Which Is The Best JDM Kei Truck? Sambar? Acty? HiJet? Carry? Minicab? [Collector Car Guru's RANKED!]

welcome back to class winners ranked I'm Sam Bear Car Guy in Chief at class winners collector vehicles and former Automotive journalists and today I've got my flame suit on why because it's time to rank jdmk trucks you know the most popular JDM Imports and I know that everybody's gonna have an opinion on which make and model is the best and which one is the worst well I've driven a lot of them I've owned a lot of them I'm going to take the opportunity to tell you which ones I think rank in order so stick around get ready to comment subscribe and like and if you think I'm wrong let me have it all right let's begin so the first thing we have to do is kind of set ground rules because K trucks have been around for a very long time and there have been multiple generations and for our purposes we're talking about the 1990 to 1997 1998 generations of K trucks and these are all going to be 660 CC class 10 foot 10 and available in two-wheel drive and four-wheel drive most of the manufacturers from Japan have some type of offering in in this category now some manufacturers have various options that others don't but for the most part you could get them in two-wheel drive four-wheel drive you can get them in a stick or an automatic and you could even get a dump bed on there you can get locking axles so let's just talk about the basics and then go from there so competing in today's rankings are the following models the Daihatsu hijet the Suzuki carry the Subaru sandbar the Honda acti and the Mitsubishi mini Cat now a lot of these were actually sold under other names either within Japan or in other markets but let's just settle on those the pickup trucks all had van versions as well the Honda actually had the Honda Street the Daihatsu hijet had the Daihatsu Atari the Mitsubishi mini cab had the Mitsubishi Brava Suzuki carry had the Suzuki every and the Subaru Sandbar had the Subaru Sandbar Diaz now for those of you who are new to the jdmk truck Market space there are some things you just have to understand first and foremost all of the manufacturers so no matter which maker model you're looking at it's basically going to be built to a pretty standard formula two seats a truck with a six and a half foot bed with full downsides and a fold down tailgate the whole length will be about 10 feet 10 inches long and the package will weigh plus or minus 30 or 40 pounds of 1800 pounds overall you can get it in two wheel drive or you can get it in four-wheel drive since all are powered by a 660 CC class overhead cam naturally aspirated engine they're basically going to be designed for in-city use now most of them can achieve Highway safe and legal speeds of about 60 miles an hour some like the 38 horsepower Honda acti will have trouble maintaining 60 miles an hour going up any kind of grade While others like the Suzuki carry at 42 horsepower can actually sustain almost 65 miles an hour going up a slight grade but any of them are going to be turning well over 6 000 and sometimes upwards of 6500 RPMs at 65 miles an hour so that means with very little sound deadening and very high RPMs it's going to be a noisy affair so if you're planning on sustained highway travel don't be the person who drafts the seven foot two Lithuanian Center to be the flyer on the varsity cheerleading squad I mean pick the right tool for the job there are other vehicles that are better for highway travel because all of the K trucks are nearly identical in their specifications in the exterior what I find is the largest issue and why people choose one over the other in terms of make and model aside from Brand loyalty as ergonomics so let's rank in ergonomics and at the bottom it's the Honda acti for one very simple reason it has the least amount of interior leg and knee and shin space so if you are over six foot one the Honda acti is simply going to be tight none of them are particularly spacious but it is noticeably tighter in the Honda acti cabin that being said all the materials in the seats and and the door panels and the switch gear is all Honda quality and it's fantastic and even you know Honda offers a tachometer when other brands don't and you know that's a plus but if you don't fit you're not gonna enjoy it no matter what else is in the cockpit so it gets the bottom because it's the least comfortable so above them it is absolutely a tie between the carry the hijet and the mini cab they're all basically the same the hijet has maybe a little bit more room for larger feet while the carry might have a little bit more Headroom with the way the seats are in but they're all basically the same now in number one that first place it's the Subaru Sandbar by a country mile because it actually has more leg room than any of the others now I can't tell you why because on paper they all seem to pencil out just about the same but at six foot four I can tell you that I am absolutely the most comfortable in a Subaru Sandbar it's time to talk about engine and Power and here we have a tremendous range of vehicles again in the last place is the Honda acti we have to bridge the subject of top speed Mount into four-wheel drive High specification Honda rakes the top speed at 64 miles an hour rear-wheel drive the top speed is listed at 74 miles an hour can you take them on the highway yeah you can but they're not great long distance tours and you're going to be between 55 and 70 mile an hour zones just about hitting 60. and 500 RPMs now Honda makes absolutely wonderful engines but throughout most of the 90s the Honda acti and it's K3 cylinder overhead cam carbureted engine just simply wasn't producing