[antran7]

my wife and i have 4 kids, and all grandparents and ton of cousins in town. hence we need something bigger than our honda odyssey. we're currently doing the research and deciding between the sprinter and transit

we test drove the sprinter (144" wb low roof) and transit (148" wb medium height) on two separate weekends. on couple early comments:
- the transit felt 'bigger'. maybe because i was in different moods on the two different weekends of test drives. maybe because the transit driver seat is more inboard of the van than the sprinter. maybe because it's a little taller, longer, and wider. maybe because the sprinter has bigger windows and thus better visibility. maybe because the steering response was different than i'm used to
- the transit (3.5l eb) was a lot torquier and more powerful. whereas i had reservations on the sprinter on some mountainous road trips, i don't for the transit
- the transit cabin was a lot more 'cozier' - felt more like a consumer car/truck than a utility van like the sprinter felt.

that's our findings so far. i'll keep updating if anybody is interested. our next move is get some grandparents to babysit so we can test drive both on the same day.

our perfect van would be something like the transit, with low roof, long wheelbase, long body (not extended), and power sliding door (both sides would be nice, but we'll be content with just one side). but nobody has this with seating for 9-12.

and, and since i'm dreaming: it also has noise canceling to isolate whatever chaos is happening in the back of the van from the front.


does anybody know about adding sliding doors to the low roof? has anybody else felt this 'size difference' between the transit and sprinter?

peace!

 

[USMC Vet]

antran7,

There are numerous current and former sprinter owners on the forum, who have given their opinions on the two. Hopefully PeterR , orton and crewvanman can give you the links to the previous conversations.

Might be easier if you kept the same information you are requesting to a single thread rather than starting a new one. (low roof with sliding doors / transit vs sprinter)

Think "Random" & "Stealth Camping" threads were 2 of the threads that discussed the differences.

Semper Fi

 

[antran7]

My bad. I'll keep the sliding door convo on the other thread. I had intended this one to mainly be my ongoing research/impression of the sprinter vs transit. I didn't see any discussions that were about the specifics for being a family vehicle

 

[Epps]

Bottom line is,,,,, you have a problem on the road with a Sprinter your out of luck finding a dealer and if you do get your charge card out and call the company to increase your limit.


Enough said.


Epps.

 

[antran7]

that is a huge + in the ford column

 

[USMC Vet]

antran7,

Some of the things, like Epps said above, that were mentioned; nice vehicle, but not all Mercedes dealers could work on them. So if you were traveling and had a problem, you might be 10 miles from a dealership but 500 miles from a dealership that could work on it. Another one I remember is that any work done or parts needed, you were paying high prices for the name Mercedes. If you have a dealership close by that can work on them and you don't plan on taking any trips out of your general area and don't mind paying high priced mechanics, it would be ok. Unless it started to rust.

Semper Fi

 

[antran7]

I do have a very large sprinter dealer nearby. So maybe I take it for granted that they're pretty common and frequent.

I can relate to being stranded in a road trip too. It happened with our odyssey in a family trip, and with a friend in his German car. Needless to say, the latter was much more complicated

Thanks for all the input and advice

 

[orton]

I bought a 144" high roof diesel Sprinter in 2008 and drove it for 6 1/2 years and 58,000 miles. It had two failures in the first 20,000 miles so I lost confidence in it. IMO the savings due to better mileage are used up by higher maintenance costs, higher initial cost and DEF fluid costs.

I sold it several months ago and took delivery of a 148" high roof EB gas Transit a month ago. Have put a bit over 1000 miles on the Transit.

My observations:

1. I feel a lot more confident if I have a problem when their is a Ford dealer in every other town.
2. Transit definitely drives better.
3. I expect significantly lower maintenance costs.
4. Ford is quieter.
5. Getting into Transit is easier than Sprinter and getting from front seats to back in Transit is more difficult.
6. Much more acceleration with EB vs. Sprinter diesel.
7. It is nice to have a proper automatic transmission. I had the terrible old Nag1 5 speed in the Sprinter. Lots of manual shifting required.
8. Transit is a more rigid design so less "lurching" when entering driveways diagonally. Transit suspension is much better.
9. Transit will be much easier to convert due to cargo interior design and electrical options.
10. More Ford dealers I can park at to stealth city camp.

 

[antran7]

thanks for the observations. did you feel the 144" sprinter and 148" transit were comparable for city vehicles? maneuvering parking lots, parallel parking, being lost in another city and driving the wrong way down a one-way road, etc

 

[orton]

thanks for the observations. did you feel the 144" sprinter and 148" transit were comparable for city vehicles? maneuvering parking lots, parallel parking, being lost in another city and driving the wrong way down a one-way road, etc

Not much different in the city. Very close turning radius and size. Where Transit shines is on a twisty two lane road. Much better handling.

