Anyone know about vans? Cos I know nothing and need to know.
Mileage for example... now, I appreciate that vans are built for strength and a working life, but adverts imply that, for example, a 5 year-old van with 100,000 is 'low mileage!'... Obviously there are well-treated vehicles and ones that are abused, but is fair to say that these vans will last that much longer than cars? Is a 100,000 miler still a whippersnapper?
And makes/models... all the things I'm seeing are Renault Masters/Peugeot Boxers/Citroen Relays/Fiat Ducatos. I appreciate there are some are some shared underpinnings amongst these anyway, but nobody seems to distinguish much between the brands. Are they all much of a muchness?
Renault Masters, Vauxhall Movanos and Nissan NV400 are the virtually same except for the badges
Peugeot Boxer, Citroen Relay and Fiat Ducato share the same body but have different engines & gearboxes. The Fiat engine is much better but the gearbox is fragile
Merc Sprinter and VW Crafter up to 2017 are the same body, but different engines. Both rust, almost as badly as Transits
Transits rust
100k is not particularly high mileage for a van, most will easily do twice that. The engines are generally in quite a low state of tune so not really stressed, my Crafter was only 109bhp from a 2.0 turbo diesel. Gearbox/clutch/suspension/steering get hammered round town, but any van will easily cope with lots of motorway miles.
I bought a 2013 VW Crafter a year ago with 83000 miles, which was very low miles. Most of the vans I had looked at were around 120k. I had set myself a maximum of 130k and there were lots with more than that. My previous van was a Merc Vito - same engine and gearbox as a Sprinter - and I sold that with 160k
At work I had a Vauxhall Movano, loved it, would sit at naughty speeds for hours on end, thoroughly abused and shite corporate servicing, and when I got its replacement it was at 100K and still going strong.
Its replacement was a Peugeot "Expert", gutless horrible thing with no power, angry sewing machine engine and proper scary handling in the snow. I thought I'd killed it when I smashed the sump on a dodgy access track but no it came back. It also developed a ECU fault which meant it cut out randomly, normally on the motorway at 70 in the fast lane or some other peril sensitive location. After the 4th attempt at marooning me in a dangerous location and the corporate servicing people just resetting the ECU each time I threw it back at them on safety grounds.
I now fly a desk.
My mate has the latest transit and they have a design fault where an ECU box (one of many) sits inside the passenger wheel arch, its connectors are not waterproof so after a while they corrode up and generate all many of electrical gremlins, apparently FRAUD are not issuing a recall but dealing with it on a case by case business.
"Of all the stories you told me, which ones were true and which ones weren't?"
"My dear Doctor, they're all true."
"Even the lies?"
"Especially the lies."
My 2008 Transit has become an island van at 190,000+ miles. The engine's fine but there's enough rust that it'll need work at every MOT. The deciding thing was one of the chassis engine mounts collapsing. 100,000 wouldn't put me off but I'd want to see a documented service history.
I've bought a couple of vans from Vanmonster, the disposal arm of Northcape leasing AIUI. They are very easy to deal with, no sales pitch, the MO seems to be 'That's a van, buy it or don't.' That works for me. I'm not getting my new to me van from them as I've found one locally.
All the Boxers/Ducatos are built in the same factory by Sevel, they all use PSA powertrains and the latest incarnation are very nice to drive. The older stuff with the 2.8 engines had a soft 5 gear as it's only splash fed with oil. The new 6 speeds are good.
Place I worked in had a Trafic that we remapped up to about 175-180 bhp, went very well. Gearboxes on these are Vectra ones and give bad bother. Had mega lols blowing away boy racers from the lights though.
Transits rust. Lots.
Mercs rust too because the paint is shite, but because they're made of decent metal, you can weld them up without them dissolving.
We had a Crafter too, but it blew up at naughty speeds, it was never right afterwards.
Druid wrote: ↑Thu Aug 13, 2020 7:31 pm
Renault Masters, Vauxhall Movanos and Nissan NV400 are the virtually same except for the badges
Peugeot Boxer, Citroen Relay and Fiat Ducato share the same body but have different engines & gearboxes. The Fiat engine is much better but the gearbox is fragile
Merc Sprinter and VW Crafter up to 2017 are the same body, but different engines. Both rust, almost as badly as Transits
Transits rust
100k is not particularly high mileage for a van, most will easily do twice that. The engines are generally in quite a low state of tune so not really stressed, my Crafter was only 109bhp from a 2.0 turbo diesel. Gearbox/clutch/suspension/steering get hammered round town, but any van will easily cope with lots of motorway miles.
I bought a 2013 VW Crafter a year ago with 83000 miles, which was very low miles. Most of the vans I had looked at were around 120k. I had set myself a maximum of 130k and there were lots with more than that. My previous van was a Merc Vito - same engine and gearbox as a Sprinter - and I sold that with 160k
Rockburner wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2020 10:15 amWhat are you planning a van for? Trackday van? self-build Camper?
A horsebox, sadly. Though with potential to be an occasional trackday van
I'm not likely to convert myself - there's a million places that do horseboxes. As I say, most are built on the PSA/Fiat/Renault platforms - interestingly, I don't think I've seen a single Transit but not sure why.
Of course you can buy new, but the vast majority are converted from 2-5 year old vans with 20-100k miles on them. Hence my questions really... I'd assume that doing a full conversion on something that was over the hill would make no sense, but essentially I want to know whether it's worth paying a significant excess for a much newer, lower-mileage one or whether something around the 70-90k mark is a good buy.
Rockburner wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2020 10:15 amWhat are you planning a van for? Trackday van? self-build Camper?
A horsebox, sadly. Though with potential to be an occasional trackday van
I'm not likely to convert myself - there's a million places that do horseboxes. As I say, most are built on the PSA/Fiat/Renault platforms - interestingly, I don't think I've seen a single Transit but not sure why.
PSA sell their chassis quite cheaply for conversion purposes, Ford don't. (or so I've been told by camper-van people)
Slenver wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2020 1:16 pmOf course you can buy new, but the vast majority are converted from 2-5 year old vans with 20-100k miles on them. Hence my questions really... I'd assume that doing a full conversion on something that was over the hill would make no sense, but essentially I want to know whether it's worth paying a significant excess for a much newer, lower-mileage one or whether something around the 70-90k mark is a good buy.
Rockburner wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2020 5:38 pm
PSA sell their chassis quite cheaply for conversion purposes, Ford don't. (or so I've been told by camper-van people)
Gotcha.
Though most do seem to be converted from used vans..
Rockburner wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2020 5:38 pm
PSA sell their chassis quite cheaply for conversion purposes, Ford don't. (or so I've been told by camper-van people)
Gotcha.
Though most do seem to be converted from used vans..
Horseboxes?
If so I'd wager they're built from ex-camper vans.
