Yikes! The T6? What was wrong with it?
It was the EGR valve (sort of knew about this, kept having to top up the coolant and it was the most likely culprit) and then a glow plug, but it was the one on the third cylinder that has a sensor and it didn’t want to come out, again pretty common.
I’m trying to persuade my wife to go from SUV to something like a Caravelle, Transporter, Viano or similar but keep hearing what money pits they can be. Are they actually any worse than any other diesel/petrol car?
No. Exactly the same. Just try to make sure you buy a decent one and keep it serviced.
Maybe avoid the AdBlue engines? No personal experience but I have heard of more issues with those than with the earlier ones.
Like anything once it gets a few years old it’s a complete lottery but there are expensive things that routinely seem to fail and there’s no preventative maintenance that makes any difference really.
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Loved ours, and would love another. There’s a good Facebook group detailing which engines are the ones to avoid etc and what to look out for.
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I’ve been lusting after a van for a while, but I often wonder if it would be really annoying as your only car for things like quick trips to the shops, child care/school drop off etc.
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I don’t have a van but even my mid size Volvo I find annoying to go on short trips like that
Would love a little runaround
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Driving the van doesn’t bother me at all, at least not for its vanness, what I find most annoying vs driving the car is its manual gearbox in stop start traffic.
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Could say that about any car. My van has been more reliable over the seven-odd years I’ve owned it than any of the cars I’ve owned before it, including an almost £100k Merc than I bought at a year old. 2016 T6 DSG with the older 140 bhp diesel engine.
Driving a van in town is actually great, even for short trips. You have really good visibility through the big front screen, you sit high up, and it’s a box so it’s easy to position on the road. Delivery drivers use them round town all day with no issues.
You hear about people having more dpf issues when doing lots of short trips that don’t trigger regens. V spendy to fix.
When I had a Transporter this cost me so much I ended up taking it to a place that (illlegally) removed all the insides from the DPF but left the outer casing there so it would still pass a visual inspection for the MOT. It was great after that.
Yeah it was dodgy but the place had like 500 Google reviews saying “it’s illegal but these guys do it really well, would recommend”
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Is that with the newer 150 bhp Adblue engine? Mine does lots of short trips and hasn’t had any issues.
I’m not sure. I’m looking for a van at the mo and these issues are really making me think twice. I’d have to go euro6 as we have a clean air zone
Maybe it’s just not done enough miles for it to get clogged up. But it’s a pretty well known issue but not especially on transporters, just any Euro 5 or 6 diesel I think.
Yeah, more just a diesel issue I think
All cars can have issues, but I’d say vans are no worse. I’m not sure why there seems to be so much internet chatter about it, probably because van owners are more tribal and talk to each other more? Also vans often get irregular use which is a major factor in loads of common issues relating to electrics and fueling etc…
I’d say hopefully you won’t have an issue but when you’re doing your sums just try and have it in there as a contingency really, you might find one that’s already had it changed recently in which case you should be good. I’d read all about this stuff before getting mine so wasn’t too distraught when the EGR valve needed doing.
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I wouldn’t single out vans in particular either. But they mostly tend to come with modern diesel engines that are the source of some pretty big bills.
Yeah the worst hting about vans is that most of them have diesel engines. I thought about getting one of those electric VW things but they look a bit goofy and the range is pretty shite.
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