greg334
Veteran Expediter
Honest feedback?
Ok here goes......
The sprinter is not an easy vehicle to understand, it is German and rather in comparison of a ford or chev, complicated from the very nature of the people who designed and built it.
The maintenance is not all that easy to do, for example the trans is a pain in the a** to maintain - it doesn't even come with a dip stick (someone correct me if I am wrong). There are other factors involved, it is not like a ford or chev where you can throw in oil, change a filter and go.
There are a number of other "features" that could cause problems that are not "field" fixable - turbo to ECM issues to bearing issues that most don't think of when they need to get it repaired. In other words most shops will not do a proper repair while you are on the road or even in your home town.
Many of the times, the older ones lack uniform maintenance, meaning that Oil was changed but not the right oil was used or the trans fried because the owner felt it was a race van... so on and so on. If the repairs were done outside of the dealer network, chances are the yahoo didn't do the repair up to the standards that were needed.
The older sprinters I have looked at recently suffer from this lack of uniformed maintenance more than anything else but there were obvious sings of poor workmanship with repairs. Not looking at a used sprinted as an middle or upper end German vehicle like other Mercedes or even some BMWs (or Audi A6 comes to mind) but like a VW (which is more or less made for this market) will most likely put you in a probmatic vehicle.
When you look at a sprinter, the key is not the fuel mileage which is what attracts a lot of people, but the longevity of the vehicle and the cost of major repairs in comparison to the Ford.
If I was going to choose, I would stick with the Ford;
major repairs are cheaper
parts are easier to find
a very strong dealer network
easy to find a well cared for vehicle on the used market
used parts market has a lot of parts
insurance may be cheaper (it is here in Ford's home land)
In other words any savings you would have with a sprinter on fuel would be eaten up by just one bad trans.
I worked on Mercedes vehicles in the past (Unimogs to 600), trained by mercedes a long time ago so I know just enough to get into trouble.
Ok here goes......
The sprinter is not an easy vehicle to understand, it is German and rather in comparison of a ford or chev, complicated from the very nature of the people who designed and built it.
The maintenance is not all that easy to do, for example the trans is a pain in the a** to maintain - it doesn't even come with a dip stick (someone correct me if I am wrong). There are other factors involved, it is not like a ford or chev where you can throw in oil, change a filter and go.
There are a number of other "features" that could cause problems that are not "field" fixable - turbo to ECM issues to bearing issues that most don't think of when they need to get it repaired. In other words most shops will not do a proper repair while you are on the road or even in your home town.
Many of the times, the older ones lack uniform maintenance, meaning that Oil was changed but not the right oil was used or the trans fried because the owner felt it was a race van... so on and so on. If the repairs were done outside of the dealer network, chances are the yahoo didn't do the repair up to the standards that were needed.
The older sprinters I have looked at recently suffer from this lack of uniformed maintenance more than anything else but there were obvious sings of poor workmanship with repairs. Not looking at a used sprinted as an middle or upper end German vehicle like other Mercedes or even some BMWs (or Audi A6 comes to mind) but like a VW (which is more or less made for this market) will most likely put you in a probmatic vehicle.
When you look at a sprinter, the key is not the fuel mileage which is what attracts a lot of people, but the longevity of the vehicle and the cost of major repairs in comparison to the Ford.
If I was going to choose, I would stick with the Ford;
major repairs are cheaper
parts are easier to find
a very strong dealer network
easy to find a well cared for vehicle on the used market
used parts market has a lot of parts
insurance may be cheaper (it is here in Ford's home land)
In other words any savings you would have with a sprinter on fuel would be eaten up by just one bad trans.
I worked on Mercedes vehicles in the past (Unimogs to 600), trained by mercedes a long time ago so I know just enough to get into trouble.
