The long Wheel Base normal Transit has beautiful handling, the normal custom back end is dreadful.

Watch out for the 2.0 wet belt engine too, they can be really bad, saying that mine’s done 185k in 6 years and head gasket has just gone on it.

I had a chat with my local garage about them as he runs one. I needed to decide whether to spend money on my T4’s bodywork or go newer.

He says that he would charge about a grand for the belt swap but a lot of that cost comes because the cover is hard/impossible to remove without ruining it. He plans and doing his every 60,000 miles and says not everyone uses the right oil. Unless I misunderstood (more than possible, the sump is removed to drop the oil as opposed to just a plug, although this cover can be prised off without wrecking it.

I’ve kept thec T4

Everyone I know who has bought their own Transit from new ( and there’s been a few over the years, myself included) have never had any issues with them. **
Persons who are given the van to use for work have had lots of problems, as well as smashed lights / mirrors etc.
As they yanks say, you do the math.

Tourneos are bought by families or taxi / airport run companies. Stick with the former and you should be ok.

** probably be someone along in a minute to say otherwise 😉

He says that he would charge about a grand for the belt swap but a lot of that cost comes because the cover is hard/impossible to remove without ruining it. He plans and doing his every 60,000 miles and says not everyone uses the right oil. Unless I misunderstood (more than possible, the sump is removed to drop the oil as opposed to just a plug, although this cover can be prised off without wrecking it.

That’s about right. Ford main dealer quotes appear to be £1500-1900 for the job. I used a specialist who does several wetbelt replacements most weekends, and during the week contracts with Ford as a tech (19yrs doing that). £850 done on my driveway. Front timing cover is impossible to reseal afterwards, hence replacement, and I think it’s similar with the sump (cheap part anyway). Job as follows:

Timing belt and tensioner

Front timing cover

Oil pump drive belt

Oil Pick-up cleaned out

Sump replaced

X2 aux belts

Oil and filter change.

IIRC the issue with wet belts isn’t the belt failing, but the debris that comes off them over time, which slowly clogs the oil pickup in the sump, which in turn kills the engine through oil starvation and clogging of the minor galleries. Changing the belt more frequently won’t prevent that.

No but avoiding short journeys and changing the oil frequently will.

Partially burnt Bioethanol in today’s fuel (which gets by the Piston rings in short journeys due to over fuel on cold start)mixed with the oil makes the belt swell and the edges of the belt when then wear on the side oft he block and pulleys causing the fibres that block the oil galleys.

Removed my wet belt at 7 years old on a puretech and it looks brand new.

The transit engine cover is a disaster though their are much better and less destructive ways of achieving the same thing. Mine has covered windows using keyed rubber gaskets that are easy to fit and remove

Test drove one last night. Super easy to drive but very much a ‘van’ with a lot of scratchy plastics. Not sure how I feel about scratchy plastics – on one hand they’re robust and I have children, on the other hand it’s 30 grand. Probably going to take it for a longer test drive at the weekend with kids and the wife. Sort of feels to big, but then I recall feeling that about the mondeo estate the first time i drove it, and really the custom is pretty much the same foot print (4972 x 1986 for the custom and 4804 x 1958 for the mondeo – might be slightly different widths as one probably includes the wing mirrors).

@jonm81 – any idea on the actual height? My work carpark has a barrier at 2m – i’m going to measure it tomorrow to see if it’s 1.9 or 2.1 or whatever, but i note that whilst the brochure says it’s just under 2m, it doesn’t say whether that’s including the sharksfin antenna (i’m assuming the front is the highest bit?) or not which looks like it’s 5-7cm tall…

Got to decide tomorrow really, as the garage is holding the van for me until then. Aghhh.

Mine is 1.95m but has the antennas in the windows rather than a shark fin.  It’ll fit in most carparks with a 2m barrier but beware of multi-stories where going up ramps can make it higher than that the 2 m as you enter the ramp.

https://www.sealey.co.uk/product/5637816636/petrol-engine-timing-belt-checking-gauge-for-psa-10-12—belt-drive

Is what I use the measure wet belt, along with 6 monthly oil/filter change and occasional long multihour drives.

FFS a modern engine shouldn’t need that kind of watchful preemptive checking.

@jonm81 yeah I will avoid most of the time it’s just the work one I can’t avoid. Wonder if there is a smart way to work out the height on the ramp up without doing a full survey!

FFS a modern engine shouldn’t need that kind of watchful preemptive checking

Why not. Takes minutes. Can prevent you from being sat at the side of the road a long way from home and let’s you catch issues as they develop rather than once they are a serious issue.

Could always buy a biturbo VW transporter I hear those run for ever between services

I don’t think either of them are well engineered. Ford have known about the issues with wet belts for years in both their diesel and petrol lumps. With VW the later 199/204 charge cooled biturbos are better than the 180, but they still seem to suffer from various low milage problems, possibly down to ring design, possibly down to being assembled by communists.

A timing belt is not an item any normal user would ever consider to be a thing you’d have to check. Sure change it when you hit a certain milage or age, but inspect it like your tyre pressure? That’s bonkers.

I have 2021 Vauxhall Combo 1.5 diesel. This has reported issues with the camchain that links the camshafts – there is also a dry belt from the crankshaft. The smaller Fords use the same engine. Currently for the 1.5 engine there is change of oil spec from Jan this year that even the dealers don’t know about and a revised set of camshafts, 8mm pitch chain and rocker cover (not cheap!) that seem to be impossible to get hold of. If the current chain goes pop the engine is lunched.

I expected emission control issues on a modern engine, but not basic engine architecture.