Tag Archives: Mercedes Sprinter

Van Innovation Fuels Savings For Lenham Storage

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With fuel prices looking likely to remain at record highs, it’s no surprise that forward-looking transport companies are increasingly keen to try out new technologies that promise to deliver significant fuel savings.

One such company is Lenham Storage, which has more than 260 vehicles based at its depots in Maidstone and Andover. The company operates across the weight range, from 3.5t to 44t and is keen to save fuel and cut emissions wherever possible.

One of its latest trials is of this Mercedes-Benz Sprinter luton, which has an aerodynamic Bevan ICON Luton body.

Lenham Storage Mercedes-Benz Sprinter Luton with Bevan ICON body

Lenham Storage's Mercedes-Benz Sprinter Luton with Bevan ICON body

This futuristic body continues to provide a payload of more than 1,200kg but offers the potential for “significantly improved fuel economy”, according to the manufacturer.

Lenham Storage Managing Director Keith Abrehart agrees, commenting:

“Additionally we operate a Sprinter fitted with a futuristic aerodynamic Bevan ICON Luton body; this too is showing valuable savings over and above a traditional bodied vehicle.”

Higher up the weight range, Lenham is trialling the first 12-tonne Atego Hybrid in the UK and after twelve months’ use, the firm is seeing fuel savings of around 15%, with CO2 savings to match — an impressive outcome that shows the benefits of hybrid drivetrains in urban environments; the Atego normally operates in central London.

Lenham is also trialling 14.6m and 15.65m tri-axle trailers with rear steer as part of the Department for Transport’s Longer Semi-Trailers trial.

Mercedes Celebrates 105 Years of Four-Wheel Drive

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It’s been 105 years since Mercedes-Benz introduced the first commercially-available 4×4. Since then, it’s produced some superb 4×4 commercial vehicles, including the legendary Unimog.

In 1907, four-wheel drive was virtually unheard of and certainly not a standard production option — until Mercedes-Benz (or Daimler-Motoren-Gessellschaft, as it was then) introduced the Dernburg-Wagen, the world’s first commercially-available four-wheel drive vehicle.

Not only did it have four-wheel drive, it also had four-wheel steering, something that’s still considered high-tech (if a little eccentric) today. With ground clearance of 32-centimetres and a 6.8-litre, four-cylinder engine developing a modest 35 hp at 800 rpm, the Dernburg-Wagen was a serious piece of kit and could carry five passengers. Solid steel wheels wrapped in pneumatic tyres helped protect the drum brakes from debris.

Since then, Mercedes has produced a succession of superb four-wheel drive vehicles, many of which are aimed at the commercial market. Let’s take a pictorial look down memory lane at some of the finest 4x4s ever made:

Mercedes-Benz Dernburg Wagen - first ever four-wheel drive vehicle

This is how it all started. The Dernburg-Wagen was the first commercially-available 4x4 model when it was introduced in 1907.

An early Mercedes-Benz Unimog

Early versions of the Unimog were somewhat agricultural in terms of creature comforts, but their off-road abilities, pulling power and toughness were never in question.

Mercedes-Benz Unimog

The Unimog soon got bigger and better...

Mercedes Unimog towing trailer with 32-tonne lorry

Don't make the mistake of thinking that the Unimog is just an overgrown pickup -- it's not, as this picture of it pulling a 32-tonne tipper shows.

Mercedes-Benz Unimog

The latest Unimog is more capable and technically-advanced than ever, but they still haven't ditched that orange paint!

Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 4x4

White van man's ultimate ride? The Sprinter 4x4 is surprisingly capable off road and doesn't sacrifice any of the practicality of the standard van. I want one...

Fuso Canter 4x4

Merc's adopted Japanese cousin hasn't been left out either. The Fuso Canter was already a great workhorse, and the recent addition of a 4x4 option made it even better.

Mercedes-Benz Zetros

Finally, for when a Unimog simply isn't enough... The Mercedes-Benz Zetros is even bigger and more awesome. It offers gross weights of up to 27t combined with genuine off-road ability.

What’s your all-time favourite 4×4? Leave a comment below and let me know.

