Which Utility Vehicle to carry heavy ration kits for charity

One thing led to another and now we have taken up the responsibility of delivering ration kits to over 300 families at their doorsteps every month.

BHPian shrinz.vivek recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Few months ago, me and my friend (both TUV300 owners) came across a person who was regularly distributing food kits to poor families spread across multiple villages around Bangalore. We decided to help him out by contributing some money.

Then we realised he was travelling 100s of km every day on his humble Honda Activa to personally deliver one month's worth of dry ration to the families' door steps. We immediately pressed our tanks into service and scaled up considerably.

One thing led to another and now we have taken up the responsibility of delivering ration kits to over 300 families at their doorsteps every month.

Thanks to god and many kind donors, everything is running smooth.

But I am getting the feeling that we are abusing the TUV a lot.

We usually move 20 kits/day/car every weekend. Each kit is around 30kg + 2 people on board is around 760kg of payload

TUV being a 7 seater may be designed to carry around 560kg weight (7adults*avg 80kg/person)

That's around 200kg overload. The engine pulls like a charm, but the rear suspension will be significantly compressed. Almost like the car is doing a wheelie. Notice how the silver car is sitting lower than the red one. The silver TUV is fully loaded while the red is partially unloaded.

Plus after each trip we will have to carefully vacuum the car in order to avoid attracting rats and other rodents to the little qantity of rice and other food particles which invariably gets spilt from the sacks

Now...

• Is this overload OK? What will be the long term implications of this?
• Will it be better for us to buy a dedicated leaf spring suspension vehicle like the Omni or Qualis or Sumo? Maximum we can spend on this is 1 lakh. At this price will we end up buying 20 year old cars which will have to be slaughtered soon; owing to the scrappage policy?
• Will it be sensible to buy a yellow board goods vehicle like Tata Ace or Bolero pick up? Can it be converted to white board easily? Since all of our distribution happens in villages far from Bangalore we will be using the highways a lot. We would not want to be stopped by the cops frequently as they do seeing a yellow board vehicle. One trip on an avg. will be 400km up and down.
• What other options do we have? Is there any social media platform where they giveaway old cars for a discount for charitable causes?

I know I am asking a lot, but we really do not want to ruin our TUVs by being over enthusiastic and disrupt the good work which is going on.

At the end of the day we want to operate sustainably and not end up spending more time and money on car repairs than on charity.

Here's what BHPian tunedv8 had to say on the matter:

Firstly, let me take the time to say what a great job you are doing! Lot of good karma points to you!

Coming to your cargo challenges:

1. I've had the experience of delivering supplies to wage workers last year near Hoskote, Bangalore. However, we had access to a Tata Winger and a 407 mini lorry. I don't think you should be overloading your personal car on regular intervals. It will surely wear out the suspension and your tires unevenly.
2. Looking to rent/buy a vehicle specifically for these purposes is surely the right way to go. I would advise on renting because an Eicher Canter (15ft) costs about 10,000. If you have enough supplies to last a household for about 3 weeks, you could do this once in 3 weeks. In my experience, it takes about 1-2 weeks to arrange for ration supplies anyway. Not sure how you are doing it.
3. We were stopped at checkpoints when we did this during the last year lockdown. We showed the cops pictures of what we were doing and they let us be. It helps to pack supplies in equal sized boxes and label them. We arranged them in this way -Cooking oil in Bisleri bottles, rice, dal, jaggery, tamarind and vegetables in cloth bags, salt packets and dry red chillies in transparent covers. All this went into boxes with our name and address on it. The pictures I have attached are screenshots from a video I for documentation. The second, third and fourth runs were sponsored by few people after seeing our first run.
4. If you still want to pick up a workhorse for cheap, you can PM me. I can try and help you with something.

To summarise:

• If you want to use your TUV, consider buying a trailer hitch with wheels - I think TUV is rated to tow 600 Kgs, please correct me if I am wrong.
• Or, rent Tata Aces, Wingers or Canters to do the job for you.
• Or, if you want to buy a cheap car like a one of the few you have mentioned, which are all good choices for this kind of work, then PM me. I will surely do my best to help you out.

All the best!

Here's what BHPian ramnaresh_2000 had to say on the matter:

Immense respect.

Now my 2 cents as an ex-TUV 300 owner:

• TUV is tough as a rock. I don't think 700 kg will be any issue.
• I don't think it will break a sweat. As you already mentioned that it is pulling smoothly.
• I travelled 3,500 km once with 6 adults and 1 kid + 7 luggage bags on roof carrier for 1 week. No issues what so ever.

If you are planning to buy a beater vehicle for your great cause then I would suggest below used vehicles

• Eeco
• Tata Sumo
• Omini
• Xylo
• Bolero Pick-up
• Tata Ace

Best of luck!

Here's what GTO had to say on the matter:

IMHO, you should stick it out with the TUV300. Mahindras are built for overloading. If at all, rope in a 3rd car from a good samaritan to split the load. Buying, maintaining & driving a cheap UV on the highway isn't recommended. It'll entail too much headache.

Please, please, please share an online link so we can also donate to your superb cause. Keep up the great work, buddy.

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