Anyone bought or shopped for a MB Sprinter?

Pablo

Pablo

Joined
Oct 28, 2002
Messages
60,074
Location
Everson WA - Pacific NW USA
I don't see much Sprinter chat here.

I was wondering if anyone else was stewing/contemplating or owns a Sprinter.

Where did you start? Out of state dealers? Used?
 
Pablo said:
I don't see much Sprinter chat here.

I was wondering if anyone else was stewing/contemplating or owns a Sprinter.

Where did you start? Out of state dealers? Used?
Click to expand...
I ran a fleet of 400 Sprinters for commercial delivery. 2009(Dodge for one year) to 2014 model years.
They are something I would avoid.
MB product means you are tied to MB service rates and parts. In saying that, you probably have more resources than most to acquire best pricing.
The unavoidable repairs, most of my 3.0L diesels had to have upper intake manifold replaced/repaired - cost $5000.
Downpipe would crack, another $3000.
Drive shafts would need replacement at 80,000 miles, not serviceable and aftermarket replacements couldn't include factory dust shield for center bearing, which means replacement center bearings wore quicky.
Lack of service centers.
Rust had its way with the cab - rust resistance was none existent. Seemed like to paint process was from the 80s.
I had access to all the MB engineering in the US. Knew them personally from tours of their facility. Made no difference
Just a few of the challenges I saw running these.
Not sure if they have been improved in the past 8 years, but I doubt it.

We moved to Ford Transits once they were available in 2015.
And didn't look back.
 
My dad has a splinter van. When he bought it it had rusted frame, plugged dpf, oil cooler leakage, the works. He's fixed everything except the rust (which is really bad because the frame behind the rear axle is mostly gone. It's a pain to work on, and parts are expensive ish, but it gets 19 mpg which isn't bad for a 20x10x7.5 brick. And it fits 4 bikes, a quad, or a small tent city (packed up of course) in the back.
 
slacktide_bitog said:
They can't be worse than a Sprinter :sneaky:
Click to expand...
Depends on what you are doing.

I built and serviced dog grooming vans using both (all really) platforms.

The sprinters superior from this aspect as you can run a diesel genset right off the fuel tap, the little water cooled onans are head and shoulders above the air cooled gas sets from a an efficiency and longevity point.

The VK 56 itself wont give anyone any problems outside the manifolds where the sprinter will cause you grief if used in town primarily and it doest get a highway regen run often enough.
 
Danno said:
I ran a fleet of 400 Sprinters for commercial delivery. 2009(Dodge for one year) to 2014 model years.
They are something I would avoid.
MB product means you are tied to MB service rates and parts. In saying that, you probably have more resources than most to acquire best pricing.
The unavoidable repairs, most of my 3.0L diesels had to have upper intake manifold replaced/repaired - cost $5000.
Downpipe would crack, another $3000.
Drive shafts would need replacement at 80,000 miles, not serviceable and aftermarket replacements couldn't include factory dust shield for center bearing, which means replacement center bearings wore quicky.
Lack of service centers.
Rust had its way with the cab - rust resistance was none existent. Seemed like to paint process was from the 80s.
I had access to all the MB engineering in the US. Knew them personally from tours of their facility. Made no difference
Just a few of the challenges I saw running these.
Not sure if they have been improved in the past 8 years, but I doubt it.

We moved to Ford Transits once they were available in 2015.
And didn't look back.
Click to expand...
What part of the intake manifold needed to be replaced for $5000?!?

Were these om606 3.0L engines?

I’d more expect an oil cooler or something like that. If soot buildup or flap related those aren’t $5000 repairs unless someone is really trying to pad their pockets.

Interesting about the rust resistance. I’d have expected better with that.
 
Pablo said:
I don't see much Sprinter chat here.

I was wondering if anyone else was stewing/contemplating or owns a Sprinter.

Where did you start? Out of state dealers? Used?
Click to expand...
The diesels are complete garbage and extremely expensive to maintain. My son managed a small fleet of diesel ones-and they were so expensive to repair and maintained they switched them all over to gas ones.
At least if you drive a nice Mercedes sedan or SUV-you get a nice vehicle with high repair and maintenance costs. With a Sprinter you just get high maintenance and repair costs without any other benefits.
 
Pablo said:
I don't see much Sprinter chat here.

