A thousand Ram Van curses upon you!

lindenengineering

Well-known member
Not unexpected.

What is your view? Have you done much work on the Transits and if so what are the Transit problem areas? I know a few but reading about issues on the Sprinter and Transit sites is interesting.
Dave
My views are not often as many on this forums nor others for that matter.

When I tend to judge a vehicle, my first thoughts focus in on safety features & occupant protection, ( or the lack of it) , in a collision.
So! Looking at a Ford Transit collision crash test .
Note you can still open the doors and the belted dummy occupants showed no tendency to be ejected from the vehicle .
Basically that puts it on par with the Sprinter, and good likelihood you will walk away "shaken but not stirred Mr Bond" after a 40 mph front ender shunt.


Moving on to "fit & finish", the product was from my original perspectives was a bit below MB standards, but doing recent comparisons to the latest V30 renditions they are just about on par.

Powertrain is good , its Ford & its stout, with a few problems here and there.

Ease of working on it is my real preference, and MB wins on that, but Ford electrics and built to ISO 900 standards, so it has some merit over the Sprinter in that area.
Built Ford tough?
Well time will tell !
Dennis
 
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lindenengineering

Well-known member
As a footnote.
At 3,10 minutes into film clip the high speed camera picks up the deformation of the underbody & frame .
Note the the transmission crossmember which cripples but doesn't detach itself from the frame .
A good design and goes along way to not having the power pack impacting the firewall and cause drastic inclusion into the survival space.
Dennis
 
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4wheeldog

2018 144" Tall Revel
There was the evening i popped the hood of a classic (pre-1965) Jaguar sedan in a poorly-lit garage...

The entire wire harness (not just the HV wiring) was twinkling like Xmas lights, shining through the woven loom wrappings.

Gotta love Lucas...

--dick
When Brit cars do that, it is not long before the harness lets the all important smoke out.
 

lindenengineering

Well-known member
When Brit cars do that, it is not long before the harness lets the all important smoke out.
Sadly all that excitement has gone now.
But if you want to re-live those wiring harness defects & excitement with a latter day twist & limited information on it, then Promaster & FCA vehicles and the dreaded TIPM takes the prize these days .
Dennis
 

e-zeke

Member
I had 2 2014 Promasters, now I have 1.

The first one, which I still have, is a diesel I bought brand new. It went into the shop with 65K on the clock because it was leaking oil from the rear main. It ended up that it had blow-by.

It was my main service van. They kept it for 3 months before finally replacing the engine and getting it back to me.

During that 3 months, I was running my other 2014 PM which was a gasser. It developed the Pentastar "death tick." I nursed it along as it got worse and worse, hoping the dealer would get my diesel back to me, and I could put the gasser in for the warranty repair. As days turned into weeks and weeks turned into the months, it got worse and worse.

Finally, it got so bad that it was about to give it up. I pulled it into a Nissan dealer and traded it for a New NV2500. I had to drive it back home and pull the shelves out of it, and I just knew it was going to implode the next morning when I drove it back to the lot.

I still have the diesel. The shop not only did not put the correct Eurospec oil in the brand new engine, they didn't even put full synthetic. They put conventional/synthetic blend in it. It took me 4 oil changes to get all of it out of there. It kept giving me an oil viscosity trouble code, and would go into limp mode.

To me the most important issue BY FAR is reliability. I think it is ridiculous that you cannot rely on these vans to give you a bare minimum of 100K without needing major repairs.

We have friends that have had problems with the Transits too. Nissan is the only manufacturer that expresses confidence in their product, as manifested by the 100K bumper to bumper warranty. FCA dropped the warranty on the Promaster from 100K powertrain to 60K after the first year of release. They saw that handwriting on the wall before they started selling the 2015 models. Incidentally, the "powertrain" is very limited. It covers only parts that oil touches.
 
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e-zeke

Member
We have a 2007 Sprinter that we bought with only 43K on the clock. We love that van. It is our primary. Our 2018 NV2500 is our backup. It only has 6K miles on it. We are about to finish the build out on it and start running it to get some miles in it before warranty runs out.
 

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