Why have vans changed so little since the 1980s?

>Also what's with the white?

Because most vans are commercial vehicles. They are not built to be glamorous, so their design can stagnate with little repercussions to the manufactures.

VW a shit.

US vans a shit

The thing is, styling sells cars but it doesn't sell vans because vans aren't here to look neat and impress your neighbours.
Similarly, construction engines of all sort still look pretty similar to what they were 30 years ago.

Japan vans a shit weeb.

I'm going to be living in a van out of necessity.

What should I get?

Looks like a v8 ford e2 or 350 is the obvious choice, but I'm also eyeing astros.

Don't want/cant afford a sprinter.

People say gmc vans, cause they get better mileage? Is that true?

>Because most vans are commercial vehicles. They are not built to be glamorous, so their design can stagnate with little repercussions to the manufactures.
Then wtf happened to trucks?

The company I work for has a small fleet of astro vans. I can say that Astro vans are fairly easy to work on, once you get used to pulling the front of the van to work on it.

We have 4 vans. One has a swapped 350. It has constant overheating issues and is uncomfortable to drive because the access port under the dash heatsoaks.

the 87 and 88 we have, have both through about 3 trannys a piece. For any van you get, as soon as it starts slipping(And it will, regardless of brand) I suggest getting it rebuilt by professionals that have lots of experience in building drag transmissions. They'll know the weak points a lot more than your average shop, and will built them to where under normal driving, they'll never break again. It's expensive, but depending on how much you plan on driving the van, it might be worth it.

The 4.3L make good torque, but are pretty slow. But it's a van? And get shit gas mileage. The Single port injected ones get about 14mpg, and the 90s get a little big better at about 18mpg.

The biggest problem I've noticed is tires. and brakes. On long downhills, and consistent drives, the brakes fade a lot more than the average car.

In addition, surprisingly, the ability to put down power. As in any car, tires are important. The fronts wear on the edges, and the back wear in the middle. I got kuhmos on my van, and I wish my boss wouldn't cheap out so much on tires.

Astro vans also got a few issues with the doors. As on all gm's with veritcal exterior door handles, they will break off over times. I'm on my 6th on the drivers door, and my 3rd on the passenger.

The back latch on the sliding door will fail.

My friend has a newer chevy express. Front what we talk about, they're pretty much the same in everyway. GM doesn't seem to change very much. Except his has the V8, and is a bigger van. He talks about the same thing, ability to put down power with cheap tires on steep inclines, and tires rolling on the sidewall.

>door handles for the astro
Hahahahahahaha

I've replaced all of mine with the $30 metal ones from carquest.

After my drivers door handle broke in the middle of winter I went through and did them all as soon as spring hit.
>Was consistently in the -'s that week and I broke almost every plastic tab on the door cover

Yup, I still break the metal ones lol. At my show we carry a stash of emergency handles.

All the panels in my van have been removed except for in the front, which... are held on by wood screws lol.

Astros were never meant to go 400k miles

>what's with the white
There's no way you can doubt that white is the most popular colour for work vans. No way.

I'm curious to this question, too.

crash safety?

In the US Chevrolet is the only company that still makes a classic "van". Everybody else has ditched them (along with quite a few of the minivans) for things like the Transit or the Dodge Tradesman. Basically European vans. They're better in some ways and worse in others. Not everyone will agree with me but I think the jury is still out. I haven't decided yet whether our 2015 Transit is going to be a better vehicle than the 2006 E-150 it replaced.

It's the same with all fleet vehicles. They're all pretty much the same color white.

It's because they can just park 1200 vehicles in a warehouse, and just light off 80 white paint grenades and be done with it. instead of painting every single one individually.

Or you know, White is the color the dealer buys, so when companies buy them off the lot, w/e

Why doesn't the Mercedes Sprinter and other vans have a market share in the US/Canada? I have literally never seen one in North America and they are fucking EVERYWHERE in Europe / Asia.

A week after buying my Safari I broke the rear handle on the hatch half doors.

Winter time hit and I broke the driver door handle. That royally pissed me off.

Tbqh Astro's were never meant to go past 150k. Maybe the 4.3 and rear end, but that's about it.

Kink the latch rods if you're still breaking the metal ones. After shortening the latch rod on the rear door it opens with ease.

Kind of want to do a rear mount turbo on my Safari but I'm not sure the front end and t-case will take it. Guy brought one into the shop my friend worked at. 4l80e and a gu8 rear end.

There are quite a few Sprinters in the US. The majority of them were branded as Dodge Sprinters during the Daimler-Chrysler years because Mercedes didn't want to sell anything besides luxury cars in the US. And now a lot of Sprinters being sold have a Freightliner badge on them since they are owned by Daimler.

Wow that makes a lot of sense. so those old Dodge Sprinters have Mercedes interiors?

I've always liked pepsifag. Good on you, tripnigga.

White is the cheapest color to produce, you have to add color to make paint not white.

My dad and uncle are both floor covering installers and they've gone through a bunch of vans. The Ford ones seem to shit the bed mechanically before the Chevy/GMC ones, but the rest of the van holds up better. Lots of broken door handles and stuff on the Chevys. The Fords all make it to like 175k at least before they blow though, but I've seen them with Chevys up to 250k miles without a real problem.

The Chevys are faster too, especially the ones with the Vortec 6200. We dragged two empty vans, a Savanah with the 6.2L Vortec and an E150 with the 5.4L Triton, wasn't even close.

Dodge vans have shit transmissions but god-tier engine reliability.

Yeah, my dad had a Dodge Sprinter 3500 right when they started selling them in the US and it had a Mercedes 5cyl diesel engine and tons of parts had the Merc star on it. All of the glass in the windows had Mercedes logos on them. Same exact van, but like I said Mercedes dealers in the US aren't trying to sell work vans to painters next to their $80,000 sedans.

I think that's the same with the Merc A-Class like pic related, it wasn't sold in the US. And in other parts of the world they sell lower trims of Mercs and BMWs than in the US because they want to maintain the luxury brand. The lowest S-Class you can get in the US (and for like the past 5 or 10 years) has been the S550 while you can get S350s or whatever smaller engine and less exclusive package they make many other places in the world. E90 BMW 3-Series, 328's were the lowest trim model for some years and I think Yuros were getting 320s and whatever at the same time.

i see tons of them here in MB...lots of germanic types who like the Mercedes nameplate, and they're fucking huge inside for carrying all sorts of stuff (you can hang uniforms up on racks without having to fold the pants/coverall legs up, for example)

Mercedes is a little different up there. They sold those ugly A-Classes there. I saw one for the first time a couple years ago and it had Ontario plates.

They do sell the Sprinters in the US with Mercedes badges on them, but they are far less common than the Dodge and Freightliner branded ones. Not sure how they go about selling the exact same thing through two different dealer networks.

Trucks have their place in the commercial world as well, but there are jobs that a pickup truck is not the best vehicle for it.
>securing tools at a work-site
>deliveries that need to stay dry/climate controlled
>hauling materials that can be damaged or ruined if it gets wet

Now you could say that putting a cap on a pickup will solve this, but not really all that well.
>caps have large windows and are not as secured as a panel van
>no climate control

Man I just moved a couple weeks ago and there is dude at the end of my block with a Ram pickup. It's a corner house and he parks it on the side of the house so it is under trees and not in the sun. He always has this Milwaukee miter saw sitting in the bed and that fucker is just asking to get thrown in my car.

Do it, Pepsi.

Post results.

If you steal it, everyone will know it was you.
If you don't steal it, someone else will.
If someone else steals it, you will still get blamed.

Nice dilemma you have there.

you gotta suppress those negro instincts, man.