merc versus vw, VANS advice please

[jonnyboy666]

i've been wanting a van for a long while. hopefully in a few months i'll be in a position to buy something. today i went to the local VW dealer for a little advice, they were helpful but said i needed to spend atleast £10,000 to get something like what i described.

i was thinking maybe around £7,000 , used obviousley

basically i want (in an ideal world) a combi van. transporter, swb, 2 front seats, back seats and windows with atleast one side loading door, preferably then bulk head with the rest having no windows at all.

rarer than i thought apparently.

having been browsing through autotrader just now i searched for VW's first, only about 7 in total came up of the t4's and a 18 t5's, all were quite expensive. then out of interest i searched for merc vito's, the equivalent type and there were 602 and they seemed alot cheaper by comparison.

why is this?

i know vw's hold their value pretty well but i'm surprised the vito's were cheaper and there were more. i personally have driven the older vito and liked it but ideally i'd prefer the transporter. i have heard the vito's are more expensive to service though.

any thoughts or advice would be awsome.

cheers

jon

p.s i generally know bugger all about cars/vans/etc!!

 

[P20]

I'll just sit and watch this one. I fancy a Merc Vito duoliner. Can't help with any advice so i'll loiter

 

[legrandefromage]

vitos rust rust rust.

 

[jonnyboy666]

yeah, i have seen some rusty vito's but have also seen rusty vw's aswel. are either galvanised?

here's a pic of a van i saw in coed y brenin to show you what sort of thing i'm after.

 

[alanf]

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/VW-Transporter-Va ... 7C294%3A50

something like what your looking for?

 

[jonnyboy666]

nice but a little more than i want to pay, preferably didn't want white either, white van man etc. not asking much am i?!

will be looking to buy in around 2-3 months i think aswel, not right away, just trying to be sensible and investigate all the options.

 

[TheGreenRabbit]

Go with the VW, i have a friend (I know you find that hard to belive) who opted for the Vito and regrets it even when he went into the Merc garage the spanner in there said should have got a VW.

 

[legrandefromage]

somebody here has this: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... 0350328997


Going by my VW experience - expensive and niggly annoying faults

 

[alanf]

fussy gett! and as a white van driver I take offence to your comment.......

my van, well not mine but just like it so any more of your lip and your grans lift goes on the fritz :twisted:

 

[jonnyboy666]

so, at the moment it's green versus cheese!!!

more opinions needed!!!

i get the impression from others that merc's can be very expensive to maintain, a mate used to be the rep for giant and had the merc, did have issues but he drove it like a knob and did over 60,000 miles a year. whereas the transporter would be better for long term ownership despite niggles. i was thinking 1.9tdi which is straight out of a passat so simple to work on, although the dealer i went to said get the 2.5 tdi as it is bombproof.

i really need to hear from longterm owners/drivers of both.