Wonder Vs Unity in 2023: Which Leisure Travel Vans is best?

hey thanks for joining me on Pagosa Adventures well today we are going to be doing a battle royale that is going to be the leisure travel Vans wonder versus the leisure travel Vans Unity now then in the past if you wanted luxury and Prestige obviously the unity was the way to go it was on the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter chassis it had all kinds of features that the Wonder couldn't even think of adding but it is different today so we are going to pit the differences between the Wonder and the unity the Ford Transit versus the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter and see exactly who comes out on top and is it even something that you would want to consider spending more money for a Unity anymore two years ago I would have said absolutely but today not so much so let's take a deep dive into looking at the differences and seeing who comes out on top because now I would say Ford has really done a really good job of competing with the Sprinter even doing some things even much better so let's jump into the uh the specs let's jump into the features and let's see who comes out on top and helping you make your decision Wonder or Unity let's find out all right let's look at the tale of the tape now then a few years ago I believe it was 2021 the Ford Transit really upped its game it really delivered a Haymaker to the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter adding in a ton of the features that I would have said you've got to choose a Unity because of all of the features that the Sprinter has well Ford answered the call and here we are so let's jump over and look at the specs and see exactly who's coming out on top when it comes to the powertrain because I think that's going to be the biggest thing that Ford has over the Mercedes okay so when we jump in here and we see that the Sprinter now has only a 30 pounds more GVWR than the Ford Transit before it was quite considerably a bit more now then I'm going to tell you what's going to be the biggest thing and that is the Sprinter is a diesel and the transit is now a 3.5 liter EcoBoost used V6 gas engine that is a fantastic difference right there and I can say I just took a 3 000 mile round trip uh to the Florida Keys from Dallas Texas in my Unity my Sprinter my diesel Sprinter and I was seeing everything from five dollars up to five dollars and sixty cents a gallon for diesel add on to that death situation which if you don't know what that is that's diesel exhaust fluid it's a separate fluid that you have to put into your diesel engine that really lowers the uh the emissions coming out it's one of those EPA type things but it is I mean it's not a huge deal but you do have to add it probably every 5 000 miles or so and you know you can get it at truck stops or it comes in a box you get a Walmart either way it's a pain uh and something else that you have to consider it's not terribly expensive uh per mile but it is an expense now then when we look over at the gas uh gas here in Dallas is you know it's basically under three dollars a gallon now so that is basically two bucks to two bucks 60 that is difference so a 24 gallon tank if you're talking about a two dollar difference that's a fifty dollar per fill up difference I can remember when it costs 50 bucks to fill up my leisure travel van now it's a fifty dollar difference to fill it up with diesel versus what the what you could do in the wonder which is gas so that is a huge huge advantage now then horsepower and torque well that Ecoboost V6 has more power and more torque than the Sprinter 188 compared to the 310 and 325 pounds foot of torque compared to 400 pounds of torque for the transit now then you can tell right now that you know more horsepower more torque what's that going to give you that's going to give you a little bit more acceleration um is it going to tow better I don't know I haven't told with either one however the transit will be able to not tow quite as much as the as the unity even though you don't want to go over in the unity I say it all the time don't go over 4 200 pounds Towing even though uh all the videos everything says the Sprinter can pull to 5 000 pounds it's not necessarily true when you add in Gross combined vehicle weight ratings all that and that's for a different topic but 4 200 pounds is probably Max for the unity probably 4 000 is Max for the uh the transit all right transmission now then I have a Ford F-350 Super Duty with a 10 speed transmission and I'm going to tell you that thing drives like a dream and it is fantastic on fuel mileage uh when I'm not pulling my Airstream I get about 23 miles a gallon in a 9 000 pound truck so the more speeds you've got the better the fuel mileage right and so real life I will tell you this with the uh seven uh speed that the Mercedes has I got I averaged about 17 miles to the gallon on that round trip to Florida and that trip was was pretty good it's pretty flat obviously from Dallas to Florida when I'm up in the mountains I average about 14 miles the gallon so what does what's the transit going to get well I don't know I've never driven a Transit never done the the the the math on that but I'm assuming it's going to be about the same as long as you aren't uh terrible on the old pedal right and so having a 10-speed transmission that's going to be so much better than just a seven-speed transmission all right now all-wheel drive you have the option in the transit and you do not