3 ms·

Europe soils the US market with unworkable work vans. The US soils the European market with absurd SUVs. Seems fair to me. (joking, but also very much not jo

Europe soils the US market with unworkable work vans. The US soils the European market with absurd SUVs. Seems fair to me. (joking, but also very much not joking)

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
Aeolun 1y ago
What’s unworkable about those work vans? Clearly people like them enough to buy em.
- jackyinger 1y ago
  Guessing it’s a joke that as many end up as campers as in working roles.
- ranger_danger 1y ago
  I assume they're referring to the Sprinter, which is not only very unreliable but extremely difficult/expensive/annoying to work on.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    The Promaster (Fiat Du-whatever) is just as bad as the Sprinter. The Transit is basically doing a best effort at making the same but not sucking and they go, ok, but just ok. Like don't get me wrong, they all do the "bod on wheels" thing fine but if you're not some high end airport shuttle service turning your leased fleet over on a rolling 3yr basis so you can "look sharp" they fucking crush you with maintenance and the TCO winds up being shit. And in more "serious" service they suffer a ton more downtime and cost because the little employee driver oopsies that formerly had a 1/500 conversion ratio into downtime now have like a 1/100 ratio on these lighter vehicle platforms, but the CAFE number goes and what are you gonna do, not buy? So the OEMs don't care. The American OEMS tried these family of designs in the 70s-90s and went BACK to more traditional designs because they just kinda sucked at the margin. Ironically the mini versions of these (Transit Connect, Nissan NV200 or whatever they called it) that they started importing around the same time were actually pretty cool because they were filling an otherwise unfilled market niche.
- cmxch 1y ago
  They’re closer to golf carts than actual “work vans”, especially when stepping down from the GM and pre-global E-series Ford vans.

Europe soils the US market with unworkable work vans. The US soils the European market with absurd SUVs. Seems fair to me. (joking, but also very much not joking)

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

Aeolun 1y ago

What’s unworkable about those work vans? Clearly people like them enough to buy em.

jackyinger 1y ago
Guessing it’s a joke that as many end up as campers as in working roles.
ranger_danger 1y ago
I assume they're referring to the Sprinter, which is not only very unreliable but extremely difficult/expensive/annoying to work on.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  The Promaster (Fiat Du-whatever) is just as bad as the Sprinter. The Transit is basically doing a best effort at making the same but not sucking and they go, ok, but just ok. Like don't get me wrong, they all do the "bod on wheels" thing fine but if you're not some high end airport shuttle service turning your leased fleet over on a rolling 3yr basis so you can "look sharp" they fucking crush you with maintenance and the TCO winds up being shit. And in more "serious" service they suffer a ton more downtime and cost because the little employee driver oopsies that formerly had a 1/500 conversion ratio into downtime now have like a 1/100 ratio on these lighter vehicle platforms, but the CAFE number goes and what are you gonna do, not buy? So the OEMs don't care. The American OEMS tried these family of designs in the 70s-90s and went BACK to more traditional designs because they just kinda sucked at the margin. Ironically the mini versions of these (Transit Connect, Nissan NV200 or whatever they called it) that they started importing around the same time were actually pretty cool because they were filling an otherwise unfilled market niche.
cmxch 1y ago
They’re closer to golf carts than actual “work vans”, especially when stepping down from the GM and pre-global E-series Ford vans.