looking at a 2002 CDI full service history minibus/day van 88k on the clock, any know faults etc i should look out for?

Rust lots of rust.

More rust

rust, always the rust..

Black death round the injectors

Rust and my ecu went which was just bad luck.

Poor starting when warm – usually a dodgy injector. Injectors have a nasty habit of seizing in the head due to the aforementioned black death round the injectors. Seized injectors = £££££££

I’m not sure if anyone’s mentioned it yet but they tend to rust quite badly.

Dual mass flywheels and clutches can be a bit dodgy. High pressure fuel pumps can cause some issues as well and can be expensive to replace.

Oh and the pollen filters are a nightmare to change, usually resulting in lots of swearing and skinned knuckles 😆

post 2006 the rust thing gets a lot better. probably best to avoid the older ones

rust

What to look for? A Vivaro/Transporter/Transit

Awful vans IMO, three mates have them and all have been nothing but trouble. Without wishing to name drop, a certain Ex world champion who rides a ‘large’ DH bike gets them for free and he said if he wasn’t paid to have one he couldn’t get rid of it quick enough..

+ another 1 for rust.

Sills, floor, rear door slams.

Cheers all, will take a look but I’ve heard some where that they suffer from rust apparently 😉

What to look for? A Vivaro/Transporter/Transit

Awful vans IMO, three mates have them and all have been nothing but trouble. Without wishing to name drop, a certain Ex world champion who rides a ‘large’ DH bike gets them for free and he said if he wasn’t paid to have one he couldn’t get rid of it quick enough..

Hmm. I suspect this is true if every model of car/van these days.
Mate 1 has a transporter t5 – Huge bills and problems since he bought it at about 90k. Clutches, water pump, leaks at the windows, iffy steering noises etc.
We ran 15 transits, lwb, swb, fwd, rwd – seemingly most engine and body variants – as minibuses. The constantly had electric problems ( rear lights, brakes and airbag things), many developed a lumpy tickover/lumps at certain revs, suspension (front, any swb), sliding doors that fell off and ate ‘tracks’ for breakfast., windows that would not seal, and so you could break in easily, and a few ate their electronic engine brain.
.
On the other hand mate 2 runs 2x Vito (new model ones) for his business and swears by them, with only a bit of rust on the older one after 8 years and 200k+.
.
You pays yer money and takes a gamble…

Was told by a bloke where we get our work vans MOT’d that glow plugs are on rear of engine and to replace means engine out. He said they’re a pain in the ass to work on.

I used to drive one for work, with the traction control on it was the worst thing ever in snow and ice, and when you turned it off with the button on the dash, it didn’t really turn off.. so was still crap..
And it was going rusty at less than five years old..
And lots of interior bits fell off..
And it was rusty,
Edit, and a little plastic bit of the gear linkage broke, it cost about 50p to buy and about a gazillion quid to fit..
It was nice to drive though..
Edit 2, it was rusty, I think Volkswagon knobbled the designers..

We ran one at work for 10 years, it never broke down or required any major work and was good to drive with a very good payload but you can watch them rust before your eyes. However it may well be that if this one was built in the factory as a minibus it got a decent coat of paint in the first place.
I have heard it suggested that not all manufacturers invest much in the paint work on vans as they expect them to be driven into the ground and financially written off within 3 years. I think it was Honest John in the Telegraph who suggested that was the case in response to people asking about buying second hand vans to convert into campers. I think the Vito is probably the very best example of it in practice.

I have a 54 plate new style one. It’s been very reliable but is also very rusty. This is quite common and I’m surprised no one’s mentioned it before!

Electrics

A smidgen of rust

Corrosion.

for info my brother had a mk1 and it went shockingly rusty. his mk2 is an 06 and there is not one spot of rust on it. i think they ecoated they from 06 on.

Injectors have a nasty habit of seizing in the head due to the aforementioned black death round the injectors. Seized injectors = £££££££

Shop around for a specialist though. It gets expensive when a garage either doesn’t have the right tools or don’t know the techniques and rack up hours of labour or snap something and have to spend more time digging it out. If they don’t do it properly the seals just go again a few months later.

I got the injectors done on my sprinter (same engine) – all the sludge removed, all the injectors out and checked, new seals, for a fixed price £350 by a guy who only does injectors and only that engine. Travels all around the country doing it too. Some of his clients had had quoted of over £4k for the same work.

The old shape vitos rust as do sprinters of the same vintage – but its only scruffy – the paint fails but the metal underneath is ok and they only rust where you can see it – not where it matters – no structural problems just tatty.

The problem is that the engine is a pain to access on a Vito whereas on the Sprinter it’s relatively easy.

My experience of Mercedes commercials was from working for a main dealer for a few years. Needless to say we had all the specialist tools for working on them and still had a lot of issues with the Vito.

i don’t think its right to draw comparisons between the vito and the sprinter (well, apart from the rust)
the vito is a large car with a van engine whereas the sprinters are small trucks with a van fuel economy. ive had loads of vans, and i always come back to the sprinters …but then i can live with the rust

i would take a ldv maxis over a vito….and that is saying something

If you collect iron oxide they are great

A Vauxhall vivaro sitting next to it

Centre drive shafts are prone to wear on the UV joints,I work for a delivery company that had several vans from 2004-2008, They were mechanically solid vans and never caused any real problems (apart from rust) Merc warranty was excellent,we had a problem with a starter motor failure,anti roll bar links/rubbers.use genuine merc service items to avoid major problems, the right engine oil is vital (fully synthetic) is also important for long term ownership.good luck, (one happy vito sport owner with no rust, so far!!)