in the Mercedes now then why would you want all-wheel drive in a low to the ground motorhome personally I don't know I would not get that it's a like a sixty five hundred dollar option um to me it makes no sense maybe if you're up north where you know I don't know because they're not of Four Seasons um RV either so you're not going to be camping in the winter necessarily some people do have to you know winterize and then use antifreeze in your toilet that doesn't sound like a lot of fun to me right so go south if that's the case uh so all-wheel drive doesn't make sense to me especially at 6 500 premium doesn't make sense to me but I like the ability that people who want it can get it all right so that is a clear win for the transit and the Wonder as far as powertrain goes a lot more power and a lot less fuel costs so that's a win-win right there okay all right let's jump over to the cab the Sprinter or the transit now then again uh a few years ago I would have said the Sprinter wins hands down but now Ford has added some things in that is going to compete with the Mercedes uh they now have that big 12 inch screen with sync 4. it's the same screen and system that I have in my Ford F-350 which I absolutely love supports Wireless carplay the Mercedes does not support wireless car play which uh you think Ah that's not a big deal it actually is a big deal to me I hate having where the you plug in your phone in order to get carplay in the Mercedes uh it's on top of the dash it's a you know you have that white cord coming down so I'm a little OCD yeah that bothers me Wireless carplay is a huge win now then Ford also started putting in things like forward Collision warnings adaptive cruise control uh side crosswind um features now then I don't really like that crosswind feature it freaks me out every time the Mercedes it does that on the Mercedes Sprinter kind of just Slams on the brakes it's really jarring even though you know it's probably coming but now Ford even has that and so they have really really matched Mercedes when it comes to safety and comfort features again they do wins win hands down when it comes to that screen and wireless carplay but the overall look and feel of the Sprinter is absolutely beautiful set it a hundred times it looks like an S-Class Mercedes it's gorgeous and the controls on the steering wheel are absolutely so much better than Fords I like it so much better than driving my Ford F-350 with with the adaptive cruise control because I basically drive with my thumbs when I'm driving now because I just um it can control the speed all kinds of things with my thumb on the steering wheel and the way Mercedes does it is brilliant I absolutely love it so who wins this round I'm going to give it to the Sprinter it's bigger you've got more room in between the two seats we even put a portable refrigerator or even an ice chest in between those two seats and I don't think you can with the transit because the seats are on a little bit close to the road the uh the Wonder is lower to the ground as well I do like in the unity I am sitting up high a little bit more command of the road so I'm going to give this round to the Sprinter all right let's talk about the house portion of the Wonder versus the unity and at this point I think it's pretty Moot and I'm going to say that overall since Leisure Travel Vans is starting to introduce ducted air into the wonder which they just have with the MBL because that was always the biggest thing for me why I would always say I would want a Unity over a Wonder as far as the house portion is concerned that's because if you don't understand the ducted air portion of it well ducted air basically is your air conditioner being ducted all the way through the unity okay so that's going to make your front of your coach a lot cooler a lot faster right whereas the Wonder has non-ducted air and the air conditioner sits in the rear of the coach where all of that air just dumps out right there obviously cooling that area very quickly but it's going to take some time to cool the front of that coach so I've always said that I would always have a Unity because of the ducted air well in the MBL Wonder guess what major travel Vans is doing ducted air and so pretty much I would say for the money savings I would say the Wonder as far as the house goes it's the Wonder and so for this round totally going to give it to the Wonder because you don't get that many more features in the house of Wonder versus Unity as long as the ducted air is coming into play but with that being said I'll give this round to the Wonder foreign so let's talk about features that one can have while the other can't but Leisure Travel Vans is again they're upping the game on the Wonder and will be bringing these features soon I do believe and in one case they already have okay so what you can do in the unity is you can have a slide so there are a couple of floor plans that have slides now some people like slides some people don't I love our slide we have the FX when I open that slide up it is massive in there well not massive but you know what I mean anyway it's it's a lot more room than if you didn't have a slide obviously and so having a slide just gives you a little bit bigger of a house uh portion of the RV and I absolutely love that now then on the Wonder the new MBL which leads your travel Vans is bringing some of this stuff to it the MBO and the Wonder has a slide now a lot of people think well the slide can break and yes I've seen slides break in fact