Are transits designed for fleet not owners?

[Scottt350]

Hi
Been thinking about this for a while now and spoke with a fair few folk and garages. As in most vans will be replaced 3to 5 years and in that time covered by warrantys etc so mainly fixed by ford or their trusted garages. But long term owners will end up seeing the issues which we all do and why most normal garages say the new generation transits are the worst by far. I own a mk6 its barely bedded in at over a quarter of a million miles and since new has only had 1 alternator a few battery's,tyres the normal stuff and its only issue is sometimes the central locking wont work as she does not want me going to work that day. she wont even accept me plugging in her in as thats violating her but she just works. my previouse mk5 and 4 exactly the same never ever broke down or lost work time. mk8 here we go. in 2 years turbo, turbo actuator, bcm, full brakes lasted a year, too many fuel filters, injectors, leaf springs x4, dpf, catalyst, wiring in general, failing spot welds on body structure. warping body panels like you used to get on old landrovers, water ingress even Noah cant hold back this flood.its an 8 year old van and its completely goosed. so as i say are they now designed for folk to hire or company's to lease then replace. were as if you buy one for longterm business use your totally screwed. just wondering how on earth Ford get away with it or have we created this situation as most folk dont actually own their vehicles anymore. just your thoughts .

[hughesyn]

What's the alternative though?
We once bought a Fiat and it was a piece of junk.
Due to the lead time on a Transit bought a Vauxhall Movano last year, not a patch on a Transit.

My main problem is the other vans have horrible interiors and aren't very nice to drive.

Ford have now closed the order book for Transits we are having to look at different brands.
None are as nice as a Transit.

[MinorMatt]

If Ford continued to make vans that lasted forever they wouldn't sell any new ones

Design life* for a commercial van is 120,000 miles or 6 years IIRC, cars are 100,000 miles or 8 years (all from memory so may be slightly wrong).

Whats happened is that in the last 20 years computational ability has improved to such an extent that they can shave the last penny off every piece of design, whereas previously the validation of design had to be a bit more "overkill" to ensure the design life.

* this isn't saying they will meet these without work, it might be that only 70% do, there will be an allowance for some failures/repairs etc under warantee

[bortaf]

lets face it just like in the US in the 70's it's emmisions regs that are killing the reliability of every vehical not just vans, having said that i much prefer my 140 BHP transit over my old Di with 70 BHP !