the necessary horsepower to keep it competitive with the rest of the vehicles in the class now tide or the Mitsubishi mini cab and the Daihatsu hijet they both absolutely offer around the same power output they can go on the freeway although they're pretty high revving and they have a decent amount of torque but they slack just under the Suzuki and it's high revving f6a engine at the top is the Subaru Sandbar and it gets this for actually two different reasons the first it's a four-cylinder engine because it's a four cylinder its ability to produce horsepower and torque and combine with certain gear ratios enables it to feel a little more torquey down low while also providing the higher end horsepower necessary to be on the freeway for a while now finally while very rare and extremely desirable you can get a Subaru Sandbar with a supercharger a factory belt driven supercharger and it actually gives you the ability to do 85 miles an hour up a hill now finding a five-speed supercharger pickup is really rare but here's an example of what it was like to drive those specifications in a sandbar Diaz van it was pretty cool so we're actually getting onto a highway right now and we're in fourth gear going up an incline and we'll go into fifth gear and we're going to get into the fast lane [Music] and ladies and gentlemen uphill we're accelerating we're past 62. we're now at 110 kilometers per hour 110 is about 68 miles an hour [Music] so The Sandbar DS supercharger it's got long legs in the sense that [Music] it's got the the Eagle K maximum top speed of 85 miles an hour and I I've actually it's ago I had it out a high-speed Zone it'll not only hit that speed but it'll do it again uphill accelerating in fifth gear with the air conditioning on full blast how can you not love that now it's time to talk about Transmissions now all of them are available in some form of automatic and manuals some of them had four speed manuals like the Suzuki carry as a base and then you could get a five speed as an option um some of them like The Sandbar and the acti you could get a five speed also with an extra low gear with the four-wheel drive versions all in all all of them shift really well there's really nothing to differentiate them in the manual form now in automatic form there we've got a different issue at the bottom Subaru Sandbar in their electronic CVT automatic is notoriously plagued with problems we just tell people avoid the automatics at all costs because like the ecvt equipped justies that came to the United States they have a tendency to have about two or three different problems that will just leave you either crawling or completely stranded and there aren't many parts available so unless you do not know how to grow your own Gears we strongly suggest a manual over an automatic now if you need an automatic we suggest not the Subaru and certainly not a Mitsubishi which also has a tendency for their Mitsubishi automatics in the case to have some severe problems but if you can find an automatic in any of the others go for it it's time for differentiating factors in the layouts of the vehicles because this actually has a huge impact on the way you drive them and even more importantly the way they're serviced so let's start with the Suzuki carry the Mitsubishi mini cab and the Daihatsu hijet all of those are cab over designs where the engines are underneath the driver and passenger seats in the Suzuki the engine is the furthest forward in the Daihatsu and in the Mitsubishi the engines are slightly further back more towards the front of the bed than just directly under the seats now as this plays out in terms of drivability you'll notice that in two-wheel drive mode in these vehicles they will have a tendency to spin the rear tires when there's no weight in the rear like pulling over a bump or a curb or any type of hill where it gets a little bit slick now in the Subaru and Honda those engines are more mid-engine with the Honda having its engine above and directly in front of the rear axle and the Subaru above and directly behind the rear axle now those Vehicles even in two-wheel drive mode have enough weight over those rear drive wheels so that you almost never need four-wheel drive to do what you need to do traction is really great and handling is also really good because with driver and passenger up front and the weight of the engine on the rear axle it's very balanced where as the Mitsubishi the Suzuki and the Daihatsu have a tendency to push a little into the corners so what that means is when it comes to drivability and capability and just kind of those overall handling Dynamics we'd probably put it as Mitsubishi and Daihatsu and Suzuki all tied with the Subaru Sandbar in second place and the Honda up in first because you can really throw the Honda around and even drift it and it's a hoot but in speaking about engine placement that also affects the way that we can service it and the access to doing things like timing belt changes and here we have some clear winners and losers at the very bottom it's the Daihatsu High jet well the hijet itself is very easy to work on in terms of access to the engine parts and actually doing a timing belt on a hijet engine is pretty straightforward but where it loses so much is that it is almost impossible to put a high jet onto a two post lift safely because of where the weight is in the vehicle and if you look on YouTube you can see number of videos of hijets tipping over forwards and falling on their noses off to post lift then it comes to Mitsubishi now the reason that Mitsubishi falls under the Suzuki when they have very similar placement is because the parts availability for Mitsubishis in the k-class is