I've been a part of trying to help a another Leisure Travel man on owner push their slide in when it broke but that's the only one I've ever seen ours has been fantastic knock on some wood there but you hardly ever hear of them them breaking right and so is it a risk yes is it a mild risk I would say yes but now you do have the option of getting a slide in a Wonder now the biggest thing for me are leveling jacks now why do they not put leveling jacks in the Wonder and they do the uh the unity well it's because the Sprinter sits higher off of the ground and you can get those equalizer leveling jacks which in in my opinion is a is a must have I absolutely love our leveling jacks it makes life so much better it completely stops the movement of the coach whenever you are parked and sleeping or whatever and as well as just Auto leveling so it is a fantastic solution now I've heard talks that lead to travel man is going to be bringing that to the Wonder I don't know how they're going to engineer that again the whole thing is because the transit sits much lower to the ground therefore knocking the jacks off off of your coach which you don't want to have all right so who wins this round I'm going to give it over to the Unity One More Time [Applause] all right let's get down to the nitty-gritty and that is price so a long time ago the Wonder was much less expensive than the unity prices have absolutely skyrocketed in the last two years since the pandemic what I paid for my Unity um you can't even touch a Leisure Travel van for if you spec it out like I would spec mine out it's well over two hundred thousand dollars for a Unity there is a two hundred thousand dollar Wonder noun that's the MBL with the options that I would want on that MBL and so 200 000 for a Wonder now there are much cheaper if you get the front twin bed which is their cheapest model then obviously you have you know a third about a 35 36 000 price break from that highest price MBL version but still it's very expensive it's about 20 to thirty thousand dollars more than it was just two or three years ago pre-pandemic and so price really is not I would say when you're when you're talking 170 180 compared to 200 then that's I mean yeah it's twenty thirty thousand dollars but at that point get what you want you're spending a small fortune so if you want the unity get the unity if you want the transit save a few bucks and get the transit just know you're still spending a boatload of money and so as far as price goes I say it's a draw because while there is a significant difference it can be a significant difference um it's really you know this point get what you want right and so the one thing again that I would say uh sixty five hundred dollars when you add in that all-wheel drive to the Wonder brings you up to the price of the unity um in many cases so I would say why in the world would you want all-wheel drive why would you need it it's probably going to make your gas mileage go down I can't imagine any scenario where I would take my you know wonder that is so low to the ground anyway uh take where I would even think that I would need all-wheel drive so for me all-wheel drive is no no no all right so let's tally it up well who knew it's a draw so basically nowadays I would say there's not as much of a difference between wonder and unity in order to make a clear Distinction on okay the unity is just a a much bigger upgrade than the Wonder because it is not anymore the unity is still uh quite a few dollars more but at the price range what's a few dollars if you want that Mercedes Sprinter right uh and at the end of the day if that's a big deal to you The Prestige of it yeah that Mercedes I mean compared to a Ford yeah people are going to look at that and say yeah that cost way more than that Ford Wonder did right which is not necessarily the case especially if you had all-wheel drive into your Wonder then you know you're pretty much up there with the unity so how do you decide well I can't tell you the way that I would decide is it's going to be the gas versus the diesel I do think it's a much wiser decision to get gas engine versus a diesel engine and that right there would make my decision over yeah I do love that Mercedes-Benz interior it is Head Over Heels better not necessarily better but just a little more luxurious and then the Ford but that 12 inch screen and wireless car play that's nice as well again at this point I can't tell you which one to get it's really a toss-up save a few bucks with the Wonder and you save a few bucks at the gas pump as well and so I don't think I helped you at all if you're trying to decide between you know the Wonder and the unity at the end of the day when we get our Murphy bed Lounge which I believe we will be ordering soon I think I'm gonna Wonder that's right I think I'm gonna go the Wonder I don't think I'm gonna go the Wonder MBL and so that's quite the difference I never thought I would get the Wonder uh in the past but now why not right I do think it's a better uh solution for Janet and I but anyway with that being said if this first time on the channel make sure you hit that subscribe button hit that notification Bell and then the old thumbs up as well I really do appreciate all of that and with that being said we'll see you next time thank you [Music] [Music]

Channel: Brandon Hensley / Pagosa Adventures

Views: 54,705

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Id: _tl6d6wDAAg

Length: 18min 36sec (1116 seconds)

Published: Mon Nov 21 2022