Before I can tell you about the new van (aka Sexy Beast), I feel like I should explain why the Original Beast had to go.
Maybe somebody can learn from our mistakes.
You people know me. I research things to death before we ever make a purchase. Especially when it comes to cars. So it was incredibly frustrating to have this purchase go so awry.
We decided we wanted a Sprinter for several reasons. We knew people who had a passenger Sprinter and loved it. It had a great turning radius. The diesel engine got fantastic mileage, something that matters when you’re driving a 3 ton machine. And, well, to be honest, we knew we DIDN’T want a Chevy or a Ford.
The Beast was a 2006 Sprinter. This was the year that Sprinters became Mercedes vehicles instead of Dodge vehicles. This meant it was a smorgasbord of Dodge parts with a Mercedes engine. The van we purchased was a cargo van that was converted to hold passengers.
These are important details, trust me.
If you remember, when we first got the Beast, it almost immediately ceased to work.
Our biggest problem was finding someone to fix it. Because it was a 2006, the Dodge dealership wouldn’t work on it and the Mercedes people claimed they couldn’t work on it either. Our favorite mechanic fired us after several tries, telling us he just plain didn’t know what to do with the thing. Mechanic-shopping meant that for the first few months we owned our van, we drove it less than half that time.
Eventually, we found a great place to get it serviced where their British mechanic was more familiar with Sprinters. It was still a bit of a question mark because of the specific year of our van, but they at least had the resources available to solve our problems.
Even after the Beast was considered “in working order,” we didn’t exactly trust it. There was a mysterious leak that required us to fill up with coolant almost every day. The air conditioner in the back was hit or miss. There seemed to be some water coming in the back from an unknown source. We just felt a bit uneasy any time we drove it.
Added to that, the front of the van was still very much like a FedEx truck. Andrew and I sat right over the engine on uncomfortable seats. We couldn’t hear anything over the noise (which was sometimes nice) and during my pregnancy I couldn’t ride in the Beast without having contractions from all the bumps. There were no bells or whistles up front and without cruise control, a trip in the Beast was exhausting for the grown-ups.
Now the back of the van was a different story.
The kids had plush leather seats, extra lighting, and a great center aisle. I loved that center aisle. The issue with the back was that it had been converted by an unknown company. Any service place we took it to wouldn’t touch the back half because they said it was “custom” work and they couldn’t fix it. The rear air conditioner? Unfixable. The seat belt issue with one of the seats? Had to be fixed by Andrew. If the rope lights didn’t work? Nobody would touch it.
The wear and tear to our mental state of mind simply ceased to be worth it and we gave up. The Beast has a new home and we couldn’t be more thrilled about it.
Our experience with the Sprinter taught us a few tips I’ll pass on to you:
1- Find a mechanic who is familiar with Sprinters, not just European engines. These vans are quirky and it’s helpful to know somebody who understands the quirks. Andrew does a lot of our car work here at home, but the diesel engine was unfamiliar territory and he had no one to teach him. (Worse still, our 2006 van came with NO manual and there wasn’t one available on line.)
2 – Don’t purchase a converted van. This holds true for whatever type of van you buy. Unless you know where the conversion was done and you don’t mind taking your van to them any time something in the back seat breaks, don’t bother with a conversion. It was too much trouble to sort out who was responsible for which parts of the van when all we really wanted was for everything to work as it should.
My understanding is that the passenger Sprinters that were actually intended for passengers are really great. And the gas mileage was absolutely fantastic. I loved the height and the extra cargo space. Furthermore, I already miss the power that the roaring engine in the Sprinter gave us.
But it wasn’t the van for our family.
R.I.P. BEAST.
Now that we have that out of the way, I’ll write up a review soon about the van that IS for us…
Now I’m super curious to know what you purchased! When expecting our sixth, we went with a 15 passenger Chevy Express. It’s a big old beater van and the best thing about it is that it fits our family. I remind myself often that I won’t be driving it forever.
