what kind of mileage do you get out of your work vans?

[juniorc82]

I went to st louis today and picked up an e 250 to replace our back up tm van an old 1993 chevy van 20. I looked at several with lower mileage but they all seemed beat up. about 30 miles outside the city we found a 2003 e250 with the 4.6 v8. I was a bit apprehensive at first because it had 175k miles. After looking at van and the super clean engine and the brand new tires on the van it seemed pretty solid. I have an identical van with 145k on it and with the exception of minor maitenancce here and there is a tank and runs like a dream. After speaking to some other contractor buddies that are familiar with fords they told me they have putt over 300,000 on ones they have owned and if it was as nice as I said that I may have came across a good deal for 4 grand. Anyway I will post some pics. I will pull the steam action out of the chevy and put it in the ford with the northstar diesal and it will serve as a secondary van and a van for my assistant to drive when we hopefully run 2 trucks in spring and next summer. Maybe since I havve the diesal burner in there it would make a good restaurant slayer with all the heat it has. Anyway what kind of mileage have you guys racked up on the vans?

 

[joeynbgky]

229, 000 on 02 e250 extended. Use it to pull my 32 foot travel trailer as well. Its a back up van now with a new tm in it. Its a tank. Not much power but a tank. Dash and other interior pieces are much bettee quality then my newer express.

Sent from my SGH-T999 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Able 1]

I would have thought it was a V6 at 4.6L, it looks like a good one...
[video=youtube;W7S03JAHC7k]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7S03JAHC7k[/video]

 

[juniorc82]

That's awesome. That video totallyade feel
good about my purchase. Same van same year. Mine has power windows doors and keyless entry. I can't wait to post so
eme pics . I think as a back up van of I just take it out once por twice a week to kkeep the juices flowing it may last a long time.

 

[Desk Jockey]

We try not to keep them passed 100,000 miles but we have a few over that. The Tundra I drive daily has 140,000 and I have a 1993 Ford with 130,000 that gets traded in for a new Transit any day now.

 

[juniorc82]

We try not to keep them passed 100,000 miles but we have a few over that. The Tundra I drive daily has 140,000 and I have a 1993 Ford with 130,000 that gets traded in for a new Transit any day now.

wgotta lell richard , down here in 47%er ville we gotta look for saving some money with used vehicles lol. anyway I dont really like buying them with high mileage but this was really a diamond in the rough.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Jon nothing wrong with used at all, because of the use of the vehicles we prefer to buy new. But I wouldn't hesitate to buy a good used vehicle.

One of our Transits was slight used with just 17,000 miles, hard deal to pass up even though it's white. Of course now we have to wrap it.

 

[juniorc82]

Jon nothing wrong with used at all, because of the use of the vehicles we prefer to buy new. But I wouldn't hesitate to buy a good used vehicle.

One of our Transits was slight used with just 17,000 miles, hard deal to pass up even though it's white. Of course now we have to wrap it.

What type of work do you use the transit vans for? I have a ford windstar we use for janitorial that has general cleaners and a spot extractor in. I was actually thinking about buying an orbot and carrying that in the minivan also for traffic way touch up in our janitorial accounts. Dont you guys have an orbot? how do you like it where does it excell?
o

 

[Desk Jockey]

Jon just for stuff like that, yes we have a couple of Orbots and the Transit works great for Encap work.

We bought them to save on fuel, they get 25-mph, not as good as the Prius that gets 50 mpg but the Prius's are only good for estimating. The little Transits work great for small pickups of water equipment, mold remediation and encap. It won't replace a full sized truck but it could cut down on the use. I plan to trade in the Prius's and get two more Transits for a total of four of them. Once wrapped the should turn some heads.

 

[Newman]

I have a 2001 E 350 extended with a 4.6 and 445,000 miles, still running strong! It is my rug runner with no TM installed so we do not drive it every day.

The weird thing about the extended Furd vans is that they sidetrack down the road. I took delivery of a fleet of 33 extended E-350's in 2006 for the company I was working for. Even brand new these buggers had a rear end which did not follow the front end well. That issue did not cause a problem, just an observation.

 

[Desk Jockey]

I agree Chris they look funny going down the road, first I thought it was just one but all of them did it.

 

[juniorc82]

wow thats alot of miles on a gas engine. I have been happy with the econolines. now that I have 2 that are within a couplke years of each other and have the same engine it should make maintenance easy on my mechanic. I am having the tm put in tommarow, I dont know if I will put the heater in that one or not. I may put the northstar heater in our primary van for now since the new one is mostly just a back up.