Looking to buy a van for work, mostly motorway miles, needs to be able to take some rough stuff(farm tracks etc), three seats.
See loads of LDV’s for sale at decent price anybody have one or experience of one?
Also quite like the Iveco Daily any thoughts?

The new LDVs are very flimsy, just press one of them with your thumb – yikes. They made a point of building them as light as possible so that class for class they could boast a better payload. Down side of that is small knocks can lead to big repair.

Transits and sprinters are the ones you see on the road most – and thats for a good reason. If its your own money buy a sprinter, if its someone elses money get them to buy a transit (you’ll prefer driving the transit if someone else is maintaining it)

LDV’s are very cheap and reliability is ok as they use old ford running gear (unless you’re talking about newer maxus vans, not so sure on these) but they are horrid to drive. Uncomfy, slow and just not a nice place to be. I wouldn’t want to drive a long way in one regularly.

Iveco daily’s are ok vans, used by lots of couriers etc. Rear diffs are expensive when they go and gearboxes are known to be less than ideal. The engines seem fairly solid but aren’t the most frugal.

How much load capacity do you need (in terms of space and weight) and what’s your budget?

Best option is a peugeot/Citroen/fiat boxer/relay/ducato.

Excellent vans, i’ve had one for 2 years

What’s your budget?

Budget wise 5k tops!
Space Transit size or similar. Would like space to get in the back and shelter from the weather if needed. Also need space for tent, bike,etc,
Next year going to be traveling to Birmingham(Central TV) from Edinburgh weekly until March, then South Coast(Meridian TV) after that.

If you’re doing drives like that rule the ldv out. With that kind of money I’d be looking at transits, vivaro/trafic and maybe boxer/relay. The smaller the van you get the less fuel it’ll use and the nicer it’ll be to drive so if you think a standard transit would be sufficient that’s where I’d be aiming.

If you can get a 2.0 115bhp trafic or vivaro for your budget with sensible miles (they exist but are rare at that price) then that’s what I’d go for followed by the transit.

Aside from sheltering what are you actually going to put in the van, what sizes matter, you mentioned the Iveco and they are generally pretty big, at their smallest they are still bigger than ‘transit sized’. At the moment there are a few vans that are roughly transit sized but actually slightly too small for many peoples needs Trafic/Vivaro/Primestars being an example. They are just a tiny bit smaller than a transit, but that tiny bit means not getting the doors shut if you ever want to put a standard sheet of ply in.

I am an electrician not really carrying anything big just cable (lots of it), boxes of kit, would put shelves/racking in for smaller stuff, lengths of cable tray and trunking but they can be cut down.
It would be good to get in the back to build the mains D.B up as doing that in the rain for an hour is not fun!

My mate (a painter) has a Transit and I’m pretty impressed. My uncle and another mate both have Merc Vito’s and they’re also really good but expensive.

Another has an Astra van (a surveyor) and it’s also really good but probably too small for you.

In that case something like a vivaro would prob be fine, maybe sneak a size smaller and something like a Scudo, although you’d loose that middle seat. You’d only get the benefit of being able to stand inside with something bigger like a high top transit/ standard sprinter/ iveco, but you’d pay a big economy penalty for that. At your price point (or at any price point second hand) you’ll find more transits to choose from than anything else though.

For sheltered workspace it might be worth pairing a smaller van with an awning to get proper stand-up work space

No real advice on what to get, but second/ third the avoid LDV – rental one to move in September was the most uncomfortable, useless piece of junk ever. In contrast Renault Master/ Traffic hired after it shifted quickly, good space and nice to drive.

giant_scum – where are you based? I have a Vivaro that will be up for sale in Jan if interested.

coming up to 80,000 and within you budget (based in Bath).