I was wondering if anyone else was stewing/contemplating or owns a Sprinter.

Where did you start? Out of state dealers? Used?
Click to expand...
We had a few of them-turbo issues, one blew a $14,000 transmission, another threw a serpentine belt & destroyed a $3000+ engine wiring harness. Sliding doors fell off, and sheet metal rusted from the INSIDE OUT in weird, impossible to repair places-under the windshield, quarter panels, etc., etc. And this was in the last years BEFORE DPF/Blutec!! RUN, don’t walk, away!!
 
Pablo said:
Wow.

My brother has a 2018 MB Sprinter. None of these issues.

You guys are making some of this up. Right?
Click to expand...


They can be expensive vehicles to own out of warranty you'd better find a good 3rd party guy.

I/we lost a turbo on one in year 5 basically filled the intake with metal, warranty fix.
It was the wife's dog grooming van " I heard a pop then had no power" That "pop" was the compressor wheel disassembling itself.

I owned two, the 3 liter 5 speed (that shredded a turbo) , and a 2 liter 7 speed. No trouble from the latter but I didnt own it long.
 
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The only person I know with one of these spent more than the purchase price fixing it and the repairs were EXPENSIVE. Internal transmission work, turbos, etc. Yes it's a data point of ONE on a single used vehicle BUT I think there's a reason these are pretty much only owned by rich people with Sprinter RV conversions they drive once a year or by fleets that lease them and get rid of them before the warranty runs out.
 
Pablo said:
Wow.

My brother has a 2018 MB Sprinter. None of these issues.

You guys are making some of this up. Right?
Click to expand...
They just used a crappy mechanic. The rust is factual though, but smart people who lurk on sprinter source drill some drain holes to let the water out of the quarter panels and that helps with the rust.

The transmission is used in lots of dodge and Chryslers and shouldn't be 13,000 to fix or replace, so he got scammed there too.

I've helped my dad with his 2007 sprinter since he bought it. We've done injectors, all the intercooler piping and gaskets, the intercooler, oil cooler seals, turbo exhaust gaskets, turbo oil gaskets, turbo pedestal gaskets, transgo valve body kit, new dpf, transmission filter, deleted the two espar heaters and the rear heater core, new coolant hoses, new coolant bottle, deleted the swirl flaps and cleaned the intake (at the same time as the oil cooler) new starter, new rear leaf springs, rebuilt front suspension, new brakes, new parking brakes, new tires, new headlights, fixed ghetto rear a/c. And the windshield rusted out so we welded new metal around the windshield.

It still needs to rust on the frame patched. It was a shuttle bus in Canada for the first 60,000 miles of it's life. He bought it for $11,000 and put $10,000 into repairs since then. It had 60k miles when we bought it and it now has 130,000 miles.

Find another sprinter van with no issues and 60,000 miles for $20k. (He did all the repairs except the rear springs and the coolant bottle when we first bought it.
 
I work for a utility company and drive a service van every day. The company bought a bunch of Sprinters then after a couple years phased them out and replaced them with Ford Transit vans with the Ecoboost. Sprinters are expensive to repair.

I have a lot of drive time in both, 2 years in a Sprinter and going on 3 in the Transit. The Transit is better in every single way except the Sprinter has it beat in turning radius and ground clearance. The Sprinters are absolutely dogs when accelerating, our vans are heavy and the ecoboost rips.

I would never personally own a MB Sprinter van.
 
SNWMBL said:
I work for a utility company and drive a service van every day. The company bought a bunch of Sprinters then after a couple years phased them out and replaced them with Ford Transit vans with the Ecoboost. Sprinters are expensive to repair.

I have a lot of drive time in both, 2 years in a Sprinter and going on 3 in the Transit. The Transit is better in every single way except the Sprinter has it beat in turning radius and ground clearance. The Sprinters are absolutely dogs when accelerating, our vans are heavy and the ecoboost rips.

I would never personally own a MB Sprinter van.
Click to expand...

Lots of variation in these lines.

Sprinters are expensive, but they were better suited to certain tasks- like heavy hauling.

Does the extended length transit have a long wheelbase yet ?
They had an extended body dually, but it had the shorter wheelbase and lost capacity as a result.

I was always in a heavy haul situation with grooming vans.
 
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