Last time I drove the wrong way (not in Sprinter) was in Barcelona. Nothing like driving the wrong way on a 3 lane each direction street with a planted divider. Got away with it.

 

[antran7]

thanks for the input. the last time i drove the wrong way was in england... i even saw it coming but couldn't do anything about it. i was making a right turn onto a road, and for some reason couldn't overcome my instinct to drive on the 'right' side of the road. so i did ... into oncoming traffic. we all came to a pretty slow anticlimactic halt. and i sheepishly veered back over the the wrong...uhhh... left... side of the road

 

[Geographer]

Here is a link to Corning Ford in Corning, CA that has a long WB 12 seater. New 2015 Ford Transit-350 For Sale | Corning CA

 

[Whitedog]

DEF costs less than .5 cents per mile. That is <$.005/mile. If you only drive 10,000 miles a year, that is less than $50 per year. DEF costs shouldn't be in the cost of operation equation.

 

[unclebob]

DEF costs less than .5 cents per mile. That is <$.005/mile. If you only drive 10,000 miles a year, that is less than $50 per year. DEF costs shouldn't be in the cost of operation equation.

No so much a cost issue as a nuisance.

Remembering when the last time you added DEF when you should add it again.

It's not a good idea to just wait for the add DEF message to come. That can lead to pump or heater failure sooner than normal. Each of those repairs are over $1,000.00.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[rabbitdiesel1]

I use 5 gal. def every 10,000 mi. At 2.69 per gal. that = 13.50$ x 10 = 135 dollars in 100,000. Def cost is a non issue. I have 112,000 mi. on my 2011 sprinter and have had zero def problems. I've noticed the people who claim def is costly are people who've never owned vans that require def.

 

[vanshopper]

We just made this decision for our family with seven children. Maintenance cost and avalibility was the deciding factor in addition to the upfront price. Our current van is a Honda odyssey. Everyone has different criteria for a vehicle but I would never go up to a passenger van with just four kids. We've done multiday, each way road trips with eight people in our odyssey. It's only now that we simply don't have enough seats for everyone that we're getting something bigger.

That said, having been in both I do like the size of the sprinter. I don't particularly want something really big and it felt more compact. I also like that the low roof option was tall enough for me to stand up in since I'm on the shorter side. Other, taller, family member could just about stand up in it. With the ford we had to go with the medium roof since the low roof is really low. Both vans seemed to have similar cargo space (we went with a 12 passenger long wheelbase).

 

[onetwo]

No so much a cost issue as a nuisance.

^^ This,

we have a 2014 sprinter. although its not a deal breaker, its certainly a pain in the butt once in a while to have to put DEF in. At least with the Ford, you can add the DEF by the gas tank filler. With the MB, you have to pop the hood.

The fact that I can't be bothered with extra nuisances, the extra $6grand Ford wanted for a diesel motor, and the fact that Diesel is around 15 cents more a liter than gas is why I went with an EB engine on our Transit....

 

[Kingcobra33]

The fact that I can't be bothered with extra nuisances, the extra $6grand Ford wanted for a diesel motor, and the fact that Diesel is around 15 cents more a liter than gas is why I went with an EB engine on our Transit....

I think you really will love the EB engine much better than the diesel!!!!

I absolutely love the POWER available with the Boosted Engine and the better mileage is awesome too, without the premium for fuel and $6k motor.

 

[antran7]

That said, having been in both I do like the size of the sprinter. I don't particularly want something really big and it felt more compact. I also like that the low roof option was tall enough for me to stand up in since I'm on the shorter side. Other, taller, family member could just about stand up in it. With the ford we had to go with the medium roof since the low roof is really low. Both vans seemed to have similar cargo space (we went with a 12 passenger long wheelbase).

We're torn between the transit and sprinter. both have their benefits. i'm not against the low-roof model of the transit since it will be mostly kids in the back. but we haven't really been in one yet. i'm hoping to back-to-back test drives of both this weekend, and hopefully check out the low-roof wagon.

 

[Whitedog]

No so much a cost issue as a nuisance.

Remembering when the last time you added DEF when you should add it again.

It's not a good idea to just wait for the add DEF message to come. That can lead to pump or heater failure sooner than normal. Each of those repairs are over $1,000.00.

This OCI will be the first full 10,000 mile interval so I am anxious to see how the DEF level does. If it runs low enough that I would need to add more before the LOF I will just go with adding DEF every 5,000 miles. Nothing to remember, nothing to calculate. Just add DEF every 5,000 miles or three weeks.

Not a big deal, but then again it's my job and I get paid by the hour.