Advantage/disadvantage Mercedes Benz diesel

[lincoln30]

Carrying/tow capacity, handling, etc

On all brands class C's

[rough road]

I can only comment on the '04 Sprinter we had the orignial inline 5 cylinder a work of art in every respect with the single rears we could get in the upper 20's, usually 28mpg or so, in the 50k miles we put on it there was not a drop of oil used between the 4k changes I did with syn oil. But hook up even a small utility trailer and the mileage took a nosedive to 16 or so. The highest ever obtained was 31 BUT, we lost the blower as were were passing Detroit, and as a result it was a very, very long trip home; probably averaged 40 mph and there were many hills that I was surprised we made it over. Its amazing what the turbo adds to performance.
Those mileage numbers were always calculated by filling to a visual level in the filler neck.

As far as the Leisure Travel Conversion, ok but not great; some workmanship was pretty dicey.

From what I hear as soon as you add the dual rears you're into the high teens to very low 20's and when MB went to the V6 the mileage lost another 2 or so .

Generally speaking you really have to watch the occ numbers with these, I think with the LTV we had 1200lbs or so but that was the very rare exception. For example the Coach House on the Sprinter chasis is in the 500lb occ or so I am told. As a general rule plan on the chasis being maxed out completely if you are -lucky-.

Find the I5 and if you don't mind driving at modest but dignified velocities you will be very please with the engine if it was taken care of.

[ahrma175]

I owned a 2002 Sprinter for 8 years for hauling race bikes plus pulling a 27' TT the last year I had it. I spent a lot of time on the Sprinter forums-
Sprinter - Sprinter-Forum Concerning the I-5 engine, aka T1N, go into the database section, "Inspection tips for buying a used T1N"
Inspection tips for buying a used Sprinter T1N - Sprinter-Forum Read all, but especially "Injector hold down failure and black death leakage." Click the link for that subject. The author,Doctor A, is the Sprinter guru. Sometimes he knows more about the Sprinter than MB does.

[rough road]

ahrma, I also spent some time on the Sprinter forum, was a good site. As I recall many were posting about the dreaded transmission rumble, if ours had it we never noticed the issue. Perhaps we were the exception but the I 5 was the finest engine we have ever owned. The only problems we had was the steering hydraulic cylinder went, $1,200 and as, mentioned we lost the blower ; turned out to be the vacuum control for the turbo failed-both of these were covered under warranty.

The only issue I have heard of with the year you had was with the brakes, and as I understand the problem was solved when MB went with larger wheels.

Ours was one amazing van, oil analysis always came back with metal wear levels so low that the lab would comment on what an exceptional engine it was.