[tmalcolm]

Hi Transit Folks - I am thinking of selling my Sprinter which was recently built out as a campervan and starting over with Ford Transit as my platform. I thought Sprinter was super reliable, but that has not been my experience. Apparently it used to be reliable before they changed the diesel engine. So, how would you all rate your newer Transits in terms of reliablity?

Just at 25k miles with our 2021 Crewcab but it has been flawless in spite of my heavy foot and our propensity to go places that might be "unwise". And performance? We spend 85% of our time on mountain roads and that twinturbo V6 and 10sp trans are heaven in a van! All that said, we take care of it, oil changes at 5k miles or less, etc.

 

[ohmyjersh]

Wow, this is very encouraging. You would never get this kind of feebback on the sprinter forum! Right now all I can do is laugh otherwise I would cry. My 2023 sprinter was picked up in San Diego after a prolonged conversion. CEL on when I get to West Texas on my way x country to NC. Less than 2K miles at this point! Take it to Lubbock who clears a NOX sensor code and says everything is fine. Hour down highway and CEL. Take it to Bentonville who replaces a NOX sensor and sends me on my way. Now around 4K miles and just had van multi-point check at MB here in NC and everything fine. Then, with a fully loaded van, including 2 dogs, headed out on the highway for the West coast and guess what?! CEL about an hour into the drive. Turned around and headed back home. Take to MB service center and they say NOX sensor. It has been with MB service center for a week now and tech can't figure it out so now it is in the hands of the virtual MB mothership to advise tech. Only advice so far is to send pics of all 3 NOX sensors. Ugh

I had a trail, now I have a 2024 sprinter, and buying an extended warranty.

 

[RustBeltRefugee]

As I've worked through my front suspension issues over the past month, I noticed a nice long/tall/4WD Sprinter conversion at the shop each time I visited. When I complained about some of my 100,000-mile maintenance expenses, he laughed and pointed out that the Sprinter had probably racked up $50,000 in repairs over the last few years. Emissions, transmission, electrical... the owner puts on a lot of miles, but ends up at the shop between trips to fix whatever the latest issue might be.

 

[JonMN]

20K on our Coachmen Beyond Class B based on the extended dually Transit. No problems at all, and I just do routine service in our garage. Just one consideration, however. If you are going full Class B camper, with rooftop AC, awning, bath, etc, you might run into one problem: It can be really hard to find a Ford dealer willing to do service on your van. Once I told our local dealers it was a Class B they all said they would not service the Transit. When I do need service, I am going to have to go over to an industrial Ford dealer over on the other side of town. Not thrilled about this aspect.

 

[brío]

MB = Foreign brand, sold mostly in "blue" states/cities

I dunno... Eyeballing that map, I suspect it correlates more with population density than political persuasion.

 

[AzB]

I like this forum because you can avoid all of that and just talk about the topic at hand.

I always liked this forum because we left politics out of it. Calling people that disagree with you names is one of things I like to avoid. I'll accept that maybe you just meant certain specific people on that forum, but please, let's not dive into that kind of crap here.

 

[3wheelin]

Hi Transit Folks - I am thinking of selling my Sprinter which was recently built out as a campervan and starting over with Ford Transit as my platform. I thought Sprinter was super reliable, but that has not been my experience. Apparently it used to be reliable before they changed the diesel engine. So, how would you all rate your newer Transits in terms of reliablity?

I have a 2023 Transit Trail (reg. Length) with 7500 miles on it. 2 trips over 2400 miles round trip & zero problems so far. Seems to run strong and drives awesome!

 

[ranxerox]

There is nothing wrong with living within walking distance of your house and work, All of that money saved on gas and vehicles that last almost forever.
I prefer small town life but in some cases you may make less money, I guess it is a trade off for a simple life.

 

[carringb]

I think the best thing you can do for yourself if you have a sprinter is to make sure you have AAA, so you can get towed to somewhere that can work on the van.

Except AAA expressly excludes towing coverage on Sprinters.

 

[Truck]

Love all these people with low mileage chiming in how nothing is wrong. Just wait.... you just wait

 

[gregoryx]

Except AAA expressly excludes towing coverage on Sprinters.

... well... AAA doesn't cover commercial vehicles... or something like that. But with the "RV Coverage" they have covered our Transit and our Sprinter in the past.

 

[ranxerox]

Love all these people with low mileage chiming in how nothing is wrong. Just wait.... you just wait

Well you are doing something wrong, He made it to almost 500,000 miles without any major repairs.

https://www.fordtransitusaforum.com/threads/maintenance-costs.60506/?post_id=802794#post-802794

 

[brío]

AAA is a federation of regional "clubs". Each one has its own policies and products. Coverage policies vary considerably. Last I heard, a few of them don't even offer RV coverage, for example. Even the best of them offer inferior coverage (e.g., very limited towing mile limits). They are a pretty poor choice for covering vans.