Hilton Rental Adds Sprinter To Hire Fleet

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Bishops Stortford-based van hire company Hilton Rental has added a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter luton van to its rental fleet.

vanrental.co.uk advertiser Hilton Rental has just added its first Mercedes Sprinter to its fleet. The van in question is a 313CDi luton conversion on a long wheelbase. The comprehensive specification includes a Ratcliff Palfinger 500kg tail lift and is proving popular with private customers who are moving house, according to Adam Sydes, Hilton’s vehicle rental manager.

The latest Sprinters benefit from Euro 5 engines and the current 313CDi is 15% — or 4.5mpg — more efficient than the previous model.

Hilton Rental is based in Bishops Stortford and also serves Stansted Airport; its comprehensive range of cars and vans meets most rental requirements.

Remember: If you would like to promote your van or minibus hire company on vanrental.co.uk, take a look at our advertising options.

Sprinter Takes Fleet Van Award For 7th Year

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Mercedes-Benz Sprinter

The Mercedes Sprinter has won the Motor Transport Fleet Van of the Year award for seven years running.

The Mercedes Sprinter is a favourite of mine and is beloved of courier companies and other demanding van users throughout Europe.

Its status as the ultimate fleet van was confirmed once again on the 13th June at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London, when it won the Motor Transport Fleet Van Of The Year Award for the seventh consecutive year.

The awards are judged by the readers of Motor Transport magazine and so provide an accurate representation of what real van users think of their vehicles.

The Sprinter was praised for ticking so many proverbial boxes for the selection panel, including long service intervals, good fuel economy, strong residual values and offering a wide range of weights and Euro-5 engines.

In addition, the large panel van was rewarded for being backed by an excellent dedicated Commercial Vehicle dealer network and unrivalled reliability.

Steve Bridge, Van Sales & Marketing Director at Mercedes-Benz UK, collected the award and said of the win:

“This is an outstanding achievement to add to an already long list of award wins for the ever-ready Sprinter. The fact that the final judging for the awards was decided by a panel of readers, who are using these vehicles day-in, day-out, is a testament to the genuine affection there is for this tough workhorse.”

“Having a team of dedicated specialists working within both the Mercedes-Benz van team and the dealer network, means that our products and services deliver our customers a first class ownership experience. It’s an honour to receive this award and we value and take pride in each and every one of them”.

Van News: FN50 Most Reliable Vans & ACFO Van Awards

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Volkswagen Vans - group shot of Caddy, Crafter and Transporter

Volkswagen was voted overall most reliable van manufacturer - its Caddy and Transporter vans were in the top five, while the Crafter placed sixth.

Mercedes & Volkswagen Win Van Reliability Awards

The Mercedes-Benz Sprinter was voted Britain’s most reliable van in the latest Fleet News FN50 reliability survey, taking top spot from last year’s winner, the Ford Transit.

The FN50 reliability survey polls the UK’s top 50 leasing companies by fleet size to find out their views on manufacturer and model reliability.

However, Volkswagen was voted the most reliable van manufacturer overall – two of its models (Caddy and Transporter) were in the top five, with the Crafter coming close behind in sixth place. Only one Mercedes-Benz model – the Sprinter – was in the top five; the other two places were occupied by the Ford Transit and Transit Connect.

Although some Transit models are built in the UK (in Southampton), no other British-built vans came close to winning an award – Vauxhall, which builds its popular Vivaro van in Luton, did not even feature in the top five most reliable van manufacturers.

Two British-built cars, the Nissan Qashqai ( built in Sunderland) and the Toyota Avensis (built in Burnaston, near Derby) did make it into the top ten most reliable cars, ranking sixth and fifth respectively.

Ford Transit Triumphs at ACFO Awards

Ford won both the Large Van and Small Van awards at this year’s Association of Car Fleet Operators Awards (ACFO). The Transit managed to displace last year’s winner in the Large Van of the Year category, the Mercedes Sprinter, and return to top position for the 15th time in this history of the awards.