not as good as Parts availability for Suzuki's which shared a lot of the components of its FS f6a engine with a bunch of of its other vehicles so they're just more parts out there and they're easier to get and they're cheaper and they can get to you quicker so they're easy to to work on but still that placement of under the seat and in between the access panel in the front of the truck bed makes it hard to tune the carburetor or get it linkages or small little things that put you well you've got to twist and torque your body to get at those things whereas in the other vehicles it's a little bit easier now in terms of access and serviceability in second place it's got to be the Hyundai parts are available there's access through not only the panel in the truck bed but also by taking off the rear wheels and having immediate access to the timing belt and in the Honda there's actually even a external fill for the oil so you generally don't even have to take an engine cover or off to do the typical things you need to do like check the oil and fill it back up in first place without a doubt the Subaru Sandbar because it's rear engine configuration means that you have three points of access you have the access panel in the truck bed you have the ability to take off the rear driver's side wheel to be looking at the timing belt and you can actually drop down the rear bumper and have access to the spark plugs and the all of the ignition components it's fantastic and honestly it has to be the single easiest timing belt change in modern history parts are available they're cheap I mean it's a no-brainer on this one so where does that leave us well here are the final rankings now this is going to cause some friction but in last place it's the Mitsubishi mini cap quite honestly they don't have much of a following in the U.S and parts are a little harder to get and well there's really nothing to differentiate them as being better in anything now above the Mitsubishi mini cab that's the Honda acti it's saved by its fabulous handling and its ability to be easily serviced yes it is cramped yes it is the least powerful and the slowest but for in and around City Vehicle it's still a really great comfortable high quality Rag and if you want one with two wheel drive you're going to get the traction of a four-wheel drive ask vehicle because it is just so capable due to its weight balance so next it's a tie between the Daihatsu hijet and the Suzuki carry as well as the Suzuki carries platform twins the Mazda and autosam scrum so let's talk about the die hot sale all around it's a very good capable rig and well I don't like putting them up on a lift because they're dangerous up there what does set the hijet apart is that there are actually a couple of different cool versions about the hijet um both the deck van which is essentially a adorai van with a small little bed in back but kind of like a trunk cut off uh totally useless but it looks really cool more useful is the hijet jumbo which gives you well let's just call it an extended cab because that's really what it is and while it's really hard to find a good clean jumbo it does offer that unique ability to have a little room behind the seats to put stuff where none of the others have that option now the Suzuki carry I think well it does give up the traction with its front waist bias the engine is fantabulous it's high revving and everything we like about all the other f6a powered Suzuki's so turkey is this Little Engine That well we'll show you let's get into third gear you can actually come from us Full Stop in third gear and get going it revs to the moon it's got power and even if you don't have a tachometer suffice it to say it'll rev more than you think it'll rev so if you take it on the freeway you can right lane it and you're gonna run forever without blowing it up as long as your vehicle is in good condition on the whole they're well made having that ability to select uh four-wheel and two-wheel drive quickly well it it just works well and I know many people who have owned carries for years and they are Die Hard fans and that brings us to the class winners ranked winner of the JDM k-class trucks the Subaru Sandbar now I've made the joke before my name is Sam Bearer and what do you call a guy who loves a Subaru Sandbar a sandbar but it's really more than that joke it is the most capable it is a absolutely solidly engineered vehicle it's a great four-cylinder engine that's completely under stressed it shifts well it handles well it is absolutely Unstoppable in snow and ice it's easy to service easier than all the rest prices are no higher than they are for the other vehicles there are a good number of out them out of them out there to choose from and despite the problem with the electronic continuously variable transmission automatic the five speeds are phenomenal so with that you can even up it more by finding yourself a supercharged one and you've got a great rig that is pretty rare and can do highway speeds anywhere and in fact one of our customers took a supercharged Sandbar Diaz the band version and drove it from Seattle all the way down to Southern California without a hiccup I mean that's really impressive so there it is what do you think you think I'm crazy you think I'm right put your comments below and don't forget to like and to subscribe again I'm Sam Bearer for class winners collector vehicles and class winners ranked we'll see you next time

Channel: The Collector Car Guru

Views: 191,856

Keywords: minitruck, jdm, microtrucks, 4x4, offroad, farm truck, trucks, pickups, classic cars

Id: cdBN6R1KAvI

Length: 27min 24sec (1644 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 23 2022