Check out CoachNet.

 

[surly Bill]

Love all these people with low mileage chiming in how nothing is wrong. Just wait.... you just wait

And "low mileage" is a moving target. Us old people remember a time when a vehicle making it to 100,000 miles, even WITH repairs, was kind of rare. Youngsters these days whine and moan if they have to get new sparkplugs at 150,000 miles. Vehicle reliability and longevity is astronomical now compared to the 1970's. Take a look at used cars on Hawai'i; many with 250k+ miles for sale. It still baffles me how so many miles can be driven there, it's as if people live in Hilo and drive all the way to work and back in Kona every day, taking the long route.
Regardless, the chances of a mechanical breakdown or failure are pretty slim these day, but the chances of an electrical/sensor failure are very high.

It would be great if there was a vehicle drive system that didn't have so many sensors monitoring fuel/oil/coolant pressure, spark ignition, exhaust composition, air intake vs exhaust and horsepower ratios, cylinder intake/exhaust pressures and timing, etc etc

 

[Truck]

Well you are doing something wrong, He made it to almost 500,000 miles without any major repairs.

https://www.fordtransitusaforum.com/threads/maintenance-costs.60506/?post_id=802794#post-802794

Nice sample size of 1. What do you think all the people replacing exhaust manifold did wrong? Is that a major repair? Should you have to replace throttle bodies three times in his mileage sample? What is a major repair? Should the roof leak on brand new vehicles? That's not a major repair though. What am I doing wrong?

 

[Truck]

And "low mileage" is a moving target. Us old people remember a time when a vehicle making it to 100,000 miles, even WITH repairs, was kind of rare. Youngsters these days whine and moan if they have to get new sparkplugs at 150,000 miles. Vehicle reliability and longevity is astronomical now compared to the 1970's. Take a look at used cars on Hawai'i; many with 250k+ miles for sale. It still baffles me how so many miles can be driven there, it's as if people live in Hilo and drive all the way to work and back in Kona every day, taking the long route.
Regardless, the chances of a mechanical breakdown or failure are pretty slim these day, but the chances of an electrical/sensor failure are very high.

It would be great if there was a vehicle drive system that didn't have so many sensors monitoring fuel/oil/coolant pressure, spark ignition, exhaust composition, air intake vs exhaust and horsepower ratios, cylinder intake/exhaust pressures and timing, etc etc

I agree I have been spoiled by mid 2000s Toyotas. Production tolerances in modern vehicles is incredible. Overall, transit has been reliable in that it starts up and drives me. I have only had 1 failure to start and drive. That's good. It has lots of power and drives incredibly. I just get salty when all the little stuff is crumbling in my hands. for the price paid, the parts should be higher quality.

 

[avenge]

Love all these people with low mileage chiming in how nothing is wrong. Just wait.... you just wait

What is low mileage, what's the mileage on yours?

 

[surly Bill]

Nice sample size of 1. What do you think all the people replacing exhaust manifold did wrong? Is that a major repair? Should you have to replace throttle bodies three times in his mileage sample? What is a major repair? Should the roof leak on brand new vehicles? That's not a major repair though. What am I doing wrong?

I consider anything that requires opening up the engine/tranny and/or requires special tools or software to be "major repair". I guess you could add "takes longer than 2 hours" or requires over $500(2020 $ value) cost to that list (parts and labor; I heard there are some people who pay other people to work on their cars, that must be expensive!).

 

[surly Bill]

I agree I have been spoiled by mid 2000s Toyotas. Production tolerances in modern vehicles is incredible. Overall, transit has been reliable in that it starts up and drives me. I have only had 1 failure to start and drive. That's good. It has lots of power and drives incredibly. I just get salty when all the little stuff is crumbling in my hands. for the price paid, the parts should be higher quality.

As mentioned above, I've only had a couple issues, and I'm a little surprised by that. Ten years of ownership of my T1n Sprinter tallied $2800 in parts and labor, and some of that was elective. I'm over $3500 in parts and labor for 8 years of Transit ownership, and none of it was elective. Granted, with inflation that makes them about par, but I didn't throw $500 at "upgraded" suspension replacing perfectly fine parts on my Transit like I did with the Sprinter.

 

[Truck]

What is low mileage, what's the mileage on yours?

I have about 138,000. Anything under 60k is low mileage to me, for normal non commercial use. Under 100k is still pretty low miles to me.