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There's things I've had, there's things I wanna have"
However, are you looking for a full size van (aka Transit/Sprinter size), or something smaller (Transit Custom/VW Transporter)?
If you need to carry more weight than a 3.5T gross van then there are options but they are thinner on the ground and have to be tacho'ed etc. My own van is a 4.2 Ton Transit Jumbo which can take a payload of over 2 tons
A lot of vans share the same engines these days but I've found the older engines to be more reliable simply because they don't don't have endless eco features. I've had various vans but mainly Transits because they are the cheapest van to maintain in terms of buying parts. My personal pick would be an older MK6 with the 130HP 2.2 TDCI and 6 speed box.
Sprinters are the most reliable provided they've been looked after. Given pre-conceptions, spare prices aren't any different from anything else. The older engines are the more reliable of the options, as the new one, although not really unreliable, can have issues that are time consuming to fix (inlet manifold/gasket blows, but it's a 6+hr job), EGR cooler bypass valve leaks (IIRC about 4-5hr book time), but the basic mechanics are sound.
VW Crafter. Sprinter body/running gear, with a rubbish engine in comparison to the Sprinter, and a horrendous dashboard compared with the Sprinter. Biggest issue is if anything does go wrong, VW specialist can't handle the Merc body electrics, and Merc specialists ate working on the VW engine. They are however a lot cheaper than an equivalent age/condition Sprinter.
Both of the above will rust though.
Transits are pretty good. I'd only go for the 2014 onwards though, as they don't disintegrate with rust like previous models. 2.2 is OK. EGR valves are much improved on the later incarnations of the engine, but still like to go through fuel vaporisers for the DPF.
Reliability wise, the newer 2.0 is proving to have far less issues so far, but it does have a wet timing belt (due at 10yr/150k, but book time is 8-9hrs), however most 2.2s will probably need a timing chain by that mileage anyway.
Renault Master/Vauxhall Movano/Nissan whatever are typical French vans. Do the job. Are cheap to buy. Are reasonably reliable, but gearboxes are pretty weak, and other things are very likely to give lots of niggly issues once they age. Internals always feel cheap. Door handles are likely to break regularly. Roller doors will fall off at some point.
Fiat Ducato. Cheap. Gearboxes are also pretty poor. We've seen an increase in engines going bang lately, despite them usually being pretty reliable. Looms like to corrode causing issues with various electrics.
Peugeot Boxer/Citreon Relay. Fiat Ducato with a Transit engine. Still got the electric/gearbox issues, but at least the engine is less likely to have French niggles.
One major consideration for any vehicle is spares availability. Merc/VW/Ford understand this. It is very rare you'll struggle to get parts for their vans, whereas all the rest can be horrendous. It's not uncommon to wait over a week for Fiat/Peugeot/Renault for what are relatively common parts.
I currently have a 2004 Vivaro 1.9 that with a reasonable amount of preventative maintenance is a good runner. All commercial vehicles are run hard so require a little more TLC than your car. I don’t overdo it but I keep on top of things and it quite happily runs about all day without a hiccup.
Rift Amplification
Brackley, Northamptonshire
www.riftamps.co.uk
There's things I've had, there's things I wanna have"
That took two new propshaft bearings, followed by lots of questions as to if the person had put the bearing spacers back in the right place, before somebody noticed the body was resting on the chassis rails...
The big issue with Iveco's, is they're a heavy van. That's OK if you're willing to go over the 3.5t license limitation, but they're not as reliable as they were. 3.5t axle is rubbish, and we had 2 with engine issues last year. One at 70'000km losing oil pressure once warmed up, and despite new oil pump, filter housing, and checking for any other obvious issues, it was put down to excess engine wear.
Another was done under warranty at 30'000km, after the timing jumped wiping out the valves, which one dealer let slip was a common failure, and Iveco were just supplying new engines for any that failed.
Had a lot of capers in them old vans.
Nil Satis Nisi Optimum
The side door didn't fall off the Trafic until we had it five years. Then a year later.