Diesel cargo Van VS Gas cargo Van.

[Jefferson3000]

Well, I do agree that people knock the Sprinter because of preference, or because it's from Europe. I don't. I actually looked into getting one. Problem is, I couldn't justify the expense for what income it would bring. But just because a vehicle is successful in Europe doesn't mean it will take over the market in the US. Yes I have seen that Ford van they are wanting to bring over from EU. From the dims of the one I saw, t would be a nice package van for Fedex, but as to holding pallets, Hmmm..... My point is, it has been seven years since a freind showed me that Freightliner catalog with the nifty new cargo van in it. So far it hasn't produced any difference in vans made in the US, albeit that Ford van in Europe still.

For every carrier that is saying "ONLY SPRINTERS," there are two others that will take normal cargo vans. Will that guarantee that you will work? Nope. It is more than just the equipment that determines these things. If you don't want to switch to a sprinter, then hold on. I believe there may be another pendulum swing in the next year.

I still believe that the Sprinter design is a great idea, but at this point, it has not revolutionized the market the way people thought it would 5 years ago. As for me, I'd probably opt for a Ford 1 ton extended with a turtle top and lengthened doors.

Just an opinion.



Drive Safe!

Jeff

Driver for 15 years
O/O for 13 years
OOIDA #829119

 

[greg334]

OVM,
"Both Ford and GM have vans in Europe just waiting for the right time to come here."

When is the right time?

I mean look at the van market and if Ford and GM eliminate the domestic production of their van line, I think that will be the right time.

Will this happen any time soon? I doubt it because of the lost profits bringing them from europe to the US. Build them here? no, they will in Mexico.

By the way Ford has 20 eurovans here and have been testing them, they look like and drive like sprinters to me.

Oh before I forget two other things -

Sprinters are Mercedes products, not Freightliner or Dodge. What is going to happen to the Dodge Sprinter line when Chrysler sale is finailized and transfered?

Will they still buy the Sprinter from Mercedes and rebadge them or will they come up with their own version of an eurovan?

I would be a little concern about this from an owners point of view because not all Dodge dealers are capable (meaning intellegent enough) to support the sprinter now, what will this look like if they drop the sprinter completly?

 

[dieseldoctor1]

truckerb1968,
Seems you are getting some bad info. Check out this post.

http://www.expeditersonline.com/dcforum/DCForumID16/1731.html

Also here is a copy of a letter to the editor of Light and Medium Truck magazine. I tried to attach a jpeg of the page but couldn't get the attachment to work for some reason. It didn't copy right for some reason (put typo errors in it?) but you can get the message. Also check out www.whygasengines.com. Very interesting.

Dear Editor:
I enjoyed your article on the buyers' choice of gasoline versus diesel in light-, medium-duty applications ("Will Diesel Lose Its Edge With 2010 Compliance?" in February, p. 16). I wanted to share our experience with you. We've run comparisons, beginning in 1999, between the 7.3 liter, the 6.0L and now the 6.4L diesel engines against their gasoline counterparts in identical applications.
We've found little miles per gallon advantage with diesekThe primary differences, though, lie in both the high
acquisition cost (and we as a government fleet get signifi-cant discounts) and the high maintenance cost of diesel engines. Based on our comparisons, we can afford to run a gasoline-powered truck, replace the gasoline engine twice over a span of 300,000 miles, and only then would we approach comparative equality to that of buying and oper-ating a diesel engine in the same truck. Diesel preventive ; maintenance costs twice that of gasoline engines, and hard parts (for example, water pumps, starters, alternators and
batteries) all cost significantly more than their gasoline coun-terparts. We seldom see or read about the high cost of main-tenance, both routine and breakdown, when comparisons between the two are performed.
Since 1999, the only applications where we buy a diesel engine in a light/medium truck is when it pulls a trailer most of the time and the higher torque provides an advan-tage. Otherwise, even up to F550-size trucks, we stick with gasoline engines.
Thanks for your continued support of our industry.
Bob Stanton
Director-Fleet Management Polk County, Fla

Several people replying to this post have mentioned tuneups as a minus for gas engines. My 5.4 has no distributor, no points, no condensor, no rotor button, no distributor cap, no spark plug wires, so what is there to tuneup? Replace the spark plugs every 100,000 miles is all. You will spend more for fuel supplements for a diesel than you will ever spend on tuneups for a gas engine.

Now the fact of the matter is, right now with gas and diesel prices the way they are a diesel would pay off the purchase difference in about two years if, and it is a big IF, the prices would stay the same for the two years. But everybody knows they haven't for over ten years. Will they in the future? I don't know. I knocked my crystal ball off my workbench and it bursted! Do your research and good luck whatever you decide to do.

Dieseldoctor

 

[RLENT]

I run for a small carrier and I am the only Sprinter on with them at the moment.

Where I'm at, senority plays a part in dispatching - and in the cargo van fleet I'm the low guy on the totem pole. Although senority plays a part, it isn't everything - being available, being in the right place, not turning down loads for no good reason, and having a vehicle that can handle a specific size load factor in as well. If Dispatch has a load that will only fit in the Sprinter and one of the other cargo van drivers is "up" for a run they certainly aren't going to assign it to another cargo van that can't run it or turn it down.

Out of the 44 loads I've run since I started back in mid-March at least 10 of them have been because they would only fit in the Sprinter or larger vehicle. That's almost 25% (which totalled around 2700 paid miles) of my loads - coming as the result of having the additional capacity to handle a given load.

Of that ten or so loads, better than half of them consisted of four pallets, and the others were either three oversized pallets or other odd-sized cargo that would not have fit in an extended cargo van.

At this point my carrier would not sign on another extended cargo van (although that could change if business picks up) - they already have quite a few - but they would sign on another Sprinter ..... and we are looking at doing so.

 

[sdelliott31]

The above reasons mentioned by diesel are the reasons we dumped our two diesel cargo vans recently for gassers.

 

[x06col]

On a little different use of equipment, ie. pulling my gooseneck camper, I have opted to purchase a Hemi gasser in a Dodge 3500 at the base price instead of springing for the $6000+ Cummins. Couldn't justify the Diesel for my use, and, it would be the same if I were to buy a cargo van.