The Transit Connect won the Small Van category for the ninth consecutive year – rounding out an impressive night for Ford, in which they won four out of the seven available awards. In addition to the Small and Large Van Awards, the Focus won the Fleet Car of the Year and was also awarded the Fleet Safety Initiative of the Year award for its Ford Focus Driver Assistance Pack option, which is a £750 option on the Focus and includes an impressive range of safety features:

Traffic sign recognition, which uses a forward-facing camera behind the rear view mirror to scan
the roadside for speed limit signs and flashes up helpful reminders on the dash so drivers always
know the speed limit; lane keeping aid; lane departure warning; auto high beam; blind spot alert;
driver alert if sensors detect erratic driving; and Active City Stop, which monitors the road ahead
and brakes the car automatically if a collision is imminent.

Awards also went to BMW (Environmental Initiative of the Year – BMW Efficient Dynamics) and Volkswagen (Green Car of the Year – VW Golf BlueMotion).

Van Models Guide Part 4: Large Panel Vans

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So far in this series, we’ve looked at small vans, medium vans and luton vans.

In this article, I’m going to take a look at another type of van – long wheelbase and extra-long wheelbase panel vans.

Extra-long wheelbase panel vans

Two popular XLWB vans - the Iveco Daily and the Mercedes Sprinter. Note the long tail overhang - this is a characteristic of extra-long vans. Each of these vehicles is about 7m long

These are the vans you are mostly likely to see driven by couriers (usually Mercedes-Benz Sprinters) but they are also favoured by van rental companies and tradesmen who need large vans that can be driven on a car licence.

Large Panel Vans: LWB vs. XLWB

First of all, it is important to understand that LWB (long wheelbase) is not the same as XLWB (extra-long wheelbase).

These are the most popular long and extra-long wheelbase vans used by UK van hire companies:

  1. Ford Transit (Ford calls the extra-long Transit the ‘Jumbo’)
  2. Renault Master
  3. Mercedes-Benz Sprinter / Volkswagen Crafter (these are the same van with different badges and engines)
  4. Iveco Daily

Each of these has slightly different dimensions, but this is approximately what you will get:

Model Vehicle length Load length Typical payload
Long wheelbase Approx. 6m 3.4m-3.5m 1000kg – 1400kg
Extra-long wheelbase Approx. 7m 4.1m-4.5m 900kg – 1,300kg

(By way of comparison, a typical medium panel van (short wheelbase) is 5m long with a load length of approximately 2.4m.)

It is also worth noting that that LWB and XLWB vans usually come in both high and extra-high roof models – obviously a higher roof provides a greater cubic capacity inside but does not increase the van’s maximum load weight. Just because you can fit more in does not mean it is legal to do so.

Take care when loading your van to keep the heaviest objects low down to help stability and prevent things shifting or getting damaged while you are driving.

Large vans that have been overloaded are an increasingly common problem and the police are very wise to this. Overloading is an offence and the driver is always responsible – ignorance is no excuse.

Disclaimer:

Please remember that van payloads and dimensions all vary slightly between different makes and models of van. If you need to know the exact dimensions or payload of the van you are hiring, you will need to speak to the company concerned when making your booking or when collecting the van. Do not use the figures on this page as a guideline – they are intended as an approximate illustration only.

It is standard practice in the car and van hire industry to specify a ‘typical’ model when customers make bookings – this won’t necessarily be the exact make or model you get. Usually, this doesn’t matter, but it can do if space or weight is tight.

Staffordshire Fire Service Finds Sprinters Highly Effective

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The last year has seen several fire and rescue services around the UK take delivery of specially-equipped Mercedes Sprinter vans.

My local fire station (in North Yorkshire) has one, and Staffordshire Fire & Rescue service has recently taken delivery of two further Targeted Response Vehicles (TRV), as they are known.

Mercedes Sprinter TRV
Mercedes Sprinter TRV

The vehicles carry 800 litres of water and are specially equipped to deal with small fires such as grass and bin fires.

According to Staffordshire Fire & Rescue Service Chief Fire Officer Peter Dartford, the TRVs have been extremely successful at dealing with such incidents. “Unfortunately a large proportion of fires we attend to now are small, deliberately started fires – this new vehicle has been purposely designed to deal with these types of incidents, particularly as it can get to areas where a normal fire appliance wouldn’t be able to access.”