So tell us soon, please! 🙂
Rebecca – It’s in the works. Hopefully soon. We got a Nissan NV.
We will be a family of 7 ( in 4 days) and have been looking at the Nissan nv V6 also. My biggest worry is they don’t come in leather, which can be a nightmare to clean with small kids sloshing who knows what back there. How do your cloth seats hold up? Also we are considering placing a DVD player in it post factory for the long trips. Have you looked into this at all?
P.S. best review I’ve read on the NV on the ENTIRE INTERNET!! Nice job. Thanks.
Floriano – They do offer a leather option, but it’s the next level up from ours. And I think it is only an option WITH a V8. Thus far, it’s holding up fine for us. Since the vans were originally intended for commercial use, the cloth is pretty sturdy stuff. I would have preferred leather, too, but I think this is going to be just fine. As far as the DVD player, I know that my dealer is certainly able to do it (post-factory, of course) because he showed us one he had converted that included a really nice system. You’d want to get a fairly large screen just because the van goes pretty far back, but it runs quiet enough that I think everyone would be able to hear just fine. We’ve definitely talked about that option as well. 🙂 Glad you liked the review and congrats on number 7!
Thank you. Just bought the NV today. A Silver SV probably same as yours. It is at the Audio/Visual guy’s shop now getting the Tech package (they didn’t have one with it), and DVD system installed for 3K. They figured out you would need 2 drop down DVD screens to cover all the people. Also they cannot place them in the headrests as they are very atypically small headrests and there are no screen that can fit. We realized that we would need to remove the middle headrests on rows 2 and 3 for better visual fields during movie watching. Also there should be a template to fit the seats on the NV for leather or Vinyl in the next 3-6 months. Take care.
Floriano – Thanks for providing that info about the DVD player. I know that will be helpful for other readers and I’m going to start saving for that package. Enjoy your new van!
We have nine children and live in Nashville. We have sold our Sprinter and are moving onto greener pastures with the NV. Did you get the high roof?
Cherie
Cherie – Congrats! Welcome to the club! No, we didn’t. If you really want to repeat your sprinter experience, you would need the high roof but we were fine without it. It feels a lot more like an SUV without the high roof.
There have NEVER been any Dodge parts in any Sprinter van. They were all built in German by Daimler, partly disassembled and then reassembled in the US. Yours was a conversion van that someone outfitted as a passenger van. Poorly, it seems.
Also, vans were not branded outwardly as Mercedes until 2010 after Chryseler-Daimler split and the Dodge contracts were up.
I also own a 2006 cargo sprinter. It’s been an incredibly economical and useful vehicle. First thing, ALL SPRINTERS ARE BUILT BY MERCEDES BENZ and in 2006 were sold by Dodge and Freightliner dealers in the US. Second thing YOUR 2006 SPRINTER COULD BE SERVICED BY ANY Dodge, Freightliner or Mercedes dealership. I don’t believe that any Dodge or Mercedes dealer would refuse to work on your van, as I’ve had mine happily serviced by Dodge, Mercedes, and Freightliner dealers. My van is not any noisier or bumpier than a normal van and they all came with cruise control, which is what that little stick on the left is above the turn signal…. Your coolant leak should have been taken care of under warranty. So I have to say that I find this story a bit questionable….
Hate to say it but I agree with Mike. It’s an awesome vehicle. Your story sounds very weird…
I agree with Mike and Eran. For someone who claims to do research, there were many inaccuracies about the 2006 model year Sprinters. For one thing, the Daimler-Chrysler divorce didn’t happen until 2010.
I intentionally looked for a low mile 2006 Sprinter to replace my 2004. My 2004 with 307,000 miles is fine mechanically. The body rust is the problem. I now own a 2004 and 2006 (147,000 miles) because I won’t get much for the 2004 and it still runs great.
Not everything which is published on the internet is well researched.
Cheers.