For those of you who don’t know me I used to frequent this forum quite some time ago, in fact I see that it’s now over ten years since I started this thread. I've not posted for several years as life has been busy and I've pretty much lost interest with a lot of online stuff. I feel perhaps though recent events warrant an update here.
I still have this van, that I ordered in late 2009.
After ten years it’s now done just under three hundred thousand miles, so pretty modest for a work vehicle and I no longer do enormous annual mileages (my lifetime mileage in Mercedes-Benz vans is now over two million though). Over the last few years the van had started to show its age cosmetically and occasionally begun to exhibit signs of potential mechanical trouble to come so for it’s tenth birthday whilst we were away on our family holiday it went back to the original supplying main dealer and I asked them to put in a brand new crated motor from the Fatherland. With a good exchange unit and a bit of generosity from the parts counter a new OM651 is around £5,500GBP here, plus ten hours to do it. Ask a main dealer and you also get two years Europe wide unlimited mileage warranty, and a few other bits and pieces sorted as well.
Then in the New Year it went off to another firm for a same colour repaint. It required some diplomacy in order for us to agree works as the company I wanted to do it normally only builds high spec horseboxes and are not interested in vans. With some negotiation and a bit of cap in hand on my part they agreed to do it. I had to wait six months for a slot but this was fine, the work was not time sensitive and I’d seen how good their paint was so it didn’t matter to me how long I had to wait, I just wanted it done right. They spent two weeks prepping it, then a week painting and rebuilding it. Surprisingly fast I thought. As is usually the way once you dig into these jobs there’s always more to do but in general they were amazed at the body's good condition. In advance I did take them a new side door and bonnet, and briefly toyed with the idea of a front end facelift but as the latest model has superceded the 906 face lift anyway I decided best just to keep it as Dusseldorf made it. Really glad I didn’t do it now actually, and it looks great in its new Lechler 2K coat (“we only use Lechler, it’s the best”). Cost to get this done was £2,500 excluding VAT, which I felt was fair to both. I did have alternative quotes ranging from £1,500 to £11,000 (?!).
I haven’t felt it necessary to do anything with the interior, it’s wearing very well. I recently had to have the heater box replaced as it suffered the dreaded “cold feet / no blower output to footwell vents” fault. Of course it’s not just “cold feet” in the winter, it’s no blower output either hot or cold to the foot vents. You’d be surprised just how cold the footwells get with no heat going into them, it’s like driving with your feet in a fridge. I did some initial simple testing and came to the conclusion that it was either an internal actuator or faulty blend valve in the box itself, confirmed correct diagnosis by the dealer. The job is a major pain, as the only way to replace the heater box is to completely and totally strip out the whole dash down to the bare bulkhead. The box assembly itself is inexpensive, but the dealer book time for the job is twelve hours (more than an engine swap). I cannot fault the supplying dealer for their help with this, they actually spent four days on it but only charged me the book time. I got them to put a matrix in as well just to future proof the job a bit more. Out of interest the dealer tells me that of all the vehicle systems the heater is the penultimate one to shut down in the event of loss of volts or engine power – it is regarded as an essential vehicle system.
Part of my reasoning to go to all this effort to refurb the van is that even taking all of the above spend into account it is not one quarter of the cost to buy a new equivalent one in 2020. The van does not feel its age at all. I look after my stuff and find things usually last ok, plus I don’t like the disposable product mindset that so many companies – particularly vehicle manufacturers – try to peddle along with the twisted suck-you-in-for-life PCP finance deals etc.
Those Sprinter-Forum readers with very long memories may remember the dark green T1N 416 I previously bought new in late 1999 and sold to a friend after nine years. Well, I still see that van from time to time and in fact the friend has now owned it longer than I did. To date that 903 T1N has now covered +/- 1,300,000 miles.
