Buying advice for a Transit sized van

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Thu 3 Jan 2008 20:49
Buying advice for a Transit sized van - rOundel
Can anyone advise on buying a van? I need transit sized workhorse rugged enough not to fall apart on tracks, yet economical to run? Wheres the best place to buy second hand from ie van supermarket? Is a volkswagen worth the extra money? Any advice welcome

Edited by Pugugly {P} on 03/01/2008 at 22:23

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Thu 3 Jan 2008 21:03
Vans - SuperBuyer
What budget are you looking at?

I've looked after fleets before, and always bought Ford Transits, but the Vivaro is a decent van. But it depends on what budget, what colour, what image really.

Give us a figure, and I'll give you some suggestions!
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Thu 3 Jan 2008 21:07
Vans - rOundel
7-8k Need as good an image as possible, but I get lot of farm tracks!
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Thu 3 Jan 2008 21:41
Vans - SuperBuyer
We run a number of Transits (not the new shape - mostly 03,53 reg) and these rarely have problems - indeed the only expensive problem we've had in the 8months I've been at the company has been a new clutch (DMF) on a lwb pickup (140K on the clock, driven by, ahem, 'lads' - 'fetchers' generally, 18-20 picking stuff up from merchants)

Re the farm tracks - you can get transits that are raised, generally used by the utilities (Central Networks certainly, BT also) - these might be worth a look?

What are you going to be carrying? This will impact on whether a SWB, MWB, LWB hi-roof etc....

You also need to be careful about weights - with the new rules regarding vans over 3.5t being limited etc... I don't profess to be an expert, but you need to consider it!

Other vans to consider are the Vivaro (or any of its brother which I think are Traffic, Relay?), but definitely avoid the LDV vans. All I've read about these are problems! Anyone on here confirm this is true in the field?
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