more user-friendly because things don't fall on top of each other but they use more power as soon as you open the door all that cold air just seems to rush out yeah yeah for sure all right so there's a compromise between both yeah definitely i mean you go to your chest fridge you've got to reach down try and find what you need my fridge it's just there it's all in your face ready to go but yeah opening that a lot of the air just comes out straight until it's turned on now just straight away it's opening it yeah and there's always the compromise between the two between the chests and that so yeah and i've never had an upright to know so you've had both yeah i'd prefer that yeah especially for you i prefer that in a wagon i don't think it will work that well just in terms of the space it's actually using yeah there are a couple of people getting around doing it yeah i've seen yeah i'm not sure if i if i like it though yeah exactly because i haven't had it either so i'm not 100 sure [Music] i posted up on instagram a question about what people want to know about the comparison between the ute and the wagon setup so we've got a couple of questions that came in some of them really cool um one of them which i thought was the most important one george wanted to know if he could run his electric dildo off of our olympic setup the answer is no nothing can run something that big we need like a 5 000 watt inverter george no 5 000 kbo um so anyway so now then to the serious questions um people probably the biggest one i got asked was price difference between the two so if we take out and this is working in my my favorite year if we take out the cost of the car and purely talk about the setup so because obviously we're not purely talking about a 200 series wagon this could refer to a gu wagon or a gq it could be a pajero it could be an old prado there's plenty of other different types so we take out the price of the car itself purely talk about the setup the wagon setups are vastly cheaper because there's less to do so my draw setup alone was was a thousand bucks there's a video about that on how on how to build it obviously it's a thousand dollars to set up drawers the fridge was another eight hundred dollars uh that battery set up retail was gonna be around about three thousand dollars so we're up to four five five thousand eight hundred bucks ish they're about so we call it say six thousand bucks to set up the back of my car the way it is now i don't think that's too bad so six six six and a half thousand bucks pretty good overall when you're talking about a ute setup though when you have your tub canopy the terms of space being used is very similar to a wagon yep so you still got your drawers and stuff so if you're going purely for a train canopy i think the cost is definitely going to be a lot higher yeah yeah so as as is setting up we're talking closer to 25 grand 25 30 grand yeah yeah that's for a decent well-built canopy well-built tray there's a lot cheaper on the market for sure yeah yeah um but for the canopy like i won't lie canopy is about 16 grand trey was about six dual battery system 12 volt system was about four to five grand fridge a thousand yep and and that's where it pretty much sits yeah so there's a vast difference in setting up a use bit in the same note there's also bigger advantages to having a ute for long term touring because there's more space it's it's everything's out of the cab probably my biggest bug bear about a wagon and i hate squeaky noises and rattles and everything else so it just drives me insane everything inside there has to be packed in nice and tight otherwise it squeaks moves and it drives me insane so that's a downfall to having a wagon in here if something moves around like you yeah yeah coffee frother rat along around the back of your car you can't hear it back here that's probably one of the biggest the big advantages obviously uh with a well-built canopy you shouldn't get any dust ingress um if in particular a 200 series is horrible for dusting grass both the air box and the back of the car um that's not to say that for every setup obviously i know gus aren't too bad for for the back of them they don't really suck in too much dust the seals are pretty good so it's it's a catch it's a hit-and-miss it's really what you're after what car you have at the at the time yeah how much money you're willing to spend on the setup if you want to go all out in a good setup or if you just want to keep her on cheap exactly right [Music] i actually got an alternative to the setups on cars so obviously we've got the ute set up here we've got my wagon set up over there with just the the rear of the car set up with the rear seats still kept in i've got a 15 month old so i have to have a baby seat in the back of the car there's alternatives to that though so we've got pat from off-road lens here as well he's got his gu patrol with the rear seats taken out and he's his entire touring setup basically takes up the entire back of his car it's just an alternative for long-term touring inside a wagon so let's have a quick look at that one all right so i've got pat here behind me and he's gonna quickly run through he's he's set up using the entire back of his car from back all the way to the front driver's seat so i'm gonna let pat explain it yep so because it's just me and the missus uh touring around the country um this is mainly set up for touring so i've actually got the rear seats out so it gives you a lot more storage space as you can see i'll put the fridge here made a platform for it i've taken it out of the back which obviously you don't really want a lot of weight back here so it puts a weight more central as well um so i've just got drawers and my kitchen set up in the back and then you just come around here to the fridge um and that also provides a lot of storage under here so all your all your little bits and pieces recovery gear tools whatever can just go under there and you're all sorted um and then on the other side i've actually got another flat one that we'll show you so on this side obviously seat out as well i've just made it another simple uh platform here holds the chainsaw nice and neat tools under there bucket whatever else under there shoes all a lot um and then up on here i would have normally two containers so we run containers for our clothes instead of bags uh we just find it's a lot easier but yeah this platform would be for the containers clothes camera gear gas bottle blankets whatever else so that's just a different way of sort of setting up a wagon compared to a ute so the rear seats is mainly just a fridge and all other storage and this is sort of just the cooking area so obviously you've got the drop table down on the side there a whole draw full of food that'll hold two weeks food easy and then just all cooking gear oils pots pans coffee coffee cups paper towel and then this one's just all the other smaller utensils so everything has a spot you got your spices oils wipes knives little jetboil thing in there all the cleaning gear and yeah that's the way you can sort of set up a wagon compared to having the seats in so we don't need the seats in because don't obviously have kids um and obviously taking them out gives you a lot more storage all right so that's our comparison hi george hi steve so that's our comparison between the ute setup a wagon setup with the seats a wagon set up without the seats and what we think and how we and how we use the cars overall obviously there's going to be different setups there's going to be different budgets to that some people are going to go 30 000 bucks i can't spend that no way in hell but as as tommy said there's different ways you can do it same as mine 7 grand for sitting at the back of a car there's different ways you can do it pat said he's up on a nice budget he's done most of it himself and it's actually really good so you don't have to spend big money to do any sort of touring you don't even need any of this stuff to do any touring you just need to get out there and do it for one but if you want to make it nice do this anyway so if you've got any questions comments or anything else chuck them in the comments down below don't forget to like and subscribe press that little bell for notifications and as always i'll see you in the next one

Channel: Australian 4x4 Adventures

Views: 15,233

Rating: 4.9134617 out of 5

Keywords: Australian 4x4 adventures, 200 series, Landcrusier, navlife, nissan navara 2021, camping hacks, camping essentials, overlanding gear, victorian high country 4x4, Touring, touring setup 4x4, canopy setup for camping, canopy setup, 79 series landcruiser build, trip in a van, camping australia, touring australia 4x4, ute camping setup, roam lyfe, australia camping, 4x4 australia, shauno's 200 series, sidetracked australia, fraser island 4x4, australian camping, Aussie arvos

Id: 28ISK4izklE

Length: 27min 4sec (1624 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 09 2021