Comment by fragmede

Comment by fragmede 2 days ago

> I am complaining about the Transit, Sprinter and their ilk.

Good thing you specified that in your comment [1] then, where you wrote

> Fiat, Mercedes or Ford

and never used the word Sprinter once, so of course I should deduce that was the vehicle you were talking about, along with the full size Transit, especially since the linked Road and Track article was discussing the Transit Custom, which has never reached the states and is of the smaller NV200 size class, so please forgive me for the confusion.

The great thing about the Sprinter is that it's big and tall and spacious inside. Unfortunately, the problem with the Sprinter is that it's big and tall, which is a real problem in high wind conditions. Yeah it could stand to have a bigger engine and beefier chassis, no argument from me there, but I have a carpenter friend who uses it to haul around his tools and lumber and he loves his so much that he bought a second one. The Sprinter's not got the powertrain of a GMC Savannah or RAM 2500 or F-250 Super Duty, but saying it's only good for moving boxes full of air is hyperbole.

As far as vehicle turnover goes, given the stronger union protections that workers in the trades in Europe get, not having to drive a busted 15 year old work truck that veers to the left because the suspension is shot and gets eight miles to the gallon doesn't seem like, to me, a bad thing! The most brilliant electrician I know owns his own business, but is driving a 15-year work truck that should have been replaced 10 years ago, but he can't afford to replace it.

IMO, the real question is who's going to be first to come out with a work truck/van that's comma.ai compatible. That thing makes driving long distances so much more stomachable. Not going to hold my breath for Waymo or Tesla or anybody else to compete there. Well except Mercedes, but that still likely to be a premium Mercedes car feature for a long time and not something on any of their brands work vehicles. Supposedly some F-150's can take it, but afaik those ones are the premium package, already have Blue Cruise, and aren't fleet vehicles anywhere (I'd love to be wrong though!).

[1] https://archive.is/8X2MD

potato3732842 a day ago

The opinion that these vans are too light for the uses into which they are sold is not a novel one. It is probably the predominant one among people who turn wrenches on both the old ones and the new ones.

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VBprogrammer a day ago

This is just hubris. These vans are used hard every day by people all over Europe. It's not unusual for one to be caught loaded to double it's GVWR. Mechanics like what they know. The fact that the US manufacturers are building vans designed in the 90s using engines designed in the 50s undoubtedly means they are easier to work on.

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- potato3732842 a day ago
  
  I didn't say you couldn't screw them. I said they screw you back in terms of repair/maintenance costs (and don't save enough fuel along the way to make it worth it).
  By the late 90s the domestics had refreshed their vans to use engine architectures designed in the early 90s. They all have a bunch of tasks that are shit to do depending on the model and options. 6.0 Ford head gaskets are legendary in that regard. Ford is generally bad since so much stuff is a "pull the cab" problem which is a much bigger problem on a vehicle with a box truck body that extends over the cab and their infatuation with OHC engines makes things naturally more cramped. But it's just a lot less of a problem when you're not shitting out turbos every now and then or dicking with all the potential leak points of an cooling system that has 3x the components it needs to (looking at you Mercedes) or R&Ring a rear cylinder head in a transverse application (Fiat obviously). I'm not saying they're unreliable, but if you have a fleet of 5/10/20 there's always gonna be something that needs fixing and "needs fixing" is generally more expensive on the euro designs. And it's not really the engines. It's the whole chassis that has stupid stuff randomly distributed around it.
  The Mercedes door tracks and tearing a suspension mount off on a minor sideways slide/bump that should've just required a change of underwear and maybe a tire/rim weren't things I made up, those were examples I've cleaned up after. Another example that comes to mind is how the Front of a Transit is 10lb of shit in a 5lb bag. That doesn't leave a lot of room for oopsies. Can't really bump them into anything without causing problems. I've seen a GMC van (Uhaul truck specifically) eat a deer at highway speed without even popping a leak because they had the foresight to put a whole bunch of dead space there. Imagine not having to incur $$$ downtime in that situation.
  They're fine vehicles when new, have a lot of space, are as ergonomic as anything else out there but if you aren't buying a huge fleet that will be strictly managed so nothing gets routinely abused/overloaded, can't afford to pay games depreciating over 3yr and then trading in can't easily use rentals to cover downtime (<cough> Amazon <cough>), walk into your local Chevy dealer and say "I want what Uhaul has".
  Sure, none of this matters if you're paying the mechanic/autobody rates in Turkey or Lithuania to keep them going or trading in every 3yr before MOT starts screwing you at every pass through but we can't all be that lucky.
  
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