These latest two vehicles were ordered following the success of Staffordshire’s first TRV, based at Stoke-on-Trent which dealt with 346 incidents during its first six months in service, in 2007. This freed up larger, traditional fire appliances to attend more serious incidents and improved the fire service’s ability to access difficult or remote locations.

Update: Avon Fire & Rescue Service are also using Mercedes Sprinters – but in a completely different way, creating smaller conventional fire appliances from crew-cabbed Sprinter chassis with custom-built bodies. Click here for the full story.

Americans Falling In Love With Great Euro Vans

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More evidence (as if evidence were needed) that the quality and flexibility of European vans is making its mark across the pond.

US car magazine Winding Road has just voted the Dodge Sprinter (a rebadged version of the Mercedes Sprinter) to be one of their ‘Dynamic Dozen’ – their reviewers’ 12 favourite vehicles of 2008.

The other eleven are a diverse mixture of cars but the Sprinter makes it into the top 12 too. Winding Road’s Steven J. Ewing says that “we’re hard pressed to think of things the Sprinter can’t do” and describes it as “easy to live with”, “quite fun to drive” and “versatile”.

Ford Transit Connect SWBFord is hoping to eclipse the success of the Sprinter when it introduces the Transit Connect to the US market later this year. To try and raise awareness of and desire for its capacious, car-sized van, Ford has given away five Connects to small business owners in the US.

The businesses selected include a CPR instructor, dog car company and a kayak company. It will be interesting to see if the Transit Connect takes off in the US – it is a great van, but it is small by American standards and unfortunately won’t benefit from the torquey, modern diesels we get in Europe (thanks to US emissions standards for diesels).

On a completely unrelated but still transatlantic note, it seems that in America, car companies get fined for not meeting fuel efficiency targets. Under CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency) rules, financial penalties result if you sell too many gas guzzlers.

2007 saw Mercedes receive a whopping $30m fine, while Volkswagen was fined $4.5m and Porsche $1.2m. Ouch. Although I suppose it isn’t a huge amount when offset against their profits (or motorsport budgets…).

Green Van Hire Gets ‘Easy’ with Northgate Vehicle Hire

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Reducing fuel consumption and carbon emissions are undoubtedly the big issues of the moment for most van owners.

While motorway warriors might already enjoy decent mpg figures, historically it has never been so easy for vans used on urban work to reduce their fuel consumption. Idling time – whether at traffic lights or in queues – wastes terrific amounts of fuel.

The Mercedes-Benz ECO-Start system is designed to address this and one of the first vehicles to benefit from it is the company’s award-winning new Sprinter range. ECO-Start is now being fitted as standard to all 4-cylinder, manual Sprinters and it has now made its way into the rental market, courtesy of leading van hire company Northgate Vehicle Hire.

The Northgate name might not be familiar to you, but one of the companies they supply with hire vehicles is easyVan – and the new ECO-Start Sprinters are being trialled at three easyVan branch locations.

The trial locations are:

Mercedes state that the ECO-Start system can reduce fuel consumption by up to 10% – but trials in Commercial Motor and Motor Transport magazines have produced far bigger savings – of up to 30%, according to BigLorryBlog (penned by Commercial Motor editor Brian Weatherley).

I expect that the ECO-Start system will be a big hit with fleet and rental buyers – once it proves its long-term reliability and van drivers get used to the idea of the engine stopping and starting on its own! If you’re keen to try one out, then get in touch with one of the Northgate branches listed above or head over to your nearest Mercedes-Benz van dealer for a test drive.

Heavy Panel Van Buyers Guide

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The ever-useful Fleet News website has now published its illustrated Heavy Panel Van Buyers Guide – to complete the trio it started with the earlier Small and Medium Panel Van Buyers Guides.

The category ‘heavy panel vans’ includes all van manufacturers offering at least a 3.5 tonne top weight model, although some models can be rated at much higher rates.

The vans covered by the guide are:

  • Citroen Relay
  • Fiat Ducato (basically the same vehicle as the Citroen, badged differently)
  • Ford Transit
  • Iveco Daily
  • LDV Maxus
  • Mercedes-Benz Sprinter

You can see the full guide here.