MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
I'm starting to look for a sprinter van but how do you find one that isn't knackered by couriers etc? Or just hope you notice something on a test drive and hope for the best?
Be careful of clocked vans if you’re buying at the newer end. A lot of sprinters do a lot of miles and are clocked before the first mot.
What’s your budget? Don’t worry about long distance courier use but multi drop can be a hard life.
Hold their money really well these days to the conversion market.
Budget would be about 10k so not that new and a fair few miles on the clock probably
I used to be Transport Manager for a company that's had a series of Sprinters both before and after the major revamp (2006 ish).
My experience would suggest that you avoid the 315, and stick with 313. Even heavily loaded with a box body, 313 is far from slow.
My understanding is that the 311, 313 & 315 (110 hp, 130 hp & 150 hp respectively) use essentially the same engine, just different tune and with a twin-turbo on the 315.
Of the 6 or 7 brand new 315's we bought, every one needed a new engine or gearbox every 60,000 miles or so. That's both manual and auto boxes, too.
We changed to 313's and only one of 8 has had either issue, and then after a lot more miles. One of the 61 plate had something like 350,000 miles when I left 2 years ago and is still in use!
Our working theory was that they shared too many components and they were just a bit too overworked for the extra power and torque of the more powerful engine.
HTH...
Be careful of clocked vans if you’re buying at the newer end. A lot of sprinters do a lot of miles and are clocked before the first mot.
Is there an easy way to tell?
Why a sprinter?
Sprinters rust, nearly as badly as Transits. Once it sets in it's really hard to sort, especially underneath. Be really picky, take your time, look at lots and walk away from most. Get them.om a ramp if you can, have a proper look. That budget shouldn't be too bad, mine was half that and there were a lot of badly abused vans about at that price, took me two.months to find something decent.
Owner/drivers tend to look after them better than fleet drivers (you drive yours more gently than a hire car don't you?) so I'd go for one from someone like that if I could. Converse is fleet companies may stick to service schedules better and less likely to skimp on stuff if they have the budget.
IME most used vans are rubbish, folks change cars every three years or five years or because they fancy a change or whatever, folks change vans when the old one has had it... Again, look at lots and be picky, good ones are out there but much fewer and further between than good cars.