Is a Sprinter for local delivery/Courier work overkill?

I know the guy you're talking about, have the article from an expediting magazine somewhere around here but I have asked this question to the ford people why did they take so long to produce a vehicle that got a million miles when Mercedes has a lot of million mile cars and trucks in their fleet throughout the years and has a few in their possession that they got in the early 70's with a million miles on them.

 

That was over 10 years ago with the 7.3 . The 6.0 was such a disaster Ford quit putting diesels in the E-Series .

 

And the paint issue dates back into the 80's for the 3 majors. I'd have thought they would have learned....and maybe they did cause I haven't seen any new ones do it until their older ( and out of warranty )

Here's the deal: Chemicals are expensive and climbing. Raw material prices have been held in check because of a weak economy however the mfg's have reached the end of their rope as far as what their going to "eat " to save market share plus there is wage pressure.

In your paint is a UV block.....it's expensive and it's patented and licensed. One player holds all the cards but others can make it under agreement. I can give you the CAS # if you want to look it up. It blocks the suns rays from penetrating your paint (uv) and bouncing off the metal. This loosens the chemical bond holding the paint to the surface/ primer and you get the blotch. If it does this it all has to got back to bare metal.

Ford tried to completely remove it in the 90's....Cost them big in repaints. GM and Mopar followed along like 'lil kids. Once the got the oh sh$t fixed then they reduced the amount of protectant.

Run it ! Strip and repaint a van ( right ) is going to push into 4k .

 

You are aware that the big 3 have people testing components everyday and changing designs and costs to insure they only last about 100k miles right?

 

I don't know about some of that, I've seen the testing they do and there wasn't any limits on the component's life they tried to reach unlike consumer goods. Costs are a completely different thing, they base their designs on the cost of the entire car with consideration of the life span of the car and how it gets put together, as does truck manufacturers. There are limits to mass production but comparing the amount of cars made by Ford to Mercedes, Mercedes has three factors involved which makes their products live longer, one is the people who put the car together, two is the mindset of the designers and the third is how the market is setup for the care of that car.

By the way, the paint issues have gone back to the early 70's when they changed the way they applied the base coats (like primer and sealers). GM had serious problems when they went to a single step all in one primer and a clear coat/base coat type of paint in 1976, they had two year old cars ending up with entire sections of paint flaking off and you could not blend the repairs into the existing paint unless you used the same exact paint from GM.

Sprinters suffer from a couple paint problems which have been addressed on the Sprinter Forum.

 

I didn't want to date myself with knowledge out of the 70's.......go ahead and thanks. Didn't know that.

 

The current E series is based on the third generation Econoline van which came out in 1975. Remember the 4.9 I6? They run forever I see no reason why you couldn't get a million miles out of one. I still see Econolines from the 70 and 80's still on the road. They are a proven workhorse.

1964 Mercury with over 500,000 miles:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJc5NxtoGAQ

 

Dodge now offers the new ProMaster. It's a commercial van offered in short, med and long lengths, as well as standard and tall roof configurations.

It should get quite good fuel economy, as well. It's based on a Fiat Professional ( spun off Fiat automotive), but has an American drivetrain.

 

Wonder how it will compare with the Sprinter.

 

a Fiat turbo charged 4 cyl is American ?

http://www.caranddriver.com/news/2014-ram-promaster-photos-and-info-news